My personal obsession: 31 LinkedIn Stats That Marketers Need to Know in 2021

With more than 740 million active users in 2020, LinkedIn's expanded from a networking site for professionals to one of the top social media platforms.

By now, most of us have used LinkedIn to market our brands, post industry thought leadership, or look for our dream jobs.

As LinkedIn's continued to evolve by adding new features, like LinkedIn Stories, it's steadily grown its user base. While the LinkedIn audience still skews towards career-minded professionals, the industries, interests, and demographics represented on the platform have become much broader since its launch.

Aside from LinkedIn's user growth, it's also continued to expand on advertising opportunities, which has helped make it one of the most important channels for B2B marketing.

Today, it's becoming quite clear that LinkedIn isn't just for people in executive corporate roles. With millions of company pages and individual members, there's a discussion, post, or professional network for almost anyone on this channel.

But, despite LinkedIn's growth and advertising opportunities, many marketers or brands still worry that the platform is still too formal or corporate for their audiences.

The truth is -- LinkedIn could very well be one of your most underrated marketing channels.

If LinkedIn's growth has caught your attention and you want to determine if its audiences and ad offerings are right for you, it's important to do some research before devoting more time and resources to this network.

To get you started on your LinkedIn research, here are some need-to-know stats about the platform's audience, growth, and most common marketing tactics.

LinkedIn Stats to Know in 2021

General LinkedIn Stats

In Q1 of 2021, LinkedIn revenue increased 23 percent year-over-year (LinkedIn)
In 2020, LinkedIn made $181 billion in revenue. (LinkedIn)
LinkedIn has more than 740 million active users. (LinkedIn)
In Q3 of 2020, the amount of content shared on LinkedIn increased by 50 percent. (LinkedIn)
Marketing Solutions is growing 40 percent year-over-year in Q4 2020. (LinkedIn)
Nearly 40 million people searched for jobs on LinkedIn each week in Q4 2020 (LinkedIn)
In 2020, LinkedIn was voted the most trusted network. (Business Insider)

Source

In Q4 of 2020, professionals watched 2X more LinkedIn Learning content than the year before. (LinkedIn)
LinkedIn Live streams have increased by 158% since February 2020. (LinkedIn)

LinkedIn Demographics

57% of global LinkedIn users are male. (DataReportal)
While 44% of those between 25 to 30 and 37% of those aged 30 to 49 say they use LinkedIn. (Pew Research Center)
49% of internet users who make more than $75,000 annually use LinkedIn while only 26% of those in the $30,000 to $74,999 range use the platform. (Pew Research Center)
51% of internet users with a college degree or higher use LinkedIn. (Pew Research Center)
Four out of five LinkedIn members drive business decisions at their companies. (LinkedIn)
174 million U.S. Workers have LinkedIn profiles. (LinkedIn)
30% of LinkedIn users live in urban areas. (Hootsuite)

Marketing Tactics and Lead Generation

LinkedIn is the most popular platform of B2B marketers, followed by Twitter. (Content Marketing Institute)
As of January 2020, 663.3 million users have been reached by LinkedIn Ads. (We Are Social)
Data shows that the most engaging LinkedIn posts are published on Wednesdays between 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and noon, Thursday at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., and Friday at 9 a.m. (Sprout Social)
LinkedIn's lead conversion rates are 3X higher than other major ad platforms, including Google Ads. (LinkedIn)
Roughly 15% of marketers are creating content for LinkedIn. (HubSpot)
Only 10% of marketers say they're investing in LinkedIn. (HubSpot)
In a study of over 5,000 businesses, HubSpot found that traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74%, almost three times or 277% higher than both Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%). (HubSpot)

LinkedIn User Statistics

40 million people look to LinkedIn for job opportunities every week. (LinkedIn)
Three people are hired each minute on LinkedIn. (LinkedIn)
There are more than 55 million companies listed on LinkedIn and there are 14 million open jobs on the platform. (LinkedIn)
For companies who are active on LinkedIn, 30% of their engagement comes from their own employees. They’re 14x more likely to share their employers’ content on the platform compared to other types of content. (LinkedIn)

LinkedIn Advertising Statistics

LinkedIn Ads accounted for more than a third of LinkedIn’s total revenue in Q4 2020. (LinkedIn).
Marketing Solutions increased 50%. LinkedIn predicts the jump was caused by advertisers choosing the platform as the trusted way to source warm leads. (LinkedIn)
Hootsuite and We Are Social report that 727 million people can be reached through LinkedIn advertising. (DataReportal)
Quarter-over-quarter in 2020, LinkedIn’s advertising reach has increased 3.5%. (DataReportal)

LinkedIn advertising audience overview for 2020 featuring five Linkedin audience statistics

Source

Mastering LinkedIn Marketing

Because LinkedIn has a slightly different audience from other major platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, you'll want to understand whether your consumers are engaging there before investing time or resources into a campaign or advertisement. Be sure to keep the stats above, as well as emerging research about the platform and its audiences, in mind as you prepare your next social media strategy.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.