LinkedIn is gradually becoming a hub for professional
content. 1.5 million publishers are
actively using LinkedIn “Share” button on their sites to send content into the
LinkedIn platform. There were 184 million unique visitors worldwide to LinkedIn
in Q3 of 2013. According to a recent survey, “Content Managers spend 8 hours
each week consuming professionally relevant content. 61% of them consider that
professional content is necessary for success. 91% of them are using it weekly
for professionally relevant content vs. 64% for online news sites and only 29%
for Twitter and 27% for Facebook.”
Some quick facts about LinkedIn marketing:
Unique content: Create
content that sparks the discussion. Increase the frequency of updates and
publish unique content via LinkedIn. The opportunity to build programs around
LinkedIn leverages content to drive engagement life-cycles and stimulate organic
community building. Members are more likely to share professional content that
builds their professional brands, strengthens their professional networks, or
helps them sell to their networks.
Popular content:
Emphasize on sharing popular content types such as new research, breaking
industry news, case studies, content produced by business leaders, etc.
Sponsored updates:
LinkedIn sponsored updates can increase the visibility of the content by many
folds.
Optimized employee
profile: An optimized employee profile can boost the visibility of the
company and its content in the search results—both on and off the network.
That’s because search engines like Google scour pages and URLs for keywords,
and LinkedIn profiles offer many opportunities to embed keywords, such as
within the LinkedIn URL, other URLs listed on personal profiles, job titles and
descriptions, and content links the profile holder includes.
LinkedIn influencers:
Connect with the LinkedIn influencers. Take advantage of discovery modules
within LinkedIn to help you find more relevant content based on the people
you’re following and the posts you’re reading.
Display ads: Make
use of LinkedIn Premium Display Advertising and integrate display ads.
Follow company ads:
Use “Follow Company Ads” to deliver personalized messages on the homepages of your
target audience, establishing the relevance of your business to these members
and building your Follower audience.
Make use of “Pulse”:
Using LinkedIn Pulse, access full articles and rich graphics, from a wealth of
resources and more than 750 publishers. Start liking the most relevant and
share a few periodically.
Showcase pages: With
“Showcase Pages”, you can build a presence and present a unique voice for every
important part of your business. By creating dedicated pages for your more
prominent brands, businesses, and initiatives using “Showcase Pages,” you can
extend your LinkedIn presence.
Attract more
followers: Cultivate a larger following with a multi-channel approach.
Encourage employees to add a link to the company page in their email signatures
and add a Follow button to your website.
Follow the 4-1-1
Rule: The 4-1-1 Rule was coined by Tippingpoint Labs and Joe Pulizzi of the
Content Marketing Institute, originally created for Twitter. It can
successfully be applied to company’s content marketing strategy using LinkedIn.
The rule states: “For every one self-serving tweet, you should retweet one
relevant tweet and most importantly share four pieces of relevant content
written by others.” Instead of constantly bombarding your followers with demos,
webinars, and whitepaper downloads, create a cadence of helpful insights
relevant to your audience.
LinkedIn groups:
Create more focused groups for the services and products category, encourage
members to actively participate, and get aligned for community success.
Track the
success/failure: Keep a track of your “Content Marketing Score” and the
“Trending Content” to qualify your content marketing efforts on LinkedIn.
