While consumers flock to social media giants like Facebook and Instagram, B2B marketers rely on LinkedIn as their top social media channel for reaching key decision-makers and professional buyers. Professionals also rely on this career-focused platform for networking with others in their industry and recruiting new employees.
LinkedIn officially launched in 2003 and has grown to be the largest professional social network. Microsoft acquired LinkedIn in 2016, connecting many Microsoft Office tools with LinkedIn data to create a unified experience for professionals. Their current CEO is Ryan Roslansky.
LinkedIn’s mission is to “Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.” Through LinkedIn, professionals can network, advertise, post content, and recruit for their business.
The following forty social media statistics provide the most updated insights for 2024 about how LinkedIn works. In addition, you will learn key consumer behaviour patterns on the platform, which is essential for market research when creating sales and marketing strategies and content.
These top statistics provide a brief overview of LinkedIn’s growth and usage.
LinkedIn is the top professional platform, with over 1 billion members from 200 countries and regions worldwide.
Each week, over 49 million people are actively looking through LinkedIn for their next position. Since LinkedIn has a designated job search page, it is easy for applicants to find their dream job. They can use different filters and LinkedIn resources to search for open positions in their industry.
LinkedIn launched in 2003, making it over 20 years old. Most of the older platforms are seeing a steady decline in popularity or are no longer around. However, LinkedIn has been around the longest of the top social media platforms that users actively visit.
Amazon is the most followed organisation on LinkedIn as of 2024, with over 30.3M followers. Google comes as a close second with 28.7M followers.
Bill Gates is the co-founder of Microsoft and holds the largest following on LinkedIn, with over 35.7 million followers.
LinkedIn began as a site where professionals could upload and share their resumes with potential employers. Today it has grown much larger than a job search platform, as the following statistics show.
Engagement occurs when people post new social media content, share other people’s content, or interact with other users on the platform. As the platform continues to grow, more professionals engage with others within and without their network.
Businesses post content to generate interest in their company on LinkedIn. However, 30% of the readers who like, share, and comment on the content are the business’s employees. In addition, employees are 14 times more likely to share a business’s content over other content they see on the platform.
Users can follow hashtags to see content from relevant topics in their newsfeeds. Currently, #Innovation is the top hashtag, with 38.4 million followers. #Management and #HumanResources are the second and third most followed hashtags.
About 134.5 million users actively use LinkedIn each day. Additionally, over 48.5% are active monthly.
Millennials and business professionals make up the majority of the platform’s users. The following insights will help you better understand the platform and those who will see your content.
In addition to individual users, companies also have profiles on LinkedIn. These profiles are a means for marketing on the platform and recruiting new employees.
Schools use LinkedIn to market their programs to young professionals looking for further education. They can also connect to past employees through their network of alumni, which improves recruiting and marketing efforts.
About 43.6% of LinkedIn users are female. Meanwhile, 56.4% are male as of January 2024.
Millennials make up 60% of LinkedIn’s users. In addition, about 20% of users are between 18 and 24, and almost 18% are between 35 and 54. Only 2% are 55 and older.
In the U.S., 31% of users are between the ages of 30 and 39. 28% are between the ages of 50 and 64.
LinkedIn is one of the most popular platforms for finding jobs and recruiting for open positions. The following statistics show how successful the platform is at connecting professionals with the right job.
LinkedIn streamlined the job application process by allowing job seekers to apply through the platform directly. As this statistic shows, many professionals use this service when looking for the right job. According to LinkedIn, there are over 9,000 applications per minute, and 7 people getting hired every minute on the platform.
Recruiters can see job applicants’ complete profiles, networks, and portfolios through LinkedIn, allowing them to find qualified candidates more easily. Every year, there are over three million new hires through LinkedIn.
As LinkedIn continues to grow, so does the number of users who rely on it to find new jobs. Many job seekers are successful, as confirmed hires have increased by 88% year-over-year in 2022.
While Indeed is the top platform for job seekers, 75% of people say they used LinkedIn to help them find new job opportunities.
Skills are tags professionals add to their profiles to highlight their unique experiences and abilities. Adding skill tags improves the search and find features of LinkedIn as recruiters use the platform to target very specifically qualified applicants.
Around 72% of recruiters use LinkedIn when hiring new talent. The talent they hire through the platform is of higher quality than professionals they find through other job sites and methods.
