Can you believe LinkedIn has been around as long as Facebook? LinkedIn is the most professional social media platform and has over 750 million members.
If you have a business seeking brand recognition and want to connect with influential professionals, LinkedIn is the perfect platform to advertise on. The platform is better suited for companies and organizations that sell B2B, or have a strong sales component to their business where networking with professionals and keeping in touch is crucial. In this blog post, we will be discussing why you should advertise on LinkedIn.
Why LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is beneficial for brand recognition and reinforcement. If your customer base is active on LinkedIn, being active on there is an excellent way to strengthen your relationship with them. LinkedIn will show your entire network what you like or comment on, and since it’s a ‘professional’ environment, people tend to be more careful with what content they interact with. That’s an important thing to keep in mind when determining if your company’s services are a good fit and what sort of content you should put ad dollars behind. For example, an attorney advertising DUI advice probably wouldn’t be a good fit for LinkedIn.
Types of Advertising on LinkedIn
The variety of advertising products and features the platform has to offer makes it possible to interact with the right audience, with the right message. Types of advertising that LinkedIn offers include:
- Sponsored Content
- Sponsored Messages
- Video Ads
- Text Ads
- Dynamic Ads
- Carousel Ads
- Conversation Ads
- Message Ads
It’s important to develop a strategic goal and marketing plan when choosing the type of advertising for your business on this platform. One of the major drawbacks to LinkedIn is that it’s sometimes like attending a networking event: everyone is there to sell and no one is there to buy. Authentic interactions are hard to come by, and its users know this. A case in point are sponsored direct messages. A large majority of the direct messages people receive on LinkedIn are sponsored, which means they get old pretty fast. This also means that an authentic one is a rarity, yet a nice thing to see!
On the other hand, direct messaging can be a useful way to directly interact with your target customers, if done correctly. LinkedIn does offer Message Ads, which allows you to send a direct message to any user, rather than paying for sponsored messages that the individual may never read. Having Message Ads is a unique advertising solution and grants you/your business private communication with people on the platform. Paired with the robust work and education related targeting on LinkedIn, you can really narrow in on potential prospects for your sales team. With these things in mind, a marketing strategy relying on direct messages must be very carefully crafted to get the most our of your ad dollars.
One of the major drawbacks to LinkedIn is that it’s sometimes like attending a networking event: everyone is there to sell and no one is there to buy
LinkedIn Advertising Features
- Conversion tracking
- Boosting
- Lead generation
- Website demographics
- Contact targeting
- Retargeting
- and more.
Using these features can really help a business optimize their performance and improve their return on investment. When using the website demographics feature, you can create tailored ads to engage with the right people and understand your audience better. Conversion tracking is another feature that allows you to track how many likes and views an advertisement got that led to a valuable action on the website, such as a sign-up or purchase of a product/service.
Cost of Advertising on LinkedIn
This platform has a variety of advertising products with pricing bids for each advertisement you would like to create. Generally speaking, LinkedIn is more expensive than advertising on Facebook, Instagram, and sometimes even Google. The reason is because it is geared towards a very active, professional audience. The cost to advertise on the platform is based on two things: type of activity and ad auction bid. The type of activity is based on awareness, consideration, and conversion. Then you enter an ad auction bid where other advertisers on the platform compete for the same target audience as you, which consists of LinkedIn members you are trying to reach with the ad campaign.
Ultimately, the cost is not transparent and comes down to exactly what kind of ad campaign you want and who you want to target. When comparing to Facebook, for example, the average pay-per-click is higher, but paying less for advertising doesn’t mean you will achieve the same valuable lead generation.
Summary
LinkedIn is the most professional social media platform and is excellent for brand recognition and reinforcement. The platform is better suited for companies and organizations that sell B2B where networking with professionals is crucial. The cost of advertising on this platform depends on many variables, with several advertising products and solutions available for its members, which comes at a price for a reason. LinkedIn can be pricier than advertising on Facebook, Instagram, and sometimes even Google because it is geared towards a more active and professional audience. With unique advertising solutions, such as Message Ads, it’s important to consider if your business is the right fit for advertising on this platform to make the most of your budget.
If you’re interested in promoting your business on this social media platform but don’t know where to start, get in touch with us and schedule a free consultation! We are here to help give that boost your business needs and bring your business to life!
Read more about how to advertise on other social media platforms: Instagram and Facebook.
