Forging a stronger link

● New guidelines will help grow trust and engagement

- CHRISTINA MONIZ

■ LINKEDIN HAS MORE than 1 billion members from 200 countries, with 148-million-plus from India alone.

■ LinkedIn Conversation Ads have an average open rate of around 50%, which is higher than the industry average of 21%. This is higher than the open rate for even traditional email marketing.

■ As per Content Marketing Institute's "Outlook for 2025" survey, B2B marketers consistently cite LinkedIn as the social media platform that delivers the best value for their organisation. Eighty-five percent of the respondents to its survey this year say LinkedIn delivers the best value, followed by 28% who say Facebook, 22% who cite YouTube, and 21% who say Instagram. Only 7% mention Twitter (now X) and 3% say TikTok, with responses nearly identical to the previous survey.

Put together, these insights point at the growing importance of LinkedIn as a marketing tool. However, LinkedIn influencers were not on the industry's watchdog, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI)'s radar till recently.

In the week of January 6, ASCI recorded 60 influencer violations on the Microsoft-owned platform.