How LinkedIn Analytics can elevate brand strategies

You’ve probably heard that data is the new oil. It’s true, but it falls short as a metaphor. Data isn’t just something that is mined and sold—it is a resource that allows brands to sharpen their strategy and personalize their messaging. But above all, it allows them to understand their audience on a whole new level. 

For B2B marketers, there is one platform that is king, and that platform is LinkedIn. And today, we’re going to discuss a toolset that is completely underexploited and dwarves the value of mere ‘connections’ that the platform is pegged for.   

The power of LinkedIn for B2B engagements

LinkedIn is a platform that hosts more than 700 million professionals, but it’s not just for people seeking employment. Over the past few years, it has evolved into a hub for industry experts and companies to share their insights and have important conversations. 

It’s a platform completely embedded in the ethos of professionalism, which is why it has become the ultimate B2B engagement platform. Other social media channels undoubtedly have a wider audience base, but LinkedIn’s audience is niche and targeted and provides a fertile ground for B2B brands to profit. 

Delving into LinkedIn Analytics

For agencies and brands, LinkedIn's real magic lies in its analytics. They’re able to use these analytics to get a magnified view of the audience behaviors and industry trends of their B2B audience. But that’s only the entrance to the rabbit hole, as you must do the following to truly harness the B2B potential of LinkedIn analytics: 

Understand audience demographics

It’s the never ending mantra of marketing: know your customer. LinkedIn provides the kind of granular insights into the professionals who make up your target audience – everything from job roles, seniority levels, their industry to the company they work for. Having access to detailed demographic data (and for free, too!) allows agencies and brands to seriously refine their message to target it correctly. 

But at the same time, audience monitoring should also be done on a broader scale. For instance, quintly lets you visualize your followers change rate, followers total, in addition to follower distribution, if you run multiple LinkedIn accounts. Keep in mind, though, that this doesn’t work for personal accounts. 

Track website conversions and more

LinkedIn's Website Demographics tool allows for a deep-dive into all users who visit your linked website. This data can be used along with engagement stats on—platform so you can draw a more complete picture of the journey your audience takes from your LinkedIn page to your website. 

By analyzing metrics such as impressions and click-through rates, you can pivot your content strategy to meet the needs of diverse industries. Whether you're in fintech, e-commerce, or even something specialized like roofing, hitting the right notes with your content can lead you to peak performance in each of your B2B campaigns. 

For instance, roofing professionals might find that educational posts about sustainable materials get more engagement, allowing them to adjust their strategy accordingly. Or, take medical professionals, who can use data to find which pressing topics they should focus on, and why.   

Measure content performance

Not all content is created equal. LinkedIn's Content Analytics can help you easily measure the performance of all your content, regardless of whether it's a post, article or video. 

With quintly, you can measure engagement rate by post type, total interactions and post reach, all with the goal of tailoring your content types to target segments within your audience, and at specific times, as well. 

Using LinkedIn Analytics to Monitor Industry dynamics and trends

Probably the most underestimated ability of LinkedIn Analytics is how it can allow the marketer a window into a niche. Since the platform reaches across multiple sectors, a savvy marketer can therefore observe trending topics and popular content, and combined with engagement stats and a little critical thinking, can really tap into the pulse of an industry. 

For example, if a certain topic is gaining traction among professionals in the tech sector, it might mean there is a broader industry trend (or a new challenge on the horizon). Once insights like this are gained, they can be used to position a brand as a thought leader through its content. The best way to accomplish this is to use quintly and have a clear overview of your most successful hashtags and stories, especially if they’re capitalizing on a trend or fad. 

And while we’ve been discussing how LinkedIn Analytics offers a goldmine of data for marketing professionals, its applications are not limited to sales and marketing. It can also be employed for optimizing administrative tasks, such as merging PDF files for client reports, sending wireframes to clients and conducting product marketing campaigns. 

By learning how to both monitor and optimize the use of LinkedIn data, you’ll be able to pivot before your competitors and stay impervious to changes within the industry.

Top benefits of using LinkedIn analytics for B2B engagement

Now that you know which data you should look for, let’s take a look at a couple of unlikely benefits of using LinkedIn analytics to boost your B2B marketing campaigns on the platform:

Observing the ebb and flow of B2B interactions

LinkedIn's very nature makes it a gold standard for understanding B2B engagements since it's centered around professionals. 

Thus, being able to use quintly analyze data on connection requests, InMail responses and general KPIs, along with run-of-the-mill content shares can direct agencies and brands on a path to follow to forge new relationships. 

In particular, you should focus on changes, instead of the numbers themselves. An example of this would be if there were a sudden spike in connection requests after a webinar—this could very well indicate a successful campaign. Another example would be high engagement with thought leadership content. This could mean a brand is gaining authority in its industry.

Crafting content that engages

Content strategy is no longer about how much of it can be churned out, but nor is it about only the general quality produced. Now it’s about using data for targeted quality when it comes to audience preferences, usually gleaned from past interactions. This is where LinkedIn Analytics really shines. Using it allows marketers to decipher which content forms are capturing your audience’s attention and spurring them to action. Or, what content is missing the mark and needs rethinking. 

An example here would be if data shows growing interest in “long form” articles about industry challenges – this would be a cue for brands to invest more time into similar content. Or if the data shows spikes in engagement for small updates or infographics – this would signal an audience that wants bite-sized information. Using this data, content creators are able to mold their content strategy to fit their audience better and better. 

Moreover, LinkedIn provides invaluable metrics on user activity patterns. For example, by discovering when your audience is most active, you can fine-tune your posting schedule.

Establishing thought leadership

Using LinkedIn Analytics, a brand can analyze which subjects spark debates. It can predict which insights get shared and which posts create discussions. Knowing this, a brand can identify areas where they can take the lead in conversations – namely by engaging with comments and sharing their expertise. 

Over time, consistent efforts guided by this data can push the brand higher and higher on the thought leadership food chain. It’s a long-term campaign, but it pays out if the brand takes the right steps to amplify its reach along the way. 

Conclusion

The ultimate value of LinkedIn Analytics for agencies and brands goes well beyond immediate engagement metrics or even the success of individual content pieces.

It allows marketers to keep a finger on the pulse of important metrics like follower growth, patterns in engagement, and even competitor movements, and this allows them to create very effective and forward-looking strategies. And with tools like Quintly, they can anticipate market shifts, spot opportunities, and even predict potential industry challenges. 

It's like having a crystal ball, granting brands the ability to not just react but proactively shape their future on the platform.