20 LinkedIn Facts and Stats You Need to Know in 2020

LinkedIn successfully transformed into a social media platform from being just a networking site for professionals. With a user base of almost 700 million active users, the platform has higher credibility.  Until now, LinkedIn was used by most of us to promote our brands, to follow or post industry thought leadership, to job hunt, share content or to network with like-minded people in a similar field.

With the platform’s new features like its blogging interface, live video, LinkedIn scheduler and calendar, post and content analytics, the platform has evolved so much since its launch. The key demographic is still career-focused professionals but the industry, interest, and user base have broadened consistently. LinkedIn isn’t just for people in executive roles or those working for corporates. There’s always a discussion, a blog post, or some relevant content for everyone to consume on their LinkedIn feed. Through its growing capabilities, the channel has become the second most used platform for B2B advertising.

The industry limitations from the platform have been gradually removed too. People from art backgrounds are also creating LinkedIn profiles to increase their social presence. Becoming a part of LinkedIn groups and discussions and having a separate LinkedIn page is a new and proactive way of building a network.

For example, there was a time when LinkedIn would be no place for a stand-up comedian but very recently there was a comedian who wanted to do some more corporate shows. He decided to use LinkedIn to reach his target audience through status updates, jokes, and discussions in his unique way. This truly shows that it’s not just a formal platform for corporates anymore. It’s an underrated marketing platform that users have now started to explore.

With just a little bit of research, you can ascertain if the platform and the user base is right for you to sell your product or service. Here are 20 things you need to know before you invest time and resources:

General Stats you need to know:

1. LinkedIn has a user base of over 690 million active users that are contributing to higher levels of engagement of all time. (Source: LinkedIn)
2. LinkedIn Learning has become one of the most reliable resources on the internet that people are using to learn new skills, find new opportunities and grow their portfolio. In March alone, 4 million hours of content was watched showcasing a 50% increase month-over-month (Source: LinkedIn)
3. A 158% increase was seen in LinkedIn Live streams since February. (Source: LinkedIn)
4. In Q2 of 2020, LinkedIn revenue increased by 21% year-over-year. (Source: LinkedIn)
5. LinkedIn revenue in 2019 was higher than 6.8 billion. (Source: LinkedIn)
6. Marketing Solutions grew by 44% year-over-year in Q1 making it LinkedIn’s quickest growing segment. (Source: LinkedIn)
7. Engagement was significant in Q1 of 2020 as LinkedIn sessions increased by 22% year-over-year. (Source: LinkedIn)
8. The growth of video on LinkedIn and compelling content led to 30 billion member sessions in 2019 which was a 27% year-over-year increase. (Source: LinkedIn)
9.  Business Insider voted LinkedIn the most trusted network in 2019 for the third consecutive year.
10. Hiring through LinkedIn also saw a spike as 4 million jobs were offered through the platform. The platform also tells you if your profile is successfully appearing in other people’s search results. (Source: LinkedIn)
11. Launched in 2019, the LinkedIn Talent Insights Service got more than 1,300 customers in the first year itself making it the fastest growing SaaS business in the platform’s history. (Source: LinkedIn) 
12. LinkedIn has a very fast-growing base of frontline and hourly workers. About 80 million users on LinkedIn belong to that category and their engagement is growing three times faster than the rest of the member base. (Source: LinkedIn)

LinkedIn Demographic Data:

1.   LinkedIn is most popular in the older demographic between ages 25-49. This means that most of the decision-makers of a company can be found on LinkedIn. (Source: PEW Research Center)
2.   According to Statista, 57% of global LinkedIn users are male as of April 2020.
3.   25% of all US internet users say they use LinkedIn. (Source: PEW Research Center)
4.   50% of Internet users that have a college degree or education higher than that are present on LinkedIn and use it at least a few times a week. 45% internet users that make over $75,000 annually use LinkedIn and have job titles above the executive level. (Source: PEW Research Center)
5.   LinkedIn’s audience has twice the buying power than any other web audience. Four out of five users make the decisions in the company. This accounts for great quality leads that make conversions possible. (Source: LinkedIn)

Marketing and Lead Generation – The Why and How of it:

1. LinkedIn is a goldmine for B2B marketing. It’s the second most popular platform after Facebook. 94% B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content. (Source: LinkedIn)
2. A We Are Social report shows that show that LinkedIn ads have a reach of over 600 million. This slowly gravitates towards it being a very useful tool to generate brand awareness.
3. HubSpot’s study of over 5,000 businesses found that traffic from LinkedIn offers the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74% which is higher than other platforms like Facebook and Twitter that are lower than 1%. (Source: HubSpot)

LinkedIn is a wonderful platform to not only grow your network but also your company’s and being a thought leader in the field grants you value and integrity to do so.