Top 10 LinkedIn statistics every marketer should know in 2021

Our LinkedIn statistics inform you who is using the platform, what they are talking about, and what they are using it for, which in turn, help you understand how to maximize its capabilities.

A wise man once said: “Knowledge is power”. There is so much potential to LinkedIn that the only way to fully grasp it is to understand its users, features, and functionalities.

In 2020, LinkedIn saw tremendous growth in usage, signup, content, and hours spent on the page. LinkedIn has quickly become the most popular and most crowded platform for professionals around the world. In our previous carousel: 8 tips to hack your LinkedIn presence, we showed you how to optimize your profile and establish your personal branding. For this carousel, we present to you insightful LinkedIn statistics in 2020 that will help you plan for your 2021 marketing and business strategies. 

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1. LinkedIn reports over 772 million users spread over 200 countries, 50 million companies. The top 5 countries with the highest number of members are the United States (170 million members), India (70 million members), China (60 million members), Brazil (45 million members), and the United Kingdom (29 million members) (source: LinkedIn and Statista)

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2. 25-34 year olds is the predominant demographic of the LinkedIn population, accounting for 59.9%. As of October 2020, the LinkedIn user base skewed slightly male, with women accounting for only 42.5% of the users (source: Hootsuite/We are social).

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3. 90 million LinkedIn users are senior-level influencers. 63 million in decision-making positions. 17 million opinion leaders, and 10 million c-level executives. It’s no wonder that LinkedIn is such an effective channel for B2B marketing. If you haven’t already, establish your LinkedIn strategies to capture these important decision-makers for your business (source: LinkedIn).

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4. Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a huge rise in LinkedIn usage for content distribution, networking, and skill development. LinkedIn reported a 437% year-over-year increase in LinkedIn Live streams, a 55% year-over-year increase in conversations among connections, and 1 million hours of LinkedIn Learning content watched each week (source: LinkedIn).

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5. Despite the content growth, only 1% of users post content weekly. Although 91% of executives rank LinkedIn as their number one source for high-quality and relevant content (source: LinkedIn).

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6. Hubspot observed viral posts on LinkedIn and concluded that the highest-traffic topics on the platform were: infotainment video, how-to posts, personal stories, data-driven discoveries, and posts that challenged the conventional wisdom. Other notable content includes posts about personal failure, heart-warming stories, relatable humor, questions posts, and ask me anything posts (source: Hubspot).

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7. Wanna know what people are talking about on LinkedIn? Finding Tom has identified the top 20 hashtags that were insanely popular on LinkedIn, which also translated to the types of topics that people and companies were most interested in (source: Findingtom).

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1. #Innovation – 38,600,000
2. #Management – 36,000,000
3. #DigitalMarketing – 27,500,000
4. #Technology – 26,100,000
5. #Entrepreneurship – 22,700,000
6. #Marketing – 19,900,000
7. #Socialmedia – 19,700,000
8. #Branding – 18,100,000
9. #Personaldevelopment – 14,700,000
10. #Sustainability – 13,200,000
11. #Travel – 7,000,000
12. #Fundraising – 5,800,000
13. #Sales – 5,700,000
14. #Law – 5,500,000
15. #Culture – 4,700,000
16. #Fashion – 4,200,000
17. #Networking – 3,400,000
18. #Business – 3,300,000
19. #Health – 2,100,000
20. #Storytelling – 470,000

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8. Find your business and content inspirations with Omr’s lists of most followed influencers on LinkedIn (source: omr).

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1. Bill Gates (Microsoft, Co-Founder) – 28.1 million
2. Richard Branson (Founder, Virgin Group) – 17.33 million
3. Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn, Executive Chairman) – 10.76 million
4. Ariana Huffington (Huffington Post, Founder) – 9.2 million
5. Satya Nadella (Microsoft, CEO) – 7.95 million
6. Jack Welch (Executive Chairman, The Jack Welch Management Institute) – 7.28 million
7. Mark Cuban (Tech Entrepreneur) – 6.19 million
8. Tony Robbins (Author & Personal Coach) – 5.81 million
9. Deepak Chopra (Author and Founder, Chopra Foundation) – 5.73 million
10. Daniel Goleman (Psychologist & Journalist) – 5.46 million

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9. The top 5 growing industries as of 2020 (source: LinkedIn Sales Navigator: advanced search filters).

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1. Information Technology and Services (20M+)
2. Retail (11M+)
3. Financial Services (11M+)
4. Computer Software (9M+)
5. Marketing and Advertising (8M+)

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10. Top 5 growing functions in a company (source: LinkedIn Sales Navigator: advanced search filters).

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1. Operations (60M+) – This result may include C-level executives, managing directors, and people in operation positions.
2. Business Development (47M+)
3. Sales (34M+)
4. Education (30M+)
5. Engineering (28M+)

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Bonus! We think the list of most-followed persons on LinkedIn is rather male-heavy, so we would like to bring some women voices with our lists of female influencers from different industries. In no particular order:

Katie Mitchell 

Sara Blakely

Virginia Bautista

Chaniqua (Nikki) Ivey

Camille Trent

Mita Mallick

Christine Tao

Carla Harris

Chip Huyen

Deborrah Ashley, MBA

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What do you think of our picks for the top 10 LinkedIn statistics for your 2021 strategy? Follow Sisu Digital for more LinkedIn numbers, hacks, and optimization.