It was 20 years ago today…

This LinkedIn Collective post was written by Tom Stein , Chairman and Chief Brand Officer at Stein IAS.

?There are some song lyrics one never forgets. For me, the opening refrain from Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is one of them. The song begins, “It was 20 years ago today…” Its words marked a moment for me as a music lover and aspiring bass player.

Somehow, when I think of LinkedIn turning 20—and when I think just how much change has occurred these past two decades for B2B marketers—I find my way back to these words. Because though I didn’t know it at the time, LinkedIn’s launch in 2003 was another marker for me and for the industry.

Our agency—then Stein, now Stein IAS—had been a digital pioneer, particularly for a B2B agency. We launched our first client website and multichannel digital campaign in the mid ‘90s. We positioned ourselves at the epicenter of the incipient Internet marketing revolution. We expanded massively as a result with the dot-com bubble. (And, in truth, deflated more than a little when it burst!)

But bubble burst aside, as we entered the early aughts, we were more certain than ever that digital was the present and future. And it was. And it is. And right about that time, LinkedIn appeared on the scene.

LinkedIn emerged at a time when marketers were getting more adept at digital, but also sorting through a host of opportunities and complexities. Digital was becoming more and more “the thing.” Marketing automation platforms were just hitting the market. SFDC was rapidly getting traction. Martech was about to become “the next thing.” Content marketing enabled by technology was quickly gaining ground. Social media was starting to bubble up.

I don’t purport to be a historian of these things, but for marketers this was an exciting time. Words like digital, data-driven, automation and measurability became part of the B2B marketing lexicon—it was the birth of Modern Marketing! And LinkedIn became integral to that, finding its way onto our media plans given the audience it convened and the opportunity it provided to target, broad and narrow.

Integral and invaluable

Mind you, this is not a commercial for LinkedIn: it is simply my point of view and one that I know is shared by many. For sure, LinkedIn quickly became a primary aperture in B2B both to build brand visibility and momentum—and to drive demand. It remained a fixture but became increasingly “the fixture” in many plans. And rightly so. Because through the years, LinkedIn had built a massive B2B audience by connecting professionals to professionals and by avoiding the silliness and abuses of other social platforms.

LinkedIn in fact became integral to pretty much all our business lives. And by doing that, LinkedIn became the primary conduit for content in B2B. Which has made it even more integral to our business brands…and our personal ones. That hasn’t changed, but much else has in B2B marketing.

Spanning the brand-to-demand spectrum

From the early aughts to the recent past, B2B marketing became more than a little addicted to front-end metrics and MQLs. To martech and then adtech. To mid- and lower-funnel marketing. By thinking “small,” we sometimes lost the plot—the confidence to place bigger bets, to take measured risks, to swing for the fences when you get a good pitch to hit.

Just as LinkedIn was a force in elevating digital marketing in 2002, it has been on its front foot in understanding the needs and aspirations of B2B marketers in 2023. Today, a community of B2B marketers is bringing brand to the forefront of the industry conversation. They are demonstrating the role of brand in both cultivating and harvesting demand. They are painting from a more vibrant creative palette. They are making brand a pivotal driver of engagement and growth. And LinkedIn is providing the connective tissue.

In reflection, it was 20 years ago today that LinkedIn set out to be home base for B2B. To my good friends across LinkedIn and at The B2B Institute, job well done. But we all know that, for B2B and for LinkedIn, it’s still just the beginning.