The Pros And Cons Of Using LinkedIn For Lead Generation

While Facebook and Instagram are getting the main attention when it comes to online advertising, there is an old, familiar social platform that is secretly taking away the market share under the radar – LinkedIn. If you are looking for a place to house quality content, LinkedIn might be your best bet. Salespeople who use LinkedIn for business already know that this platform is a lead-generating gold mine. In fact, statistics show that LinkedIn is 277% more effective for lead generation than any other social platform. That’s a compelling reason why you should put more effort into this platform.

Those of us over 30 probably remember LinkedIn as the original social network, launched only two years before Facebook with a vision to replace the printed résumé. A few years later, LinkedIn became a widely used platform for anyone looking to professionally network or build a career. The only thing holding this platform back from reaching its full potential was that a decade ago, people weren’t engaging that much. During that period, marketers found it difficult to run ads and generate a return on investment on LinkedIn. Thus, LinkedIn was quickly abandoned for social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and even Twitter.

Over the last year, LinkedIn has carried out some major platform remodeling. Many of these updates are focused on giving away more free views and impressions. Hence, it is attracting smaller marketers and growth hackers looking to generate the cheapest sales possible out of every platform they use.

When it comes to lead generation on LinkedIn, let’s look at some of the digital marketing pros and cons of this platform:

The Pros of using LinkedIn:

• First, LinkedIn is the only social site that has evolved into a full pay-to-play platform. This means it’s possible to generate a massive amount of views, connections, and traffic without having to buy ads or boost posts. In other words, if you provide valuable content, this platform will show it to a massive audience even outside your connections.
• Second, LinkedIn allows 30,000 first-degree connections. This is 600% higher than Facebook’s maximum reach of 5,000 added friends. This means you can build a powerful following without having a business page. You just need to reach out and provide some type of value. More likely than not, the person will accept your connection request. You can try offering a free eBook, white paper, link to an article or even a piece of free advice.
• Third, LinkedIn updates stay longer on the platform wall. You will see likes, shares, and comments on posts for weeks after you have posted them. This helps businesses to keep an announcement going as long as there is engagement.
• Next, since LinkedIn is a professional environment, people that have created an account are trying to be on their best behavior. Thus, they are less likely to start a confrontation or be negative towards a specific post.
• Last, but not least, LinkedIn is less of a personal social platform when compared to Facebook or Instagram. Here, people are more willing to follow or connect with you so it is easier to grow your network faster.

On the other side, as every platform has, there are several cons too.

The Cons of using LinkedIn:

• Firstly, with LinkedIn, you can’t reach younger audiences that still haven’t started a career or are not looking to network with professionals. If your goal is to appeal to a younger audience you will need to use platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook or Instagram.
• Secondly, LinkedIn advertising is more expensive and less used when compared to other social platforms.
• Thirdly, LinkedIn has some undisclosed rules when it comes to posting. Even the most innocent post can be taken down without any explanation. This may be frustrating for some users, often becoming a guessing game as to what has tripped the filter.
• Although rare, it does happen that you have to paraphrase a post and repost it until it is accepted.
• Next, in the LinkedIn status update, you can only post a 600-character text. Sometimes this can limit the point you want to share with writing a single post.
• Finally, LinkedIn doesn’t allow you to provide much personal information, limiting what you can do in terms of photos and videos. On the other side, the platform allows you to share in-depth articles in order to build a rapport with your connections and establish a following based on your industry knowledge.

While every marketer typically has their favorite social platforms to use, it’s clear that LinkedIn is becoming a major player in the industry. A B2B statistic from LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions blog confirms that LinkedIn is the most-used social media platform amongst Fortune 500 companies. This info just serves as further proof that LinkedIn is the place to go to reach your ideal customers and clients as well.

The conclusion from the data is clear. Smart utilization of LinkedIn as a platform for building a network and generating leads is a must! Our service is here to help too.

With BizzBee’s LinkedIn lead generation solution we help companies build a high-quality network, generate high-quality organic leads which leads to landing high-quality clients.

Here is what you can expect from our service:

Building network:

• Sending up to 2,000 highly-targeted connections per month.
• Following your target audience’s pain points, comments, and reviews.

Generating leads:

• Creating content to keep prospects interested in wanting to hear more from you.
• Sending smart call-to-action messages.

Landing clients:

• Providing personalized human responses to their custom questions and requests for information.
• Ensuring that prospects are always educated and interested.

Wrap up

To summarize, LinkedIn has become the platform that opens the doors for networking and a flood of potential clients. Keep your company page up to date with relevant information to be a resource for your connections and followers. Use the power of LinkedIn to create brand awareness for yourself and your company as experts in your services. As a result, it will help your connections think of you whenever they need a solution.

This article was originally published on BizzBee Blog.