LinkedIn marketing basics
Contents · 9 sections
In 2021 I wrote an article on the basics of LinkedIn marketing. Back then the network had around 760 million users and most companies treated it as an online job board. Today LinkedIn has more than 1 billion members and is the most important platform for B2B marketing, personal branding and selling to businesses.
In this updated article we look at what changed, which formats work in 2025, how to set up your personal profile and company page, what advertising options exist and how to build a 90-day strategy.
LinkedIn in 2025: why B2B lives here
- LinkedIn has more than 1 billion members worldwide, and its ad reach is estimated at about 1.2 billion people.
- At the end of 2024 comments on the platform were growing 37% year on year, and video creation was growing twice as fast as other formats.
- In Bulgaria LinkedIn also has more than a million registered profiles, most active in IT, finance, marketing and management.
Personal profile or company page?
The biggest lesson of recent years is that people get more reach than companies. Posts from personal profiles usually reach far more people than company page posts. The most successful B2B companies combine both:
- Founders and managers share experience, opinions and stories.
- Employees share company content and achievements.
- The company page is the shop window: news, careers, case studies and paid campaigns.
Optimising your personal profile
- A professional photo and a background image that shows what you do.
- A headline that says what problem you solve, not just your job title.
- An About section written as a short story, with the keywords you want to be found for.
- A Featured section with your best articles, presentations and case studies.
- Recommendations from colleagues and clients.
Optimising your company page
- A full description with keywords, website, industry, size and location.
- Logo and cover in the right sizes and a call-to-action button.
- A careers page if you are hiring.
- Regular posts, at least 2-3 times a week, and an active link with employees.
Formats that work in 2025
- Video. In 2024 video uploads on LinkedIn rose 36%, and the platform is testing a vertical video feed.
- Documents and carousels. PDFs that can be swiped through in the feed are great for checklists, short guides and research results.
- Newsletters. LinkedIn newsletter subscriptions passed 450 million back in 2023. Each new issue notifies your subscribers.
- Text posts with a story. Personal experience, mistakes, lessons and concrete numbers.
- Comments. Thoughtful comments on other people's posts are one of the most underrated ways to get noticed.
Advertising on LinkedIn
LinkedIn ads cost more than Meta ads but let you target by job title, industry, company size and specific companies:
- Sponsored Content: paid distribution of posts, videos, documents and carousels.
- Thought Leader Ads: since 2024 you can promote posts by employees and even outside experts with their approval.
- Lead Gen Forms: forms pre-filled with profile data, without leaving LinkedIn.
- Conversation and Message Ads: messages in the user's inbox, successors of the old Sponsored InMail.
- Accelerate: AI-driven campaigns, available globally since mid-2024.
Sales Navigator and social selling
Sales Navigator is LinkedIn's paid tool for finding prospects, following companies and getting alerts about changes. Use it to build a list of target companies and people and engage naturally through comments, useful content and personal messages.
Be careful with tools that automate invitations and messages. They break LinkedIn's rules and can get your profile restricted or banned.
AI tools on LinkedIn
LinkedIn keeps adding AI features for writing profiles and posts, messaging candidates and building ad campaigns. Use them as a starting point, but edit. On LinkedIn your personal voice is everything.
A 90-day strategy for a B2B company
- Month 1: optimise key people's profiles and the company page and pick 3-4 topics you want to be known for.
- Month 2: post regularly from personal profiles (2-3 times a week), launch a newsletter and comment actively in your niche.
- Month 3: promote the best posts as Thought Leader Ads, test Lead Gen Forms and measure enquiries and meetings, not just likes.
LinkedIn is a marathon, not a sprint. Results come from consistency.
Petar Dyaksov
Entrepreneur, investor and managing partner at SEOMAX, with more than 15 years of experience in e-commerce and digital marketing. He builds businesses in technology and e-commerce, invests in companies and supports entrepreneurs. Speaker, trainer and mentor at dozens of conferences, seminars and entrepreneurship programmes.
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