LinkedIn now has more than a billion members in 200 countries worldwide. Social media, and LinkedIn especially is critical for any brand, and particularly B2B brands– 62% of B2B marketers said LinkedIn generates leads at 2x the rate of the next highest channel and LinkedIn members are 2x more likely to seek advice on the platform, according to LinkedIn surveys. Additionally, as of September 2023, LinkedIn has begun filtering inactive accounts from page follower totals to support more reliable reach and engagement insights.
If follower growth is an objective for you in 2024, here are our insights based on frequently asked questions we’ve received from our clients as you build your LinkedIn follower strategy.
Follower growth is a metric you should track but it’s not everything
Follower growth is a great metric to track as it signifies a brand’s growth and impact.
LinkedIn followers make an important contribution to a brand’s credibility by showing. Think “strength in numbers”. A profile that has a thousand followers, doesn’t endear individuals to look into that brand.
However, follower numbers aren’t enough. Building genuine connections with audiences should be a priority for brands to guarantee active and sustained content engagement and mitigate ghost followers – inactive platform users who do not engage with content.
Content is king, there are no silver bullets to grow followers fast
Having a decent following is critical but you must build it correctly through regular sharing of interesting content that drives conversations and engaging with users. Relying on buying followers for growth may lead your page to miss out on genuine connections and engagements and could open you up for critique and questions of authenticity from eagle-eyed users.
A page with quality followers will have high and genuine engagement. Those engagements include post reactions, engaging comments, shares, likes, and post re-shares.
Use LinkedIn’s follower ads
LinkedIn’s follower ads encourage target audiences to follow your page – these can be found at the top right corner of your LinkedIn desktop feed. It’s worth noting that follower ads don’t show on mobile phones – we’ll cover tactics to capture desktop users in the next section. We recommend having an always-on follower ad campaign to encourage relevant audiences to follow your company’s page in addition to organic content tactics.
Single-image ads are also effective
Leverage single-image ads in conjunction with follower ads to reach a broader audience across desktop and mobile devices.
Instead of getting in front of new audiences and saying “Do you want to follow us for Sustainability content”, single-image ads give users a peek at what they’ll get out of following your page across both mobile and desktop feeds.
A follower growth strategy complements other LinkedIn campaigns
Increasing your page followers will open more doors to engagement, as it creates a pipeline of new people to explore your LinkedIn content through organic and paid campaigns.
For awareness campaigns, new followers can be targeted to grow their awareness of your brand. For engagement and nurturing campaigns, retargeting followers with these ads can encourage these users to become clients and/or buy more from your brand.
What is the optimal investment for follower ads?
Advertising on LinkedIn is more expensive than other channels like Meta and TikTok. Senior audiences are more expensive and unfortunately, that's where most clients want to see follower growth. It’s a sliding scale depending on the size of the company and your marketing budget, but we typically recommend starting at about $1,500 per month – that doesn’t mean you’ll spend the full amount as you get charged based on engagement, but that’s how much you should allow for - it does take time, patience and spend to build your following through paid ads.
Jasmine Hwang is a Senior Account Executive and a digital marketing specialist