Chloe Cristine of TBD Marketing presented her new digital marketing training workshop for PM Forum on “Getting the most from LinkedIn”. Chloe provided an information-packed session with the latest research, best practice and practical tips for getting the most from LinkedIn for both corporate users and individuals. Chloe has 12,000 followers and works with TBD Marketing which produces Linkedin Influencers | Legal | 2024 Q3. 15 delegates (assistants, executives, digital marketing managers, communications managers, marketing managers etc) joined the session with representatives of legal, accountancy and consultancy firms from across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Future dates of all PM Forum marketing training courses. We can’t share everything that Chloe and delegates discussed (there was simply too much valuable content), but here are the highlights. Getting the most from LinkedIn.
Why LinkedIn matters in 2025
LinkedIn changed from a resume and recruitment platform to a trust-building platform for B2B relationships. It is a decision-maker hub with over a billion users with strong organic reach and high engagement. 80% of LinkedIn members directly influence business decisions.
It is a vital tool for corporate social media. Promoting a firm’s visibility, brand presence, thought leadership and supporting engagement with clients and stakeholders. Social media in business development and relationship management
It also supports personal branding. Allowing you to establish your individual professional identity, develop your authentic voice and network with industry professionals. How to create and promote your personal brand – Kim Tasso
Tailoring KPIs for corporate and personal social media
Chloe shared ideas for corporate social media goals and personal branding goals in LinkedIn.
Corporate social media KPIs include:
- Brand awareness: Reach, Impressions, Share of voice
- Lead generation: CTR (Click Thru Rate), Conversion rate, Lead quality
- Client engagement: Engagement rate, Response time
Personal social media KPIs include:
- Professional branding – Follower growth, Profile views
- Networking efficiency – Connection quality, Interaction rate
- Content impact – Reach, Mentions, Thought leadership
Track metrics that enhance your individual reputation and career opportunities
The Social Selling Index (SSI) | LinkedIn Sales Navigator can be used as a diagnostic tool. To help people understand how their profile measures up on four dimensions: Establish your professional brand, Find the right people, Engage with insights and Build relationships.
Chloe talked briefly about vanity metrics (likes, follower counts and views) which create surface level impressions but rarely connect to business outcomes. She prefers valuable metrics such as engagement rate which measures meaningful interactions relative to follower count, revealing true content relevance and audience connection.
Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of viewers taking action on your content links which indicates audience intent beyond passive scrolling
Conversion rate tracks prospect journeys from content interaction to valuable actions like consultations or newsletters sign-ups.
There were group discussions on metrics and challenges where topics such as aligning metrics to business objectives, attracting the right job roles, understanding the value of carousels and directing traffic to web sites were mentioned. Encouraging clients and staff to act as brand ambassadors by sharing content within their networks was also tracked by some. Tracking engagement on LinkedIn Live and Events will become more important.
Build a strong personal brand on LinkedIn
How to create and promote your personal brand – Kim Tasso
Delegates were polled on which aspects they felt needed most improvement: headlines, featured content or experience. The priorities were:
- Professional Profile – create an optimised, client-focused presence
- Relationship building – develop meaningful professional connections
- Thought leadership – establish yourself as an industry authority
There were reminders to revise your LinkedIn profile regularly – to keep it up to date. Areas that might need improvement included: headline and about, visual content, experience and featured content.
On crafting your headline there are different approaches – job title, value proposition or specialist angle. Guidance on the about section covered how to tell your professional story – start with value (who you help and how – to show your purpose), share your story (include key career highlights that demonstrate your expertise) and end with a clear call to action. Book review: Unleash the power of storytelling by Rob Biesenbach
The experience section should emphasize outcomes over duties. The profile photo should present a professional and approachable image and care should be taken with the banner image. You can build social proof with endorsements, testimonials and recommendations (for which a template was provided).
Chloe shared some tips on networking best practice – on connecting, engaging and sharing. Book review – Great networking by Alisa Grafton And summarised with a personal brand audit checklist.
There was a short discussion about the value of LinkedIn Premium/Gold. And a brief tour of LinkedIn Sales Navigator and its advanced search and lead management facilities. Chloe answered questions about how Google indexes your profile and how you can use privacy settings to modify what it accesses.
