According to AdAge, linked in posted a third quarter 45% revenue increase over last year. The company attributes the majority of the increase to its content marketing ad solutions, whereby brands and businesses can reach LinkedIn members who don't follow their page. Given that following brands is not a highly common activity on LinkedIn, this appears to be an effective tool to reach out to target consumers.

Unlike the numerous B2C social channels, LinkedIn enjoys a relatively monopoly as a B2B social channel. In fact, I was surprised to learn that advertising counts for only 20% of LinkedIn's revenue, which is up from 45% last year. However, user behavior on LinkedIn differs somewhat from channels such as Facebook and Instagram, channels that are more of a daily discovery platform.

In my opinion, I can see how LinkedIn advertising could provide great solutions for B2B companies in the following 3 ways:

1) customer discovery: often it is more difficult for B2B companies to conduct market research since their customers have specific needs and are more difficult to reach than the general public, especially for very busy targets such as doctors or lawyers.

2) luxury brands: LinkedIn's user base is predominantly white collar workers who have much more disposable income than the average American consumer. Given the relative lack of advertising on LinkedIn, advertisers of resort vacations or luxury cars could find that LinkedIn users are more receptive to their advertising especially if it is packaged as content vs display advertising. For example, BMW could create an article about the CEOs who drive their cars.

3) advertising targeted by job title: LinkedIn is the only major social media platform whose users willingly give highly detailed information about their professional lives. Brands that work with a specific job function, for instance Staples targeting "office managers", could see major ROI by targeting their target consumers through a mix of personal and generic content. LinkedIn brands could request to follow their clients so that Salespeople can keep up and provide updates to their client base on a mass scale.