Pros and cons of LinkedIn

Do you really know all the pros and cons of LinkedIn? 👀

With 1 billion users worldwide, LinkedIn is much more than just a social network. It has become a must-have platform, particularly for professionals and B2B companies looking to expand their professional network, recruit, strengthen their image or generate leads. 🤓

In this article, I present the 7 advantages and 6 disadvantages of LinkedIn to give you a clear vision and help you maximize its potential for your professional goals. 🎯

Let’s go! 🚀

The 7 advantages of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is like a playground for B2B professionals! 🎯 If you know how to use it, the opportunities are numerous: networking, visibility, lead generation… Let’s take a look at LinkedIn’s advantages together. 🚀

1. Strategic networking

LinkedIn is the professional social network par excellence! Whether you’re looking for a new job, looking for customers for your company or looking to expand your network. This platform lets you target precisely the right people. So you can get in direct contact with recruiters, prospects, partners, and even influencers.😎

Thanks to its advanced search functionalities, you can refine your searches according to specific criteria such as position, company, business sector, or even location. This saves time and makes reaching ultra-relevant contacts effortless.😴

👉 Here are some practical tips:

• Personalize your welcome message: Just saying ‘Hello’ won’t cut it. You need to clearly explain why the person should respond to you by highlighting the value you can bring to the table. Showcase your expertise and let them know what you can specifically offer. Instead of suggesting a generic exchange, dive into how your unique skills can genuinely help them and spark their interest in your services.
• Engage in discussion : Don’t just watch. Comment, like and show that you’re involved in your industry’s topics.
• Participatein groups: LinkedIn groups related to your field to meet like-minded people and make interesting connections.

2. Reinforce your image

On LinkedIn, you’re not just an online CV. You’re a brand! Every publication, every interaction contributes to reinforcing your image as a professional and, if you have a company page, the image of your brand. Why is this so important? Because people (whether recruiters, partners or clients) prefer to work with professionals recognized for their expertise. And LinkedIn is the perfect place to show it ✨.

By regularly publishing quality content, you’ll gradually establish yourself as an “expert” in your field. You’ll gain visibility not only as a person, but also for your company. 👀

You’ll also reinforce the human dimension of your brand. Yes, we often talk about numbers and results on LinkedIn, but don’t forget that at the end of the day, it’s human relationships that come first. 🫶🏻

📈 Some examples of content to publish:

• Case studies: Share projects you’ve worked on, explaining the challenges you faced and how you overcame them. This type of content shows concretely what you’re capable of.💪🏻
• Customer testimonials: There’s nothing more powerful than positive feedback from your customers. By sharing their experiences, you reinforce your credibility.💬
• Industry Insights: Show that you’re on top of trends in your sector by sharing analyses or thoughts on your field.📊

3. Hundreds of data to scrape

LinkedIn is literally an ocean of data. There are millions of profiles, thousands of companies, and a wealth of information available on your targets. Whether you want to know more about your prospects, your competitors, or unearth key information for your marketing strategies, you can find this data. 🌊

Thanks to tools like Sales Navigator, you can refine your searches and obtain very specific information. You can find out who has recently changed jobs, in which company, in which sector, and even see what your targets’ interests are. These insights enable you to tailor your pitch in an ultra-personalized way.🎨

👉 There are specific tools and extensions for collecting this data in an automated way, such as Waalaxy. This allows you to retrieve and centralize :

• Last name, First name.
• Telephone numbers.
• E-mail address.
• Current job.

4. Qualified lead generation

We often hear that LinkedIn has become “over-solicited”. Many professionals receive an avalanche of messages every day, and this can give the impression that standing out is impossible. But it’s quite the opposite! With the right strategy, you can generate leads. 🔥

What makes the difference on LinkedIn is personalization. If you send a generic message, chances are it will be ignored. But, by taking the time to personalize your approaches, based on the information available about your prospects (for example, their positions, interests or recent activity), you increase your chances of getting a response.😎

👉 Tips for generating qualified leads:

• Smart follow-up: Create a 2-3 step message sequence, with relevant follow-ups that bring value.✨
• Use content: Share articles or case studies that speak to your prospects’ issues, it positions you as an expert.🤓
• Analyze signals: See who visits your LinkedIn profile or interacts with your posts, and start a conversation quickly.🏃🏻‍♀️

5. Optimizing the recruitment process

LinkedIn isn’t just a tool for finding customers or networking, it’s also a perfect platform for recruitment. As a company, you have access to a talent base, and with the right tools, you can quickly identify the ideal candidates for your open positions.💼

Thanks to its advanced search filters, you can refine your criteria and find profiles that exactly match your needs. LinkedIn lets you target precisely the skills and experience you’re looking for. 🔍

