LinkedIn might look like all work and no play, but that does not stop it from being a social media platform. However, it is one social platform where there tends to be more professional and corporate-focused content than the others.
Still, does that mean it is not affected by the influencer marketing trends, paid advertising push, engagement-seeking tactics, and other common factors used to gauge other social media channels?
Find out all that and more in this compilation of LinkedIn statistics, facts, and trends.
Top 5 LinkedIn Stats (Editor’s Pick)
- 80% of South African brands in 2022 used LinkedIn.
- Only 0.9% of global social media users in January 2023 claimed LinkedIn was their top social media platform.
- 27.1% of active LinkedIn users in January 2023 used the social media platform for brand/product research.
- LinkedIn’s ad reach grew by 43 million between Q4 2022 and Q1 2023.
- LinkedIn ads could reach 84.3% of the UAE’s 18+ population as of January 2023.
Infographic
<a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/linkedin-statistics/" target="_blank" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/top-linkedin-statistics.png" alt="Top 5 LinkedIn Statistics" width="768" border="0" height="737.87029623699" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/top-linkedin-statistics-768x738.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/top-linkedin-statistics-300x288.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/top-linkedin-statistics-1024x984.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/top-linkedin-statistics.png 1249w" sizes="auto"></a>
General LinkedIn Statistics
However, this slumped from 42% of marketers who thought the same a year before. Likewise, Facebook (62%) saw an enormous embrace among marketers looking to achieve their business goals in 2021.
2. Johannesburg, South Africa, was home to 9.8% of the South African LinkedIn population in 2022.
This put the city ahead of Durban (5.2%) and East London (1.91%) in the top three.
3. Only 2% of South Africans in 2022 considered LinkedIn their preferred messaging service.
The platform was dwarfed by the likes of Facebook (79%), WhatsApp (36.9%), and Instagram (12.5%), all Meta products, in the top three.
4. LinkedIn recorded 1.6 billion global website visits between December 2021 and November 2022.
In that timeframe, 298 million unique visitors spent about 9 minutes and 44 seconds per visit. Likewise, these visitors browsed an average of 8 pages on LinkedIn per visit.
5. 86.6% of LinkedIn users surveyed in January 2023 were also using Facebook.
This made Facebook the largest cross-platform used by LinkedIn users in that timeframe.
| Social Media Platform | % of LinkedIn Cross-Users |
|---|---|
| 86.6% | |
| YouTube | 75.2% |
| 80.4% | |
| 82.6% | |
| TikTok | 52.8% |
| Telegram | 56.8% |
| Snapchat | 42.5% |
| 65.1% | |
| 25% | |
| 49% |
However, this represented a 6.1% growth from January 2022.
7. Amazon had over 29 million LinkedIn followers in January 2023 and was the most followed brand on the platform.
Google had just over 27.3 million followers, while LinkedIn came third with 24.24 million followers on its platform.
LinkedIn Usage Statistics
8. 80% of South African brands in 2022 used LinkedIn.
This was the highest usage rate for any social media platform among these brands. Twitter usage slipped from 70% the previous year to 69% in 2022, while YouTube usage declined to 54% (from 69%).
<a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/linkedin-statistics/" target="_blank" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/south-african-brands-linkedin.png" alt="South African Brands Using LinkedIn" width="768" border="0" height="612.76595744681" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/south-african-brands-linkedin-768x613.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/south-african-brands-linkedin-300x239.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/south-african-brands-linkedin-1024x817.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/south-african-brands-linkedin-1536x1226.png 1503w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/south-african-brands-linkedin.png 1504w" sizes="auto"></a>
9. 5% of South African brands without LinkedIn accounts in 2022 planned on creating one in 2023.
This was higher than the share of the same brands (2% each) who did not have Telegram, WhatsApp, blog, or intranet accounts but wanted to create one in the next 12 months.
10. Only 0.2% of LinkedIn users were exclusive to the platform in 2023.
This was behind the 1% of unique YouTube users who did not use other social media platforms or 0.6% of the Facebook audience in the same shoes.
Still, LinkedIn bested TikTok, Telegram, Twitter, Reddit, and Snapchat, all of whom had a 0.1% unique usage share.