LinkedIn Ads are paid promotions of a business and work well for converting key business decision-makers on the platform, as the following statistics prove. This is why some Digital Marketing agencies might advise B2B brands to advertise on the platform.
LinkedIn is the top B2B platform, as three-quarters of marketers use it to reach business decision-makers through paid LinkedIn ads. In addition, nearly 82% say those ads provide the best results.
Organic content isn’t the only way to increase awareness through LinkedIn. An ad has the potential to reach 14.6% of the world’s adult population.
The jump in LinkedIn’s user base also increased the number of ad impressions. In Q4, LinkedIn ads saw a 2.8% increase in ad reach compared to Q3.
Over a third of buyers who see a business’s ad on LinkedIn research the company with the purpose of purchasing a product.
Marketers that use LinkedIn saw their conversion rates double through the platform’s marketing and sales channels. In addition, users who see a business’s content on LinkedIn are six times more likely to purchase from that brand.
B2B marketers use LinkedIn to increase brand awareness, generate leads, and build customer relationships. The following statistics show the return from these marketing efforts.
Through LinkedIn, marketers can target and attract high-quality potential buyers by using the platform's search features and filters. As a result, about 40% of B2B marketers said the platform is their most effective B2B lead generation channel.
About 50.3 % of marketers in the U.S. use LinkedIn as part of their strategies. This number is continuing to grow, especially among B2B marketers.
B2B marketers use LinkedIn for their organic social marketing strategies because of the large number of professional users and the platform's advanced filter and target options.
Organic marketing requires in-depth knowledge of the audience and platform. While some organic strategies like SEO optimization are complex and don’t always yield the desired results, over three-quarters of marketers say LinkedIn does provide quality organic results.
B2B marketers use LinkedIn because there are many key decision-makers on the platform who work for target accounts.
Companies that thoroughly fill out their business pages and actively post receive more page views. In addition, they also see seven times the impressions and eleven times the clicks per follower.
Creator Mode is a setting that allows LinkedIn users to highlight their content. This setting on a user’s profile is ideal for building a following on the platform and establishing themselves as a reliable authority in their field.
Turning on Creator Mode also increases their chances of appearing in searches or on people’s newsfeeds, which is another way creators grow their network.
Since it was first introduced, over 11 million users have turned this feature on, converting their profile into a showcase of their content rather than just a user profile.
Users who want people to stop and interact with their content use images as these posts see 2X the engagement as those without images. In addition, larger images have a 38% greater click-through rate.
Live stream videos encourage engagement through their interactive and personal format. As a result, live streams on LinkedIn receive seven times the reactions and twenty-four times the comments than regular videos.
The best way to encourage engagement is to post regular content as it provides a means for followers to interact with a brand. In the U.S., specifically, the best times to post on LinkedIn are:
Wednesday at 8–10 AM, 12 PM, 3 PM
Thursday at 9–10 AM and 1–2 PM
Friday at 9 AM, 11 AM, 12 PM
LinkedIn’s global reach makes it a popular job search and marketing platform for users worldwide.
LinkedIn has 38 offices across the world, including:
Washington, DC
Chicago
Amsterdam
Dublin
Tokyo
Paris
Madrid
18,400 full-time employees work in these offices.
Linkedin is currently available in 36 languages, including Arabic, Englsh, Simplified Chinese, Dutch, Japanese, Spanish, Turkish and more.
LinkedIn grew from $2.271 billion to $15.14 billion between 2017 and 2023. Most of this growth came from Microsoft’s acquisition, which boosted the platform’s user base.
The platform is at $16.38 billion in annual revenue in 2024 so far.
LinkedIn generates revenue from ads, subscriptions, and marketing and talent solutions. The steady growth of their user base also boosted the income from those channels. Specifically, they saw a 43% increase in their Talent Solutions revenue and a 34% increase in their Marketing Solutions revenue.
LinkedIn is a global platform with users from around the world. They are also available in 26 languages.
The U.S. accounts for 230 million of LinkedIn’s users, nearly 22% of the platform.
India comes in second with 130 million LinkedIn users.
As LinkedIn continues to grow, update your marketing strategies with these insights so that you remain effective in 2024 and beyond.
If you would like to know more information about how we at The Social Shepherd can help perfect your social media strategy across several platforms, why not send us an email at [email protected], or get in touch here.