But the real advantage of LinkedIn for recruitment is that it allows you to create a pool of candidates. Instead of recruiting only in response to an immediate need, you can build up a pool of potential talent for future opportunities. This allows you to be proactive, always having qualified people on hand ready to be called upon when a position becomes available.😉

➡️ Here are some tips for improving your recruitment strategy with LinkedIn:

• Set up alerts: To be informed when relevant profiles update their information or declare themselves open to new opportunities. This way, you can contact them even before they start applying elsewhere. 😎
• Promote your employer brand: Share content about the company culture, your values, or employee testimonials. This makes your company more attractive to potential candidates, and helps you nurture your talent pool over the long term.⏳
• Create an inbound strategy: Inbound recruiting is a strategy that enables you to create / maintain a link with your future employees.

6. A wealth of expert content

LinkedIn is also a place where you can learn every day from a host of experts who regularly share their knowledge. Whether it’s new trends, LinkedIn pulse, market research, case studies… You’ll find cutting-edge content on niche subjects such as marketing, tech, blockchain, or even specific fields like growth hacking.👩🏻‍🏫

Why is this important? Because staying abreast of the latest trends not only enhances your personal skills, but also adds value to your customers or your business. By engaging in these discussions, you not only develop an expertise recognized by your peers, but also ensure that you’re at the cutting edge of your industry.🔥

7. Break through easily

One of LinkedIn’s well-kept secrets is that only 1% of users publish content regularly, while 99% just consume. 😍

In other words, the competition for attention is still relatively low compared to other social networks like Instagram or Twitter. This means that by posting regularly, you have an incredible chance of quickly standing out and becoming a reference in your field.🤩

It’s not a question of being everywhere, but of being strategic. LinkedIn favors quality over quantity. By publishing articles, videos, carousels or even simple posts, you’ll capture the attention not only of your network, but also of those who don’t yet know you. Regularity is the key to success here: by staying present, you build a loyal and interested audience.😌

📈 Tips for breaking through on LinkedIn :

• Post valuable content: Whether it’s long-form articles, explainer videos, or case studies, focus on topics that really interest your audience.✨
• Vary formats : Don’t limit yourself to written posts. Try videos, infographics, or even LinkedIn carousels. These more interactive formats often generate more engagement.📸
• Engage with your audience: reply to comments, share other interesting publications, and ask your network questions. This creates an active community around your publications.💬
• Optimize your publications: Put, for example, your links in comments to improve the visibility of your posts.📱

The 6 disadvantages of LinkedIn

But be warned, LinkedIn isn’t all roses. 😅 Between the time it takes and the cost of campaigns, there are a few challenges. Let’s take a look at some of LinkedIn’s drawbacks that can sometimes hold back your experience on the platform. 👇

1. An investment in time

If you really want to succeed, you have to be prepared to invest time. A lot of time. Between creating content, interacting with your network, managing messages and optimizing your LinkedIn profile, it can all easily become time-consuming, especially if you don’t automate certain tasks.🫠

The real challenge is that LinkedIn is a platform that values engagement. This means that to get results, it’s not enough to publish once a month and hope for miracles. You need to be active and regular : interacting with other people’s posts, responding to comments, and making sure your content is aligned with what your audience is looking for. You need a real social media strategy 🧐

👉 Practical tips:

• Create a content schedule: Get organized by planning your publications in advance. This will enable you to stay regular without feeling the pressure of constantly having to publish.
• Automate intelligently: Use tools to automate certain tasks, such as sending follow-up messages (Waalaxy, for example), managing connections or publishing content (with Podawaa).

2. Difficult to differentiate

On LinkedIn, the big challenge is to stand out from the crowd. With thousands of users sharing content every day, it can be hard to stand out from the crowd, especially if you don’t have a solid content strategy. Many publications look the same, and the key to attracting attention is to offer unique and authentic content.⭐️

Authenticity is a formidable weapon on LinkedIn. Users are tired of publications that are too slick or corporate. They want to see real stories, challenges, successes and even failures. Don’t be afraid to show the behind-the-scenes of your business, be vulnerable when necessary, and offer a personal perspective on professional topics.🎯

➡️ Here are my favorite tips:

• Vary your formats: Long articles, short videos, infographics or even carousels, diversify your content to capture attention. LinkedIn’s algorithm loves variety !✨
• Tell stories: publications that tell a personal or professional story often generate more engagement. Share anecdotes from your career path, difficult moments and how you overcame them.📚
• Show your expertise: By publishing case studies or concrete results, you show that you know what you’re talking about, while bringing real value to your audience.😉

3. High costs of Ads campaigns

Advertising campaigns on LinkedIn are notoriously expensive, and sometimes the results aren’t worth the investment. CPCs (cost per click) are often much higher than on other platforms such as Facebook or Google. For a company with a limited budget, this can be a real drag, especially if performance doesn’t keep up.💸

The problem? LinkedIn Ads mainly target professionals, which increases costs, but doesn’t always guarantee a return on investment.

