LinkedIn for CMOs - Agorapulse analysis reveals success factors

LinkedIn has become a major platform for business communication, where professionals network and share their knowledge. But how do CMOs, marketing heads of renowned companies, actually use this platform to build their personal brand and spread their messages? Agorapulse, a leader in social media management software, conducted a recent analysis to explore this very question and found exciting insights into CMO behavior on LinkedIn.

In the analysis 24 corporate influencers and CMOs from the DACH region were examined and over 1,500 LinkedIn posts were analyzed. Eight LinkedIn Top Voices were examined in more detail and profiles of 16 CMOs were compared.

Activity and topics beyond the job as key to success on LinkedIn

A key finding of the analysis is that activity is the key to success and goes hand in hand with high user interest. Both the most successful Top Voices and the CMOs, who had high engagement on average, were extremely active on LinkedIn. Even occasional activity on the part of CMOs was rewarded with a high number of interactions. This illustrates the value of investing time and effort on LinkedIn.

Furthermore, there were differences in the main topics covered by CMOs compared to Top Voices. While CMOs write mainly about marketing, e-commerce and startups, successful Top Voices focus on topics such as diversity and gender equality. Accordingly, articles that dealt with current social issues achieved better results than those that dealt exclusively with job-related topics. This underscores the importance of relevant and timely content on LinkedIn. This knowledge, in combination with the Algorithm adjustment at LinkedIn, should encourage person brands on LinkedIn (and those who want to become one) to show social posturing on the one hand and informative sharing on the other.

Link and text contributions can pay off

In addition to choosing the right topic, the post type can also be crucial. The analysis showed that link posts and text posts work particularly well for people brands and can be a good complement to images and videos. CMOs should therefore use different formats to present their messages in a varied way and attract the attention of the target group.

Anja Olivieri, Regional Manager DACH at Agorapulse, emphasizes the importance of LinkedIn for CMOs: "LinkedIn is often not yet used by CMOs, or only sporadically. However, our data shows that the effort is worthwhile and that they often receive very positive feedback. We would like to encourage Marketing Managers:inside to share more relevant topics on LinkedIn beyond their job. This can make LinkedIn an important communication channel for them and their company or brand."

Swiss Nicholas Hänny leads by example

The founder of the Fair fashion brand Nikin published an average of 20 articles per month during the period analyzed. This makes him by far the most active CMO among those we studied - in second place is Jürgen Kornmann, CMO of Deutsche Bahn. This activity is rewarded. By posting regularly, Nicholas Hänny has been able to build up a considerable community of over 20,000 followers and receives an average of almost 250 interactions per post.

The most successful Post von Hänny underlines the above Findings on how to post, because here he takes a clear position. In the September 2022 post, he writes that the destruction of returns should be banned - he's right! Almost 3,000 people agree with this. The complete analysis - including Word Clouds and engagement rates - can be downloaded free of charge from Agorapulse can be downloaded.