Live blogging at Social Media World, 2016. “How to Create a Content Marketing Tactical Plan for LinkedIn” by Alexander Rynne and Jason Miller (staff members at LinkedIn) was the official title of this session. They kicked it off with a restatement of LinkedIn’s value proposition: all the world’s professionals in one place.
LINKEDIN: ONE OF THE BIG SOCIAL MEDIA DESTINATIONS
Our digital lives converge on the ‘big’ destinations such as Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, etc. LinkedIn has a key niche, just as would Twitter or Amazon. (Editorial Aside: This is sort of obvious at this point – everyone knows that LinkedIn is THE place for professionals, and to reach professionals, especially B2B and the more technical professions).
Another editorial aside: That said, the challenge on LinkedIn is that
- many people are there, just to search for jobs.
- many busy, professional people don’t have time to check their ‘news feed’ on LinkedIn
- content creation and crowding: there is a lot of content on LinkedIn, including Pulse, and those folks who are actually on LinkedIn are looking for quality content. How do you stand out?
LINKEDIN: TRYING TO MOVE BEYOND JOB SEARCH
That said, LinkedIn is clearly trying to transition to becoming THE place for professional news, information, and learning. (It’s not there yet, but they’re trying hard to make this happen – hence the acquisition of Lynda.com).
More than 1/2 of LinkedIn’s traffic is also heavily mobile. The LinkedIn app has been refreshed in a new and easy way. So, it’s a content opportunity to reach not just job-seekers but those who already have jobs but want to keep up-to-date with industry news, trends, and announcements.
CONTENT OPPORTUNITIES ON LINKEDIN
Here are the content opportunities on LinkedIn that Ms. Rynne and Mr. Miller identified:
First, there are LinkedIn Company and Showcase Pages. Here is where your company can build a Page to showcase your company. Showcase Pages are for specific aspects of your company. You should share informative content about your company, not just quotes but also statistics and in-depth content. Be sure to not just promote your own content but also promote the content of others. All of this helps with brand awareness, lead awareness, thought leadership, and even registration such as a real-world event or perhaps a webinar.
Second, Linkedin SlideShare is an important opportunity. It’s the most underutilized platform related to LinkedIn. Rather than think about it as a stale platform for your old PowerPoint slides, think of it as a platform for business-to-business, professional ‘visual’ storytelling. SlideShare (believe it or not) is among the top 100 most visited websites in the world. Opportunities include infographics, video (both on YouTube and SlideShare), and other informative items for ‘thought leadership.’ Among metrics are how much your content is accessed, but be sure to pay attention to how much of this traffic YOU generate vs. content that’s endogenously being generated. SlideShare has its own metrics dashboard, as well, which is integrated with LinkedIn, so you can see their profiles as well. (For those who have a profile, you can highlight this, directly, on LinkedIn). Tip: new tool is called ‘clipping tool,’ which is sort of like Pinterest for SlideShare.
Third, publishing on LinkedIn is the third opportunity. More than 1 million users on LinkedIn are publishing over 130,000 pieces of content a week. That said, it’s both good and bad news. Good, in that people are using LinkedIn; bad, in that LinkedIn, like all networks LinkedIn is increasingly cluttered with content (not all of it good). One useful fact is that on LinkedIn, as opposed to open networks like Google+ or Twitter, there are few (if any) fake profiles and hence fewer ‘trolls’ and other negative interactions. LinkedIn Pulse, of course, is a great opportunity. Check out the editorial calendar, here, and by tagging your posts with the Pulse editorial ‘theme of the month,’ you have a better chance of being featured on Pulse. Don’t forget to tweet to the folks at Pulse (https://twitter.com/LinkedInPulse) with the word ‘tip’ so that they have a chance to see it, too. In terms of metrics, you as a person or a company can see views, likes, shares, etc., of your content (true both for Pulse and for shared updates).
LINKEDIN ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITIES
LinkedIn would love to sell you on advertising on the platform. Just be aware that most of these opportunities (all?) are reserved only for brand pages and are not available to individual profiles. You can learn more about LinkedIn advertising, here.
Note: you can access the official LinkedIn slides from this presentation, here. And you can follow LinkedIn Marketing via their Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/LinkedInMktg.