For example, we recently carried out an ADS campaign with unbeatable results: an average CPC of over “€100”. 🤯

With such high costs, generating qualified leads on a tight budget becomes a real challenge. But there is a solution: automation! 🤗

Tools like Waalaxy allow you to automate prospecting tasks on LinkedIn, such as sending personalized messages or managing invitations. 📨

LinkedIn automation, when properly managed, allows you to reach your prospects directly without having to go through costly LinkedIn Ads campaigns. This offers a cost-effective alternative for generating leads while staying close to your audience.🌟

4. Non-linear results

On LinkedIn, results can be very random. You can publish a hit post with thousands of views, likes and comments, and the next one goes completely unnoticed. It’s frustrating, but it’s the reality of all social platforms. 🔥

This inconsistency can be discouraging, but it’s also an opportunity to test different formats and content.😉

This is what happened to Hannah recently: one of her publications blew up the counters even though she hadn’t anticipated such a craze, while another (which she thought was even more relevant) generated almost no reaction. 🥹

🔍 Here are some tips to help you understand and improve your statistics:

• Don’t get discouraged: If your publication isn’t doing as well as expected. Keep experimenting with different formats (long texts, videos, visuals) and topics.🧐
• Analyze what works: When a post hits, try to understand why.
  • Is it the subject?
  • The timing?
  • The format?
  • The storytelling?
• Play with publication times: test several time slots to identify those where your audience is most reactive.⏰

5. Risks to your online reputation

On LinkedIn, visibility comes with its advantages, but also its disadvantages. The more notoriety you gain, the more you expose yourself to criticism and negative comments. This can be a little unsettling, but keep in mind that if you start getting haters, it’s often a sign that your audience is growing and you’re making a name for yourself.🥳

Take, for example, Violette, our Head of human resources, who regularly faced several negative comments. Yet, in the end, this situation is beneficial to her, as it boosts her commitment. Haters can sometimes, in spite of themselves, amplify your visibility and reinforce the interest around your content.😌

➡️ But how do you properly manage these returns?

6. Algorithm variability

As with all social networks, LinkedIn’s algorithm remains a constantly evolving mystery. 📈

You’ve probably already noticed that some of your publications generate a huge amount of engagement, while others fall completely flat. Frustrating, isn’t it? But it’s not always a question of content quality. The visibility of your publications often depends on how the algorithm decides to distribute them in news feeds.🫠

There are a few“hacks” or best practices to play with the algorithm and increase the visibility of your publications.👇🏻

1. Avoid external links : LinkedIn’s algorithm hates external links,i.e. links that redirect to a site other than LinkedIn, in publications. Why? Because its goal is to keep users on the platform as long as possible.🤓
2. Publish at the right times: Try to analyze when your audience is most active and adjust your publishing times accordingly. 📊
3. Use CTAs: The algorithm favors publications that receive interactions (likes, comments, shares) soon after they go live. Don’t hesitate to put call to actions at the end of your descriptions. 😎

Shall we have a recap?

LinkedIn is essential. It’s much more than just a social network. It’s an essential tool for your business. But to get the most out of it, you need to know its advantages and disadvantages.😇

On the one hand, LinkedIn offers enormous opportunities: strategic networking, greater visibility, a talent pool at your fingertips and experts to follow to stay on the cutting edge. On the other, it takes time, strategy, and you have to know how to manage costs and the algorithm.🥰

To put it plainly, LinkedIn is a great lever if you know how to use it intelligently. With a well-thought-out approach and a little regularity, it can really become your best ally. 🌟

Frequently asked questions

Is LinkedIn Premium really worth it?

LinkedIn Premium can clearly boost your results if you want to go the extra mile on the platform. But before you take the plunge, here are some key Premium features that can really make a difference 👇🏻 :

• Sales Navigator: Hyper-advanced search filters to find ultra-targeted prospects.🎯
• Unlimited InMails: Send private messages to people outside your direct network, super handy for getting in touch with hard-to-reach profiles.🤫
• Analysis of visitors to your profile: You see who consults your profile over a 90-day period. It’s great for spotting potential leads.🥹
• Access to LinkedIn Learning: Full of training courses to help you improve in various areas such as marketing, management, etc.🎓
• Advanced data for recruiting: If you’re looking to recruit, Premium gives you more info on candidates.🤓

Now you know all the pros and cons of LinkedIn ! 🚀