Understanding LinkedIn Market Research
Understanding LinkedIn Market Research is crucial in today’s globally connected business environment. LinkedIn is a valuable resource with over 690 million users in high-income, high-level professional jobs. Marketers who overlook this treasure trove could miss the opportunity to discover essential insights about their business industry, competitors, audience, and potential customers.
Market Research is about consistently studying and analyzing the market environment to make informed decisions and build profitable strategies. LinkedIn is a powerful tool that facilitates Market Research because it provides data like no other platform. It offers authentic information about the economic environment, competition, consumer behavior, and many other essential business aspects, directly from professionals’ bio-data and shared content.
Features of LinkedIn Market Research
LinkedIn Market Research is comprised of three main features. These are Company Pages, LinkedIn Groups, and LinkedIn Ads Audience Insights.
Company Pages
LinkedIn Company Pages are often seen as an essential feature for businesses for promoting their brand and strengthening their online presence. They also serve as a rich resource for information. Company Pages give updates about the company’s activities and their manner of engagement with their surroundings. Information such as company size, when it was founded, industry type, specialties, and posts can all be discovered on a company page, providing unique insights about the competition and industry standards.
LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn Groups offer a similar opportunity for market research. They are typically industry-specific and provide a platform for professionals to share their insights, ask questions, post or answer job opportunities, and establish themselves as industry leaders. By being a part of these discussions, businesses can understand the current trends, challenges, and opportunities in their industry alongside knowing the top thought leaders and competitors directly.
LinkedIn Ads Audience Insights
The third, and arguably the most crucial aspect of LinkedIn Market Research, is LinkedIn Ads Audience Insights. It offers data regarding the professionals your business is reaching, details about visitor demographics, engagement rates, the types of companies they work for, their job titles, and their level of seniority. Such information can drive targeted ad campaigns which can potentially bring more business.
Leveraging LinkedIn for Market Research
LinkedIn portrays a professional side of people and organizations to a market researcher’s advantage. Carefully observing LinkedIn Posts, articles, hashtag trending, comments and interactions can provide insights into what topics are popular and what strategies are effectively getting engagement.
LinkedIn Polls could be used to gauge the thoughts, preferences, or feedback of followers or group members, getting directly quantifiable data to assist in decision making. Advanced search features can sift through the massive data pool, customizing search criteria to better understand specific industry trends, or data which can assist in developing buyer personas.
LinkedIn’s power for market research goes on with LinkedIn’s analytics that summarizes how followers interact with a page, alongside LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index that scores how a company ranks in establishing its professional branding, connecting with the right people, engaging with insights, and building relationships.
Easy accessibility to a large amount of valuable data, functional tools, features specifically aiding in data extraction, makes LinkedIn a worthwhile platform for market research. Its data can provide up-to-date insights to make informed strategies, understand audience behaviour, and take better business decisions.