11. As of January 2023, most (29.7%) of LinkedIn’s active users aged 16-64 used the platform to stay updated on news and events.
The least share (13.6%) of these users visited the platform to find funny or entertaining content.
LinkedIn Demographic Statistics
12. In 2022, 50.8% of LinkedIn’s frequent users in South Africa were male.
Leaving females with the remaining 49.2% share.
13. Most South African LinkedIn users in 2022 (60.2%) were 25-34.
This was almost 4x the share of second-placed 35–44-year-olds (16.2%) on the platform.
| Age Range | Share of LinkedIn Users |
|---|---|
| 15-24 | 9.3% |
| 25-34 | 60.2% |
| 35-44 | 16.2% |
| 45-64 | 14.3% |
| 65+ | 0% |
14. 25.7% of LinkedIn users in South Africa lived in the city.
The 2022 data also showed fewer users (12.8%) stayed in the suburbs.
15. Blacks were the most dominant (62.2%) South African ethnic group using LinkedIn in 2022.
They were followed by the Whites (28.9%), while Indians and Asians collectively made up the top three (7%). The remaining 1.9% share went to the colored population.
16. 72.6% of South African LinkedIn users in 2022 had a tertiary education.
There were none with no formal schooling, and only a minority (0.4%) failed to finish their primary school levels.
On the upside, 22.1% completed their secondary school educations.
Meta’s properties (WhatsApp – 15.8%; Instagram – 14.3%; Facebook – 14.2%) were the top three favorite social media platforms voted by these users.
This was the same for Twitter, but Facebook favored 9 AM – 12 PM instead.
LinkedIn Marketing Statistics
19. Most (93%) B2B marketers surveyed in 2021 used LinkedIn to distribute content.
Another 77% of these marketers claimed LinkedIn was their best-performing organic social media platform for the year.
This was followed by Facebook (69%) and Instagram (30%) in the top three.
<a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/linkedin-statistics/" target="_blank" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/best-media-platform-b2b-marketers.png" alt="Best-Performing Paid Social Media Platform for B2B Marketers" width="768" border="0" height="653.6170212766" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/best-media-platform-b2b-marketers-768x654.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/best-media-platform-b2b-marketers-300x255.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/best-media-platform-b2b-marketers-1024x871.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/best-media-platform-b2b-marketers.png 1410w" sizes="auto"></a>
LinkedIn fared more than 2x better than third-placed YouTube (36%) and outperformed second-placed Facebook (54%) using the same metrics.
22. In Q3 2021, 42% of surveyed marketers planned on keeping their LinkedIn marketing budgets the same into 2022.
Only 24% said they would lower their budgets from 2021, while the remaining (34%) planned on increasing their budgets.
Closely behind were 39% of surveyed marketers who went with click-through rates instead.
| Metric | % of Marketers |
|---|---|
| Likes and shares | 43% |
| Click through rates | 39% |
| Mentions and comments | 43% |
| Inquiries | 31% |
| Follower count | 26% |
24. Only 6% of South African LinkedIn marketers in 2022 thought the platform was ineffective for their marketing.
This improved from 17% of these marketers who shared the same thought in 2021.
Conversely, 28% of marketers claimed the platform was very effective for their marketing, improving from 21% in 2021.
25. LinkedIn had an ad reach of 180 million users in the USA as of July 2021.
India followed, with a 78 million audience getting LinkedIn ads, and China (50 million) rounded up the top three. Another notable mention was Brazil (49 million) which just slightly lost out of the top three.
This was ahead of even Snapchat, which only managed a 23.2% share of active users doing the same on the platform.
But more (25% each) of these marketers trusted Facebook and Instagram, while 14% pitched their tents with YouTube.
Conversely, most (23%) of the voting marketers chose Instagram, while 19% went with TikTok.
<a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/linkedin-statistics/" target="_blank" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/social-media-marketers-survey.png" alt="Social Media Marketers Survey" width="768" border="0" height="558.88417222559" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/social-media-marketers-survey-768x559.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/social-media-marketers-survey-300x218.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/social-media-marketers-survey-1024x745.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/social-media-marketers-survey-1536x1118.png 1536w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/social-media-marketers-survey.png 1649w" sizes="auto"></a>
LinkedIn Ads Statistics
29. As of July 2021, LinkedIn ads could reach 14% of the entire LinkedIn audience.
This was behind household names like Facebook (36.7%) and Instagram (22.6%), reaching a higher audience base with their ads. However, LinkedIn fared better than Snapchat (8.5%) and Twitter (6.5%).
