The Belgian LinkedIn Monitor (2.0) - May 2023

Just a few days before LinkedIn celebrates its 20th anniversary. Time for the update of the monthly barometer for LinkedIn usage in Belgium called the Belgian LinkedIn Monitor.?Though it seems that there are few changes, LinkedIn is still moving upward and forward.

Through these numbers, we can better understand LinkedIn usage by Belgian?members and we will also be taking a look at our neighbors.

The Belgian LinkedIn Member

LinkedIn has announced the community has grown to 930 million members and is on course to 1 billion by the end of the year or Q1/2024.

With this progress, we are also seeing the Belgian community grow to 4.3M members.

We are seeing a 7% growth year-over-year growth for LinkedIn in Belgium

In terms of the activity levels, we are seeing a drop in both the posters and the job changers in the last 90 days.?The levels for both KPIs have dropped to the average level.

The good news is that 210K Belgians created content in the last 30 days.?We dropped again below 5% again.

In terms of job changers, we are seeing a similar trend dropping under again. But still above the 4 annual average.

The good news is that the OPEN JOBS remain stable 83K.

The overall profile of the Belgian member has not changed much and I will be coming back to that in a later edition.

Here is a profile of the Belgian LinkedIn member:

• The 25-35 age group still dominates LinkedIn with over 57%!
• The balance between men and women remains the same on LinkedIn. There are still 11% of members that do not state their gender
• Flanders is by far the farming ground for LinkedIn.
• There are 34% Dutch profiles, 32% French, and 31% English profiles
• 38% of the members are between Entry and Senior which are the 2 next categories
• Sales outperform Operations when it comes to functions while Professional Services outperform Manufacturing

So how do we compare with our neighbors

The latest numbers in terms of membership are

The growth in our neighboring countries is about double the growth of Belgium growth.

When it comes to activity levels, the Dutch wear the crown!?Both in posting and job changer(s, the Dutch are the most active.?As Belgians, we are roughly at the same level as our neighbors.

When it comes to OPEN jobs, Belgium lags behind.?Note that both Germany and France are around 1 million jobs on LinkedIn!

So overall, Belgium is in the peloton together with its neighbors chasing the Dutch.

Advertising on LinkedIn

As I have mentioned before, I have created some simple test scenarios around 4 audiences (Sales, Marketing, Finance, and HR). As this evolves the number constantly changes and turns out to be very dependent on the actual desire by companies to sponsor content to specific audiences.?I look at what LinkedIn proposes as budgets (based on their experience) for both CPC (Clicks to the Website) and CPM (Impressions)

The audience sizes are 540K in Sales, 170K in Finance, 150K in marketing and 82K in HR.

The conclusions are pretty simple

• CPM varies between 26€ and 31€ in Belgium.
• Note 1: Over the last month the CPM has increased by about 1€ in Belgium meaning there might be more ads being bought
• CPC varies between 6.50€ and 7.50€ in Belgium
• Note 2: In Belgium, we also see an increase of 0.5€ in the CPC for all audiences possibly confirming the statement made in Note 1
• The cheapest target group?in Belgium continues to be Sales while HR remains the most expensive one.

Remember with more and better targeting the results can be seriously improved but for the sake of future comparisons, I need to stick to a fixed scenario.

New on LinkedIn in March 23

Since LinkedIn does not have a formal announcement board for new features, I continue to rely on my discoveries as well as other sources such as?Kevin D. Turner's? and?posts from my network. ?LinkedIn Blogs sometimes reveal new features and functions.

?This month’s list includes but is limited to these:

1. One of the novelties coming is the fact that ALL premium members will be able to add a link to their LinkedIn profile page.

2. Five Skills can now be added to the ABOUT section of your profile

3. LinkedIn is now rolling out the new Status Update layout to more members

4. With the new Status Update layout also comes the drag and drop of images into your post saving time when creating these posts

Final words

I hope you enjoyed the content, of this month's newsletter If you would like me to pull this type of report together for your country, do not hesitate to drop me a line. If you have any questions about the numbers, drop me a line.

Any suggestions about improvements or other numbers you want me to include, please do mention them in the comments.