Just 13 percent of digital marketers in US use LinkedIn to drive customer engagement, despite the social networks growing professional base of 300 million members.
And perhaps for good reason: new Forrester research shows less than one half of US online adult LinkedIn members engage (i.e. friending, following, liking, or subscribing) with brands, compared with over 70 percent of Facebook’s members.
Only 21 percent of US online adults visit LinkedIn at least monthly, according to a new Forrester survey of nearly 65,000 respondents. This is significantly lower than the percentage of monthly Facebook users, and marginally higher than the percentage of monthly Google+ users. Having fewer active users makes it difficult for brands to nurture relationships with members.
That said, LinkedIn’s recent efforts to make the site “stickier” by publishing more professionally relevant content, coupled with its investment in mobile, could help boost members’ activity levels.
According to Forrester, marketers should think of LinkedIn as a social reach tool, rather than a relationship building network, in order to build awareness and drive brand preference.