30. Advertisers could reach over 900 million LinkedIn users with ads as of January 2023.
This represented about 17.5% of the internet population or 11.2% of the world’s population.
31. LinkedIn’s ad reach grew by 43 million between Q4 2022 and Q1 2023.
This represented a 5% surge from the previous numbers.
The year-on-year data shows LinkedIn’s ad reach recorded a 92 million growth.
32. 25–34-year-old males and females were the largest LinkedIn advertising audience as of January 2023.
The males in this age range accounted for 34.3% of the advertising audience, while females took 25.7%.
| Age Range | Males | Females |
|---|---|---|
| 18-24 | 12% | 9.7% |
| 25-34 | 34.3% | 25.7% |
| 35-54 | 9% | 6.4% |
| 55+ | 1.9% | 1% |
33. LinkedIn ads could reach 84.3% of the UAE’s 18+ population as of January 2023.
In the top three were the USA (75.4%) and Singapore (72%).
Conversely, the bottom three saw countries like Japan (3.2%), China (5.3%), and Nigeria (6.7%).
LinkedIn Revenue & Spending Statistics
While this was behind Facebook for the year (58%), brands spending most of their social marketing budget on LinkedIn grew from 18% in 2021.
Conversely, those spending most of their social media marketing budgets on Facebook slumped from 66% in 2021.
But both platforms fall behind the dominant Instagram and Facebook, which would see 27% and 19% of social media marketers (respectively) flock to influencers on those platforms.
<a href="https://vpnalert.com/resources/linkedin-statistics/" target="_blank" data-wpel-link="internal"><img src="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/social-media-marketers-work-with-influencers.png" alt="Statistics on Social Media Marketers That Plan to Work With Influencers" width="768" border="0" height="547.91914387634" loading="lazy" fetchpriority="low" srcset="https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/social-media-marketers-work-with-influencers-768x548.png 768w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/social-media-marketers-work-with-influencers-300x214.png 300w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/social-media-marketers-work-with-influencers-1024x730.png 1024w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/social-media-marketers-work-with-influencers-1536x1096.png 1536w, https://vpnalert.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/social-media-marketers-work-with-influencers.png 1682w" sizes="auto"></a>
It got an 11% share, putting it ahead of sixth-placed Twitter (6%).
Other LinkedIn Statistics
37. Ariana Huffington was the most followed woman on LinkedIn in January 2023, with 10.2 million followers.
Melinda French Gates came second with 7.22 million followers, and Brene Brown joined them in the top three with a 3.9 million follower count.
38. As of January 2023, Bill Gates had the most (36.1 million) LinkedIn followers.
Richard Branson came closest with his 19.77 million follower tally.
In third place was Jeff Weimer, boasting 10.75 million followers at the time.
39. #India had over 67 million LinkedIn followers as of January 2023.
This made it the most followed hashtag on LinkedIn, gathering over 1.7x more followers than #Innovation (38.6 million) and #Management (35.8 million).
Get LinkedIn
Leverage these statistics to connect with the top brands, key decision makers, and influencers in your chosen career path to be linked into their network today.
And if you have a product/service to market on the platform, you now know how LinkedIn ads may perform and how marketers rate it alongside other platforms.
Since LinkedIn users can also be found on other social media, it becomes crucial to uncover new insights via our Twitter statistics, Reddit statistics, Facebook statistics, YouTube statistics roundup, and general social media statistics articles.
- https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/articles/b2b-power-content-marketing-research/
- https://www.hootsuite.com/resources/blog/social-media-trends-2022
- https://website.ornico.co.za/2022/06/29/social-media-landscape-2022/
- https://influencermarketinghub.com/influencer-marketing-benchmark-report-2022/
- https://www.meltwater.com/en/global-digital-trends
- https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/hubspot-blog-social-media-marketing-report
