LinkedIn is an incredible professional platform.
Incredible because it offers you the opportunity to find your dream job, boost your visibility, or sell your products. You’re not limited because you can choose from the LinkedIn industry list.
Don’t know what it is? Then this is the place to find out 🚀!
What is the LinkedIn Industry list?
Why are you connecting on LinkedIn? You may have already asked yourself this question. When you decide to create your account, it is certainly with the aim of:
- Finding a job.
- Acquiring new customers.
- Reaching out to a new type of client.
- Selling your product to a client.
- Improving your sales.
- Increasing visibility of you or your company.
- Demonstrating your expertise.
- Learning about the latest news in a particular industry.
Today, we will focus on the last point of this list. But what is the LinkedIn industry list? Well, the answer is already in the question. It is simply a list that gathers the industries that exist on LinkedIn (sometimes, you may struggle to find an industry in particular, but the list is quite comprehensive).
What you need to keep in mind when you decide to choose an industry on LinkedIn is that it will allow you to sell a product and to know in which field you excel 💪. This is why the platform asks you to identify the industry you work in when you create your account. So the first step in making the most of the LinkedIn industry list is to optimize your profile.
How to change my industry on my profile?
While your sector of activity is not immutable, you will, of course, have the option to change it during your professional adventure (so don’t worry about being stuck in one sector indefinitely).
If you already have an optimized LinkedIn profile and if you want to change your sector of activity, we are going to help you in your search 🔥:
- Click on your portrait in the upper right corner.
- Click on the little pencil at the top of your profile page.
- Scroll down until you see “Industry”.
- Define your industry.
It’s a pretty simple process. As you can see, you can easily change everything at any time. Don’t forget to update your profile, it will help potential customers to find you easily.
Of course, there is a long list of industries on LinkedIn (there are nearly 149), but what are the hottest industries?
List of industries in LinkedIn: Top 7 Industries
We could tell you about each of the industries, but unfortunately, time is short. So we’re going to tell you about the 7 industries that are most represented on LinkedIn, the ones with the highest rank 📊 :
- Information Technology and Services.
- Hospital & Health Care.
- Construction.
- Retail.
- Education management.
- Financial services.
- Accounting.
These industries are the most represented on LinkedIn. That doesn’t mean that your industry is not good if it doesn’t appear in that list. It simply means that you have more people working in some fields in particular.
And if you are targeting new potential leads, you might discover that prospecting in a niche industry is not a bad thing 😜.
If we take the first four industries, they represent around 29% of LinkedIn users, which is quite huge and will mean that your search will be full of names.
List of industries on LinkedIn: What’s the point?
OK, it’s all well and good to know about the various industries on LinkedIn, but in the end, what does it get us?
I’m glad you asked that question 💖. In short, the list of industries will be useful in your prospecting campaigns (it’s not their only use, but it’s a good start).
If you want to develop a sales or marketing strategy, you must create the famous buyer persona. We talk about it very often, and it’s not by chance.
So you definitely need to spend some time thinking about it. You must answer its needs. To elaborate the portrait of an ideal customer, you will need their:
- Age.
- Sex.
- Area of expertise.
- Marital status (in certain cases).
- Position in the company.
- Where you can find your client.
- Any other information that seems relevant to your targeting.
You need to know the industries in which your prospects operate to help you sell what you have to offer 😉.
How to use the industry sectors on LinkedIn?
As said before, using industry can be really helpful when prospecting. When you want to target an area in particular, you can put the industry as a criterion in order to identify the needs of your prospects.
Just so you know, LinkedIn is an incredible tool for a marketer. It can help your branding and stand out from a competitor.
Obviously, this list has changed over time but the use stays the same for your prospecting. Defining it as a main criteria can be beneficial if you want to sell a product or a service.
But it can also be a start for a conversation with someone you want to get in touch with. Sometimes you want to exchange ideas or partner with people who work in the same field as you.
Also, optimizing your profile is a priority when you want to increase your visibility on LinkedIn. So if you think about it, choosing the right industry is a good thing when setting up your LinkedIn profile. That will allow people to identify correctly the field you work in.
If you are looking for a job or if you are a recruiter, you can also target the right people who are in the same area as you. It is a fundamental point for your business.
What is the best industry?