Elevate your firm’s LinkedIn presence
This section considered company page fundamentals, strategic content planning, employee advocacy and performance tracking.
The About section ranks on Google and should use clear, benefit-focused language that answers three questions: the specific services you offer, the clients or industries you serve and the geographic areas you cover.
Photos, logos, banners all need to share consistent branding and synergy with your people’s personal branding. She mentioned TBD’s work in the Top 100 Legal LinkedIn Influencers Linkedin Influencers – TBD Marketing
Personal pages receive more impressions than corporate pages (I recall previous research suggesting by a factor of 10).
Content strategy
The ideal mix included: thought leadership, achievements and events, team stories and case studies.
The best posting times were explored e.g. text posts (10am-12pm Tuesday), Carousel/PDF (9am – 11am Tuesday or Thursday), Polls (8am-11am Monday through Wednesday) and video (11am to 1pm Tuesday through Thursday).
On content posting frequency, ideally three posts per week with a minimum gap of 24 hours. The Golden Hour is the critical window after posting when engagement matters most. It is suggested that after posting on the corporate page, you encourage employees to comment and share in the first hour. Commenting on industry leaders’ posts around the same time will encourage people to view your profile. There were some other suggestions for employee involvement strategies.
Chloe suggested producing a heat map by day and by hour of impressions. This requires a download of a month’s historical data and manipulation in Looker Studio. There was also advice on showcasing pages for specialised audiences and text and image post best practice. We were advised to avoid stock imagery and noted that there was 30% more engagement on professional photos.
Ideas were shared on carousel and PDF post optimisation (e.g. 12 slides, 25-50 words per slide, post text under 500 characters, start with a compelling first slide that promises value). And then on video content best practice – ideal length, orientation, opening hook and accessibility.
She noted that 72% of LinkedIn usage occurs on mobile devices so you need to think thumb-friendly, use larger text, preview on mobile and deploy vertical visuals.
There were group exercises here where delegates attempted to build a mini social media campaign,
What’s working on LinkedIn now?
Chloe noted that the algorithm changes constantly, so you need to check regularly on what works best at any time. At present, she noted that infographics and interactive content were popular.
Whilst text (900-1,200 characters are best performing) and image posts remain effective. Videos should be up to 80 seconds and uploaded direct to LinkedIn.
Engagement strategies
Engagement signals that boost visibility included: content saves, direct messages (DMs), comment quality and meaningful tagging. Chloe shared guidance on optimising post length for text only posts, text and image posts and carousel introduction text.
She moved onto hashtag strategies – 3 – 5 per post, mixing broad and niche tags, placed within the text or at the end. She also advised us to research popularity of hashtags before use.
Direct interaction best practices included replying to all comments within 24 hours, following up with personalised notes to event attendees who engaged with your content, value exchange and strategic tagging. She also provided connection request and follow up message templates.
LinkedIn Events
The popularity of LinkedIn Events is growing, Over 21 million professionals have attended them in the last year. Event viewership increased 34%. Applications include: webinars, panel discussions and virtual networking sessions.
LinkedIn Live powers real-time engagement with seven times more reactions and 10 times more comments than standard video content. She shared that 62% of B2B buyers consider LinkedIn video content a credible information source.
She advised to announce events at least two weeks in advance and to encourage participation through the use of polls and Q&A segments. Follow up activity included sharing recordings and posts on key takeaways.
Declining engagement
Chloe noted that major updates in January and September 2024 reshaped engagement dynamics resulting in a 40-50% drop in reach for 95% of content creators.
She offered strategies for counteracting the decline including: increasing infographics and PDF carousel content, post optimisation strategies, direct engagement through direct messages and using newsletters (once a week or every two weeks). There was a reminder to use personal pages which typically outperform company pages.
LinkedIn analytics
The algorithm interprets followers as a strong signal of content value, so focus on growing these rather than connections.
Chloe explained the difference between on-platform and off-platform (GA4 on your web site traffic monitoring organic referral sources) analytics. And that you need both.
For personal profile analytics track profile views, follower demographics, post performance and search appearances.
