Think about any social media platform. You probably thought of Facebook, Instagram, or even TikTok — after all, these are some of the most popular channels worldwide. Yet, there’s another prolific site with more than 740 million users that people tend not to correlate with social media, despite having a similar purpose: Linkedin. Brands are beginning to maximise their reach through the inclusion of Linkedin in their marketing campaigns. A networking platform comprising mostly professionals, there lies a deep well of untapped potential for building communities, establishing credibility, and promoting new strategies.
In this article, we’ll take a deeper look at Linkedin and how brands utilise it for social media marketing — you could use this as a source of inspiration for your next marketing campaign!
Functioning primarily as a network building platform, Linkedin still works as a social media site in essence, albeit with a more professional community. Where marketing strategies often aim to build brand awareness and generate leads, Linkedin is fantastic for this due to its more niche audience, and could be golden particularly for B2B companies. Here are a few reasons why.
You may ask, isn’t it a bad idea to target a niche audience? Wouldn’t platforms with a high number of users like Facebook and Instagram be better to reach more potential customers? You’re not wrong, but this niche audience is precisely why B2B marketers—94% of them to be precise—use Linkedin as their main channel for content marketing. With a high degree of executives using this platform (40 million are in decision-making positions), it’s the likeliest way for you to get the most conversions with many of them in one place.
Most brands would like to demonstrate their business as a leader within their industry, equipped with relevant knowledge not just to benefit their own company, but also provide advice to new entrants and interested entrepreneurs. This is particularly because it establishes credibility and authority to your brand, and with Linkedin, you’re in luck. Compared to sites like Instagram and Twitter, most users on Linkedin already have the intention to view professional and educational content from the moment they open the app. This makes it much easier to push more professional content such as articles about your industry without it coming across like a hard sell. Users are more likely to read through and watch your content since they’re not primarily looking for quick entertainment.
Whether you’re looking for brands to collaborate with or to connect with your audience on a deeper level, you can trust that Linkedin is just the right platform to do so. The site’s features makes dialogue and discourse accessible to all, enabling you to form relationships both with other brands and your consumers in the long run.
Well-prepared brands approach every social media platform with a game plan already in mind. Here are a few methods businesses have used to achieve their marketing objectives.
Sharing your brand’s story. Regardless of where users lie on your organisation’s marketing funnel, they all need to know what your brand is about. From the problem your brand solves to the values your business stands for, sharing this information is crucial for users to relate to your brand. The more they do, the higher the chances of them eventually buying into your brand. With regards to sharing your brand’s story, you might want to consider achieving this via video: they generate about three times the engagement of text posts on average.
Collaborating with Linkedin influencers and brand ambassadors. Since Linkedin is widely regarded as a professional online space, influencers on the platform can be said to be highly trusted brand ambassadors, as users trust these influencers since they too are knowledgeable about their respective industries. As their opinions and endorsements are respected, partnerships with these individuals can drive more traffic to your brand with a wider audience. These partnerships can also promote your business’ webinars or products and services in addition to your brand.
Sharing the inner workings of your brand. Behind the scenes content is a great way to heighten brand awareness and recognition in an authentic way. Some forms of content could be employee testimonials, interviews, and revealing the corporate culture in your business. This humanises your business through involving your employees, activating them as brand advocates and ambassadors. Where employees are 14 times more likely to share content from their employers than other content on Linkedin, this can be especially effective for this platform.
Boosting user-generated content. Most brands with a loyal following should already see fans already creating some content of their own regarding the brand, whether they’re reviews or testimonials. Often, sharing this boosts engagement more so than others as fans are encouraged to create more content for the chance to be shared online, too.
Establishing authority with thought leadership. Most users on Linkedin look to this platform as a way to keep in touch with the industry and receive advice about their career. This opens up an opportunity for brands to post content related to their brand and industry, offering advice and insight to other professionals. Through asking thought-provoking questions and prompting discussion, you can increase engagement while establishing credibility as the center of industry discourse.
Though sometimes overlooked, Linkedin is a fantastic avenue to achieve your marketing goals, building brand awareness, engagement, and identity among professionals on the site.
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