We cannot answer this question because there is no ‘best industry’ on LinkedIn. The only thing is that if you work in a big industry, you will receive more visibility from your potential b2b prospects. But, obviously, you will have more competition in your sector.
So what do you need to do in order to get clients ahead of your competitors? First of all, be yourself and do some optimization on your profile. These first steps will help you be more visible to your audience.
Because, in case you didn’t know, LinkedIn is a platform that is all about trust. What does that mean? When you sell a product on LinkedIn, there is no barrier. You can bypass all the gatekeepers and talk directly with the decision maker when you have a problem or just to say that you are satisfied with a solution.
But before that, in order to gain trust, your profile must have all the information needed.
Once it’s done ✅, you need to publish content. Publishing content is a form of inbound marketing.
You are going to write about a subject that you are an expert in. It can be any sector or industry; as long as you master your subject, people will come to you.
They will be messaging you if they trust you.
What can you do on LinkedIn?
We won’t tell you, but LinkedIn is a professional social network that will allow you to connect with people related (or not) to your industry (you already know that, except if you are totally new to LinkedIn, which we doubt).
But this is not its only use. Far from it. You can also sell on LinkedIn, develop a marketing strategy, you can do LinkedIn advertising, and identify new opportunities 💖. Everything is possible on LinkedIn if you are willing to give some of your time to it.
If you want to optimize your business and get more sales on LinkedIn, you will need to:
- Define your persona.
- Optimize your profile (we cannot emphasize the importance of having a professional profile enough).
- Write well.
- Prospect efficiently (with segmentation).
If you do your work correctly, chances are that you will get clients.
Conclusion of the article
Throughout this article, you’ve been able to learn about the number of industries LinkedIn has 💡, which ones are the most represented on the platform, and what it’s for. Let’s go over the main points.
You now know that there is a list of 149 industries on LinkedIn. The 5 main ones are:
- Information Technology and Services.
- Hospital & Health Care.
- Construction.
- Retail.
- Education management.
It is important on this professional platform to identify the area of work you are in if you want to be found easily by potential recruiters or by people who want to share their work with you.
Also, keep in mind that LinkedIn is very efficient for marketers.
FAQ of the article: List of LinkedIn industries
Now that you know more about industries on LinkedIn, we are going to recap what we’ve said above and add some information that could be useful for you.
The 5 least popular industries
On LinkedIn, there are industries that are less popular than the others. Again, it doesn’t mean that it’s less important than another industry. In fact, it is just a question of numbers. If you want to expand your network by only adding people from the same industry as you, that might be a bit more difficult, but nothing is impossible, believe me 😊.
The 5 least popular industries are:
- Dairy.
- Nanotechnology.
- Shipbuilding.
- Judiciary.
- Alternative Dispute Resolution.
The complete list of industries on LinkedIn
If you desire to know the exhaustive list of all the industries (there isn’t any rank on this list) that are on LinkedIn, here they are:
- Accounting.
- Aerospace & Aviation.
- Agriculture.
- Alternative Dispute Resolution.
- Alternative Medicine.
- Animation.
- Apparel & Fashion.
- Apparel Retail.
- Architecture.
- Arts & Crafts.
- Arts and Crafts.
- Automotive.
- Automotive Retail.
- Banking.
- Biotechnology.
- Broadcast Media.
- Building Materials.
- Business Supplies & Equipment.
- Capital Markets.
- Chemical Manufacturing.
- Chemicals.
- Civil Engineering.
- Commercial Real Estate.
- Commercial Real Estate Services.
- Computer & Network Security.
- Computer Games.
- Computer Hardware.
- Computer Networking.
- Computer Software.
- Construction.
- Construction Services.
- Consumer Electronics.
- Consumer Goods.
- Consumer Services.
- Cosmetics.
- Dairy.
- Defense & Space.
- Design.
- E-learning.
- Education Management.
- Electrical & Electronic.
- Manufacturing.
- Entertainment.
- Environmental Services.
- Events.
- Events Services.
- Executive Office.
- Facilities Services.
- Farming.
- Financial Services.
- Fine Art.
- Fishery.
- Food & Beverage Production.
- Food Production.
- Fundraising.
- Furniture.
- Gambling & Casinos.
- Glass, Ceramics, & Concrete Manufacturing.
- Government Administration.
- Graphic Design.
