The Belgian LinkedIn? Monitor (2.0) - February 2024

The year is off to a flying start.? Thirty-one days gone and 335 to go… Last November, LinkedIn announced it crossed the billion-member milestone, but since then, no new number has been released.? We are now around the 1.010 billion mark (provided that progress is still stable).

We closed the year with over 200 “new” features and updates in 2023, and I wonder what we can look forward to in 2024.? I bet you that video, AI, and premium will play a big role this year.

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Now, back to the Belgian LinkedIn Monitor in January of 2024.? Highlights are:

·??????? A further drop in the number of people posting on LinkedIn

·??????? A drop in advertising cost

·??????? A slow start to new features being announced or even discovered

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In today’s Newsletter, I will also take a look at the Netherlands, which is considered the Kings and Queens of LinkedIn, but are they losing a bit of their status?

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As a reminder, the reason for this Newsletter is still the same :

• People attending my course keep asking what a Belgian, European and even worldwide LinkedIn user looks like
• There are many contradicting numbers out there. I hope the numbers I put out consistently bring some order and continuity to the platform.

Note: The sources that I am using are the LinkedIn website (news), Sales Navigator, LinkedIn Advertising, and the free/standard version of LinkedIn.

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Overall numbers

The worldwide counter stands are one billion+ members.? For Belgium, that number is now 4.67 million members in the free version of LinkedIn, 4M+ in Sales Navigator, and 5.2 million in the ad module (the 500K non-Belgian based people available through ads because their location sets them in Belgium).

?The Netherlands has 11 million members on the free version, while the ad module provides us with 12 million targets in the Netherlands.

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Let’s focus on Belgium first.

For the second month in a row, the number of people posting in Belgium has dropped significantly.? There have been less than 100.000 people posting in the last 30 days!? Dropping the activity level down to a mere 2.06%!? This is alarming given the trend we are on.? This level has been the lowest ever since I started tracking the number!

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When we look at the job changers, we remain stable at the 1.28% level.

To round?off the statistics, the number of job openings has gone up to nearly 99K jobs, which is a positive sign and will impact the number of job changers in the future months

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The BeNE comparison of a LinkedIn member

As a reminder, I want to share what a Belgian LinkedIn member looks like.

Let’s turn our attention to the Dutch LinkedIn member…

• Regarding age groups, it's in line with Belgium. However, the biggest difference seems to be in the 25-34-year-old category, which is less dominant in the Netherlands vs Belgium.
• When it comes to gender, there is even less difference
• The Netherlands is known for its population concentration in the Randstad (39% of all profiles).? The rest is evenly spread over North and South Holland.
• Moving down to the seniority levels, the biggest difference lies in the “Owners” category.? I assume there are more self-employed (ZZP) in the Netherlands than in Belgium.
• Time to move to function level.? The Dutch have been known to be a trading nation, and that also comes out of the functions because they have more salespeople (percentage-wise) than Belgium.? There are also more operational people.? The rest of the functions are on par with the distribution in Belgium.
• When it comes to industries, Education, and hospitals, stand out in comparison to Belgium.? For the rest, it is aligned to Belgium.
• Where the Netherlands is entirely different from Belgium is the languages on LinkedIn.? A massive 63% of the users have a Dutch profile! English is the 2nd language, but nearly no other languages are being used.

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Taking a quick look at the overall KPIs for January, the Dutch have an activity level of 2.75% (representing 300K people posting), which is remarkably low compared to the 8%+ of a few years ago!? Another remarkable number is the fact that 1.73% of job changes were announced in the last 90 days (vs 1.28% in Belgium).? I assume that is where the ZZP status comes in.? Finally, there are 370.000 open jobs vs the 100.000 in Belgium.

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Advertising trends on LinkedIn

I am seeing a severe decrease in the costs compared to previous months.? December was a monster when it came to advertising costs.? In early January, things went back to normal, and on February 1, we are seeing these numbers drop even further.? Remember, this is a standard data set (sales, marketing, finance, and HR) that I have been using for the last few years and where I looked at the suggested bids for CPC and CPM.

Advertizing drop image

In terms of actual costs to reach specific audiences, the test group being used showed the following results:

Sponsored Content in a CPC scenario is under the 5.€ mark (except for HR).? The CPM has dropped to under 18€ (except for HR)!

I have decided to add the High and Low bid fork as provided by LinkedIn.

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What did January 2024 yield as new features?

?In all honesty, even though new things are spotted in the wild, most of these items are minor changes.? Here are the ones that stand out:

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You can now add more than 100 skills (before it was limited to 50) to your profile.

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Adding or updating your profile picture just became simpler.? You can now take a profile picture on your desktop or mobile to add immediately to your profile.

Finally, we are seeing hashtags becoming less and less critical across LinkedIn.? We can still use them, but their weight in the algo is disappearing quickly.

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Final words

I hope you enjoyed the content of this month's newsletter and the last four years. I look forward to producing this for the 5th year in a row!

If you want me to pull this type of report together for your country or industry, please drop me a line. If you have any questions about the numbers, drop me a line.

If you have any suggestions about improvements or other numbers you want me to include, please mention them in the comments.