On company page analytics monitor follower growth rate, engagement rates, post reach, link clicks, visitor demographics and competitor benchmarking. She also offered an analytics review schedule of weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual reports.
Only a third of delegates were tracking web site traffic using UTM, and just over 50% relied solely on post metrics. Chloe shared guidance on UTM parameter structures (see Analytics and Measurement for Digital Marketing – Kim Tasso)
LinkedIn Ads
There was a little time left at the end of the session to do a speedy review of LinkedIn advertisements.
These were relevant when: B2B audience, you need to reach people with precise job titles or responsibilities and you are offering higher-value services that justifies a higher cost per acquisition. Prices range from $5 to $40 per click so it is expensive. She warned that LinkedIn rarely performs well for immediate purchase decisions.
Precise audience targeting, professional audiences and performance tracking were explored. She mentioned that you could target specific companies but needed a big enough audience.
Advertising types include sponsored content, lead generation forms and message ads.
On advertising cost benchmarks she offered some 2024-2035 UK figures: £4.50 average cost per click (CPC), £85 average cost per lead for professional services and £8,000 recommended minimum monthly budget.
LinkedIn’s latest features
Chloe ended the session looking at some of LinkedIn’s latest features: podcast integration, enhanced commenting, newsletter creation and AI assistance.
Details of future PM Forum training sessions: PM Forum – PM Forum
- Helping fee-earners prepare the perfect pitch (14th May)
- Planning digital campaigns and content strategy (29th May)
- Towards KAM and ABM – helping fee-earners with client relationship management (3rd June)
- How to choose, setup and manage a CRM database (9th June)
- Build your brand advantage (10th June)
- Campaign development, thought leadership and project management (18th June)
- Hands on guide to SEO (24th June)
- Marketing and BD planning in a nutshell (2nd July)
- Coaching and consulting skills for marketing and BD (17th July)
- Being more strategic (23rd July)
Related posts on social media and digital marketing
Marketing case studies – Digital thought leadership campaigns February 2025
Planning Digital Marketing Campaigns and Content Strategy November 2024
The rise and power of AI and automation November 2024
Analytics and Measurement for Digital Marketing – Kim Tasso November 2024
create a digital marketing strategy in a professional services firm September 2024
Key Insights from the AI in Marketing training by Optix at PM Forum (kimtasso.com) September 2024
Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) updates standard (kimtasso.com) September 2024
Hands on guide to SEO (digital marketing training) – Kim Tasso July 2024
Highlights of social media best practice – with Chloe Christine April 2024
Marketing and BD case studies in legal, accountancy, consultancy (kimtasso.com) April 2024
Email marketing and automation with TBD and PM Forum (kimtasso.com) March 2024
Case studies: Marketing and Business Development at law (kimtasso.com) November 2023
28th PM Forum Conference: Organisational culture, mentoring (kimtasso.com) November 2023
System review: CogniClick for instant, personalised research (kimtasso.com) October 2023
Professional services marketing/BD case studies (kimtasso.com) August 2023
Lessons from digital marketing webinars (June 2023) (kimtasso.com) June 2023
Being more strategic – Case studies and insights (Ireland May 2023) (kimtasso.com) June 2023
The Proactive M&BD Executive – Culture shock, marketing models (kimtasso.com) April 2023
Marketing in the Metaverse – An opportunity for professional services? (kimtasso.com) March 2023
Marketing technology system review – Clean contact data with Cirrom (kimtasso.com) February 2023
Book review: Build your digital marketing strategy by Steve Brennan (kimtasso.com) July 2022
New Marketing and Business Development Assistants (kimtasso.com) March 2022
Book review: B2B Marketing strategy (kimtasso.com) February 2022
Marketing and Business Development Planning in a Nutshell (kimtasso.com) November 2021
themes on campaign development and thought leadership (kimtasso.com) July 2021
Book review: Digital Body Language – How to build trust by Erica Dhawan (kimtasso.com) June 2021
SEO update for professional services (October 2020) (kimtasso.com) October 2020
Social media in business development and relationship management December 2018
Book review: “Understanding digital marketing” Damian Ryan (kimtasso.com)
