LinkedIn is often considered to be a ‘professional networking’ site - an online space primarily reserved for recruiters and job seekers. However, LinkedIn has quickly evolved into a thriving social network that not only serves as a recruitment tool, but also an engagement tool for brands and businesses.
As marketers begin to understand LinkedIn’s potential the site is becoming an important social channel where content marketing teams can leverage their brand and create meaningful relationships with their target audience. According to Maximize Social Business, LinkedIn traffic is overtaking Facebook and is quickly catching up to Twitter. “But more importantly we are seeing that the traffic that comes from LinkedIn has a lower bounce rate and longer time on our site,” explains Lilach Bullock, “therefore the quality of the traffic from LinkedIn is higher.”
With 380 million users worldwide, an average of 2 new members per second, and 187 million unique monthly visitors, marketers need to incorporate LinkedIn into their content strategy and learn how to leverage their brand through this thriving social network. Below we’ve compiled three quick and actionable tips for brands looking to use LinkedIn to take their content marketing strategy to the next level.
Today brands must earn, not buy the audience’s attention explains industry expert Josh Hopkins. In order to grow the upper funnel brands need to build relationships with their audience and put a human face on the company. LinkedIn is a great way to establish a connection between prospective clients and the real people behind your brand.
Most brands maintain a Company Page on LinkedIn where they build a presence, share company updates, and drive brand engagement with the audience. In addition to these benefits, Company Pages also present the unique opportunity to humanize your brand. Connecting with the audience is about more than just posting information about your company, it’s about giving audiences a better understanding of the people behind the brand and a glimpse into the company culture. “If your employees aren’t talking, you might as well be invisible,” says LinkedIn Executive Editor Daniel Roth.
LinkedIn recommends “flexing your company’s collective network” by encouraging employees to become active on your company LinkedIn page. “Not only will this increase your company’s visibility to new customers and potential hires,” explains Davis Schneider of LinkedIn, “it will help establish a company culture where employees are engaged with the brand and contributing to a single mission.” Encourage employees across all departments to get active on the LinkedIn Company Profile by adding the company to their personal profile and commenting on company news and updates.
2. Create a Hub of Information
Don’t let your LinkedIn Company Page stand alone. Instead, turn it into a hub of information where your audience can gain access to all of your active social channels. Make sure your LinkedIn page is connected to all of your online properties such as your website and social media channels to that you can create more opportunities for people to find you and connect.
Link content that is performing well on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Google+ to your LinkedIn profile so that you can create a rich resource of continually updating high-quality information on your Company Page. This doesn’t mean that every Tweet or Facebook post should be directed to the LinkedIn page. Spend some time choosing the content atoms that performed well and are the most relevant to your company and its message. To increase engagement make sure you choose posts with links, images, or video content.
3. Take Advantage of LinkedIn’s Perks
LinkedIn has a number of great tools that marketers can use to both increase audience engagement and their status as a thought leader in their respective community. We’ve already outlined the benefits of becoming an active member in LinkedIn groups. However, another great way to leverage your brand is to take advantage of LinkedIn’s ‘Showcase Pages’ feature.
The Showcase Page is an extension of your Company Page “designed for spotlighting a brand, business unit, or initiative.” Brands and companies can share content with a targeted audience and provide more in-depth information on a specific campaign or aspect of the business. This is especially useful for brands that have diverse audiences who don’t respond to the same messaging or marketing techniques. Creating Showcase Pages ensures that a brand’s marketing efforts are reaching the right people with the most effective message, and can help develop relationships and increase engagement.
Demodia has put together a list of the brands that have some of the best Showcase Pages on LinkedIn. Brands like Adobe, Salesforce, and Microsoft have been using Showcase Pages to target different segments of the audience with information on new products, useful tips, event invitations, and customized video content.