- Health, Wellness & Fitness.
- Higher Education.
- Hospital & Health Care.
- Hospitality.
- Human Resources.
- Import & Export.
- Individual & Family Services.
- Industrial Automation.
- Information Services.
- Information Technology & Services.
- Insurance.
- International Affairs.
- International Trade & Development.
- Internet.
- Investment Banking.
- Investment Management.
- Judiciary.
- Law Enforcement.
- Law Practice.
- Legal Services.
- Legislative Offices.
- Libraries.
- Logistics & Supply Chain.
- Luxury Goods & Jewelry.
- Machinery.
- Management Consulting.
- Manufacturing.
- Maritime.
- Market Research.
- Mechanical or Industrial Engineering.
- Media Production.
- Medical Device.
- Medical Practice.
- Mental Health Care.
- Military.
- Mining & Metals.
- Mobile Games.
- Motion Pictures & Film.
- Museums.
- Music.
- Nanotechnology.
- Newspapers.
- Non-profit Organization Management.
- Oil & Energy.
- Online Media.
- Outsourcing.
- Packaging.
- Paper & Forest Products.
- Performing Arts.
- Pharmaceuticals.
- Philanthropy.
- Photography.
- Plastics Manufacturing.
- Political Organizations.
- Primary/Secondary Education.
- Printing.
- Professional Training & Coaching.
- Program Development.
- Public Policy.
- Public Relations & Communications.
- Public Safety.
- Publishing.
- Railroad Manufacturing.
- Ranching.
- Real Estate.
- Recreational Facilities & Services.
- Religious Institutions.
- Renewables & Environment.
- Research.
- Restaurants.
- Retail.
- Security Services.
- Semiconductors.
- Shipbuilding.
- Sporting Goods Retail.
- Sports.
- Staffing & Recruiting.
- Supermarkets.
- Telecommunications.
- Textiles Manufacturing.
- Think Tanks.
- Tobacco.
- Translation & Localization.
- Transportation/Trucking.
- Utilities.
- Venture Capital & Private Equity.
- Veterinary.
- Warehousing.
- Wholesale.
- Wine & Spirits.
- Wireless.
- Writing & Editing.
What should I put on LinkedIn for the industry?
LinkedIn offers a predefined list of industries to choose from, and it’s important to select the one that best aligns with your professional identity and the field you are associated with.
Here a some general guidelines:
- 🟣 Select your current industry.
- 🔵 Choose the industry relevant to your career goals.
- 🟣 Be specific.
- 🔵 Updated as needed.
- 🟣 Consider multiple industries.
- 🔵 Avoid generic labels.
What is inbound marketing?
We talked about it earlier in this article and we want to explain to you what Inbound Marketing is. It is a methodology that is going to attract customers to you by creating content. You won’t need to chase them because you will be able to attract them thanks to:
- SEO or Search-engine optimization (they will type keywords related to your professional activity and they might come to your marketing site).
- Podcasts.
- Webinars.
- Publish content marketing on social networks (like LinkedIn).
Inbound marketing is one of the best marketing strategies to gain valuable clients. Because they will come to you thanks to what you offer.
You already know that they do have an interest in your product or service.
Target LinkedIn industry through advertising
As you may know, LinkedIn is not only for job search anymore. You can also sell products and gain more visibility. LinkedIn has understood that and has decided to offer its users the possibility to target people in order to find a good list of prospects.
You have the possibility to find clients through advertising by targeting their industry. You can include or exclude some industries. The choice is yours.
In order to do so, you have one of the best marketing tools at your disposal: LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Of course, you need to pay because it is extremely powerful but you get a 30-day free trial to help you make up your mind.
Use this time to decide whether or not you need it.
How to use LinkedIn ads with LinkedIn Sectors?
LinkedIn Ads allows you to target specific audiences based on various criteria, including industry or sector. Here’s how to do it👇:
- Log in to your LinkedIn Ads account and create a new campaign.
- Select your campaign objective and choose your ad format.
- In the audience targeting section, scroll down to the “targeting” section and select “demographics”.
- Select “Industries” and then choose “Select from list of industries”.
- Here you can choose the industry sector you want to target.
- Once you have set your targeting, continue to create your ad and launch your campaign.
So now you know everything there is to know about the LinkedIn industry list 🚀.
