
Is LinkedIn advertising the Holy Grail?
Meta has announced the launch of a new social media platform. In addition, Messenger will once again be part of Facebook, whereas a few years ago the idea was that Facebook and Messenger should not be in the same place. Meanwhile, it’s spring, people are getting more open (at least that’s what I hear from a lot of entrepreneurs). But I’m going to talk about something completely different: today’s topic is LinkedIn advertising. It’s a marketing tool that is less talked about in the SME sector, but it could be the way forward for your business.
Not being registered is not a mortal sin, but it can be painful later. Because there has been a lot of diversification in social platforms too. That means not everyone is everywhere, and depending on which platform I’m on, I behave differently. Just think how easily TikTok can become addictive with its succession of interesting videos. Or how much more news and ads you see on Facebook than your friend just turned 30. LinkedIn advertising is (also) more interesting in this aspect, because there you can find – says theory – the most open community.
Shoes from the shoe shop
It’s an old Hungarian advertising slogan, but it’s still important when putting together your marketing mix. Treat everything in its place. You can reach specific audiences on each platform, and because of fashion, it’s not at all certain that YOU need to communicate on that channel. It makes sense to advertise on any social media platform if your audience is there and what you want to advertise is relevant to them. For example, for our agency, it’s unnecessary to be on Pinterest, as we don’t generate services, that we can sell in an interesting way with just pictures. That’s why we don’t even aim to be found there at the moment. However, this may change later.

Is LinkedIn advertising only useful in B2B?
This is a common misconception, but not without foundation. LinkedIn is a business social networking portal. We are not here to make friends, we are here to build our own brand. You can do this as an entrepreneur hoping to find new partners, as a job seeker or even you can take it as an important step in your career development. The point is, it’s all about business. Except the ads. Because for a luxury brand, it can be the ideal advertising medium. They can target people of status (CEOs, senior executives, business owners), even down to the size of the company, who are a qualified (i.e. wealthy) target market. From there, the platform is no longer about B2B. But if your product or service is about everyday consumption, you may well not be looking for customers here. You almost certainly won’t be able to sell bread or a windscreen wiper here.
In B2B how?
Staying on the B2B (i.e. when your customer is a business) ground, it is important that almost everything is parameterizable. The size of the company, the location, the level of the position held, the time spent in it or even the sector of the business. That’s why it’s important to have a clear buyer persona, as this will enable you to advertise effectively. But you can do it for people who are just starting out, because that’s the magic of LinkedIn advertising: it’s not stale. It’s not full of advertising, hoaxes and nonsense. In short, it’s not (yet) a time-consuming social networking site, but rather a place where people go to learn or be inspired. And you can easily turn this to your advantage: give them exactly that!
I have created it, now what?
Having a page on LinkedIn is like having a driver’s license. You’re in the club, but you can’t drive. You need to build it up, fill it with useful information and keep communicating. The question is, what language should you use to do this. The answer is: it’s up to you. If you are thinking about a local target market, choose Hungarian and/or Slovak (or simply the langauge of your market). If you think your service or product could be interesting abroad, communicate in English. As I wrote before, expansion is not a no-brainer, but if I’m looking for a graphic designer, I can’t deal with a person who communicates only in Croatian. I can with a Croat who communicates in English. I’m probably not his primary desired client, yet I could easily make a deal with him or her.

LinkedIn advertising for fortunes?
The platform loves money, and plays with completely different amounts than Facebook or Google Ads. Here, life starts at €10 a day, which for some can be a strong start. Maybe your business isn’t yet at the point where you can spend €300 a month on advertising here without a problem. Never mind, start building your site organically, balance your sales and brand awareness posts, you can still reach your goal. True, it will help a lot if you can promote yourself for a week or two. If you signed up today, without content, however, it’s almost a money-burn to start advertising as well. Because everyone will see that your site is completely empty. Would you trust such a company? Then what are we talking about?
Another platform to produce content for
Yeah, you could look at it that way. Or as another door for my client to knock on. If you blog or post regularly on other platforms, you can use that here too. Because you’ll almost certainly reach other people than you would on Facebook. Just for comparison, I’ve met less than 20% of our clients on LinkedIn. So, if you follow me there, you’re probably new to what I’m communicating on Facebook or here on the blog. So my content is reusable, and multi-platform communication even increases my reach. It may even open up new business contacts that I hadn’t thought of. To show that optimism is not the only reason for this: I recently received an enquiry from Hamburg. Whether it will turn into a deal, I don’t know, but the opportunity is there.

Diversify!
I tell all our clients that putting all your chips on one platform is a risk. You need to think more in terms of marketing strategy and coherent assets. LinkedIn advertising can be a mosaic of this. If you have a good ad there, direct the customer to the website, ask for their email address and then bombard them with newsletters. Immediately you have four tools involved in your sales. They’re much more likely to choose you because they’ll see you more and in more places. But you can also do it the other way round: target visitors to your website with LinkedIn’s advertising tool, or target people like them based on your existing customer list (email addresses). The tool does a lot of things, but it will only be useful if you use it well.
Sign up!
If you’re keen to try it out and see how it works, don’t be afraid to get started. We’d be happy to help you review together whether you really need this platform or if LinkedIn advertising is for someone else. We can help you choose a strategy or even help you execute it. We do all this as a certified LinkedIn partner. If you’d like to continue exploring the platform, log in and let’s talk through together what it can do for your business!