Why Do Most Companies and Brands Fail to Monetize Their Presence on LinkedIn?
Of course, we cannot generalize by pointing to a single root cause, but two common issues often arise: lack of visibility and lack of engagement. These two problems feed into each other, ultimately leading to poor commercial performance on LinkedIn.
The Underlying Reality
Behind this lack of visibility, engagement, and commercial effectiveness lies a fundamental truth: people are naturally more interested in connecting with other people rather than with companies or brands. This is partly because we instinctively assume that companies always have a commercial agenda.
The Common Scenario
Most SMEs on LinkedIn focus their strategy on creating original content to showcase their value proposition, expertise, or daily operations. As with everything, there are varying degrees of effectiveness. Some companies successfully provide real value to their followers, while others take a heavily sales-driven approach in their posts.
To assess the effectiveness of a company’s LinkedIn strategy, we can track three key metrics:
- The number of people who see our organic posts (visibility).
- The number of followers on our page (visibility).
- The number of reactions our posts receive, which indicates how engaging they are (interaction).
Remember, visibility and engagement reinforce each other.
A crucial question to ask regarding engagement is:
👉 How many interactions come from people who are not directly connected to our company (employees, family, etc.)?
This is the true measure of a company page’s real engagement.
The Challenge of Organic Reach
Let’s be honest: achieving consistent visibility and engagement is extremely difficult for companies relying solely on organic content. But why is this happening, and what can we do about it?
1. Lack of Visibility
LinkedIn limits the reach of organic posts from company pages. If you want visibility, you’ll have to pay for it. Just like on other social platforms, the era when brands could communicate directly with their entire audience for free is long gone. The channel still exists, but social networks now filter content visibility and require payment to reach even your own followers.
For example, in just five years, the percentage of company page posts appearing in users’ timelines has dropped from 9% to 2%, while the visibility of promoted posts has increased from 14% to 26%.
(by Richard Van Der Blom)
LinkedIn: A Powerful Channel for Targeted Outreach
LinkedIn is a powerful platform for reaching your target audience in a highly segmented way, especially for B2B companies. And yes, by investing in ads, we can strategically boost the visibility of our posts, ensuring they reach only the specific professionals, companies, or industries we want to target.
However, even if we significantly increase visibility, we may still struggle with the second major challenge SMEs face on LinkedIn: a lack of engagement or interest from users who see their posts.
2. Lack of Engagement
People prefer to interact with other people rather than with corporate logos. Who do you think has more followers on LinkedIn—Bill Gates or Microsoft?
Years after stepping away from the company he founded, Bill Gates still has nearly twice as many followers as Microsoft.
Beyond Followers: The Power of Engagement
It’s not just about the number of followers or connections. If we analyze engagement rates—the real measure of interest sparked by LinkedIn posts—we’ll see that Bill Gates significantly outperforms Microsoft. His posts generate far more engagement than those of the company he founded.
People naturally have a much higher chance of success in their personal digital strategy compared to brands. This is largely due to our innate preference for connecting with individuals rather than corporate entities.
What Are the Alternatives?
A lack of visibility and engagement often leads to poor conversion rates. In other words, companies struggle to generate commercial interest that translates into real business opportunities.
So, knowing these challenges, what alternatives do we have?
- To increase visibility, companies can leverage paid advertising to promote their content in a highly targeted way. This is an effective strategy for gaining rapid exposure, but it may not be a sustainable long-term solution.
- To increase engagement, companies must focus on creating truly differentiated content. Let’s be honest—marketing professionals often talk about “adding value” and “contributing to the community,” but these goals are much easier said than done.
The challenge is only growing, as users are bombarded with an overwhelming volume of new content daily. Much of this content disappears into the noise, failing to capture attention.
However, what consistently proves to be the most effective strategy for visibility and engagement is a combined approach, where a company’s corporate page works in synergy with its employees’ personal LinkedIn profiles, each contributing with their own actions and content.
After all, social networks were created for people to connect—not companies. And in the end, business is driven by people, not brands.
What Do We Mean by a Combined Strategy?
A combined strategy does not mean turning employees into corporate megaphones, mindlessly echoing the brand’s messages. Quite the opposite.
Companies with effective commercial strategies involve multiple people with different roles in their sales and marketing processes. Each person plays a unique role, has a different personality, and specializes in different areas, but together they shape the company’s public perception. A combined strategy simply extends this reality into the digital space.
How to Activate a Combined Company-Employee Strategy on LinkedIn?
- A company page + professionals committed to building their personal brand while amplifying the company’s digital presence. This strategy can also work without a company page by leveraging the digital presence of multiple professionals from the same organization.
- Genuine commitment from participating team members. No one should be forced into it or approach it with skepticism.
- A clear action plan agreed upon by the company and its professionals—defining each person’s role, expertise, and tone while allowing for personal autonomy within a shared strategy.
- AUTHENTICITY (in all caps). Each participant must stay true to their unique perspective, work style, and industry insights.
- Expertise & Knowledge Sharing. Participants should contribute real insights and experience to the community.
- Consistency. Personal branding experts agree: LinkedIn success requires relentless consistency.
- Tools & Resources. Companies should support employees in content creation—not dictate or impose what they should post. Forced content undermines authenticity.
- Proactivity. Social networks reward those who go the extra mile, not those who simply check the box.
- Two-way interaction. Participants must genuinely engage with their network’s content. The worst approach is to use LinkedIn only for broadcasting messages and then disappearing.
Moving Beyond a Sales-Driven Approach
On social media, overtly sales-focused content is ineffective—in a combined strategy or anywhere else. Users don’t want to be sold to; they prefer to control their own buying journey. When they need something, they know exactly where to find it.
There are no shortcuts or magic formulas. Implementing a combined strategy won’t automatically flood your inbox with leads—just like sending sales reps into the field doesn’t guarantee sales.
However, companies that combine their corporate presence with active, engaged professionals who provide value and establish themselves as industry thought leaders see the highest return on LinkedIn. Coincidence?
The Mindset Shift: From Promotion to Conversation & Humanization
At the core of LinkedIn success is a shift in mindset: from self-promotion to meaningful conversations, and from corporate messaging to authentic human interaction.