LinkedIn is one of the biggest social media platforms out there right now. And, with over 810 million users worldwide, it’s never been more important to have this platform included in your social media strategy.
For the past 19 years, LinkedIn has offered professionals the best place to share their careers and find work opportunities. Over the past couple years, LinkedIn has gone through a transition. Like any social media platform, it is constantly evolving and changing.
LinkedIn seeks to maintain its status as a unique and appealing platform for business professionals to use. However, they are now becoming more socially focused, with a goal to encourage users to share content the same way they would on other platforms.
This change brought with it lots of new opportunities for brands that want to use LinkedIn as a platform to share content.
You may have seen that LinkedIn has been implementing these changes, and you may wonder if it would benefit your brand by creating a solid marketing strategy for its revitalized and more socially-focused platform.
Does this sound like an issue you’re dealing with? Do you want results from LinkedIn but you’re not sure how to get them?
In this article, we’re going to do a deep dive on LinkedIn marketing, and we’ll focus on how you can use its unique features to your advantage.
Why Is LinkedIn Important?
Why Is LinkedIn Important?
With all of the social media platforms out there, it’s hard to really know which ones to focus on. The last thing you want to do is waste your time on a social media platform that will give you nothing in return for your efforts.
You may not be completely convinced about why you should start creating content for LinkedIn. If so, we totally understand where you’re coming from, but there’s something that does set LinkedIn apart from other platforms.
Think about it for a second. What could LinkedIn bring to the table that other social media platforms can’t?
Their community.
LinkedIn is FULL of working professionals and people looking for new job opportunities.
This is a community of people who work in a specific industry.
They want to know about everything in that industry, and they want to share knowledge with like-minded people.
You won’t get a more B2B-focused social media platform than LinkedIn. This is the PERFECT place for your brand to create content if it’s focused on anything B2B related.
That being said, if you’re not in an industry that has anything to do with B2B, then don’t worry. LinkedIn will still be an amazing platform to post and grow on.
Why? Because LinkedIn has been changing sections and adding features that make it as consumer-friendly as other platforms, like Instagram.
Want to start a Livestream to talk with your followers just like you do on Instagram? You can do it on LinkedIn.
Want to know what your followers think of your new product? You can create a poll, just like on Twitter.
LinkedIn has all of the big features you love from other platforms, all integrated into one singular platform.
But, they aren’t just adding features that work on other social media platforms. They are also innovating and adding unique features of their own.
We’re going to break it down for you.
Features Other Social Media Platforms Don’t Have
Features Other Social Media Platforms Don’t Have
There are social media platforms that excel at copying a feature from a competitor and improving it. A good example of this is Instagram. They took what Snapchat did best and added it as a feature.
LinkedIn excels at creating unique features that are very hard to incorporate into a platform like Instagram.
Why? Because these features were created with working professionals in mind. LinkedIn knows exactly what people want and how they prefer to consume content.
People want long-form content that gives them as many details as possible. They don’t want a summary. They want to know the whole story without you having to skip any details. This is something that simply isn’t possible on other social media platforms with their limited word count and specific video ratios.
This is why LinkedIn decided to release these two features we’re about to talk about.
Article Creation Tool
We’re certain that there’s been a time when you’ve wanted to post some really important news about your brand and you couldn’t. Why? Because you reached your character limit on your post.
How lame is that? You have to take out important details that people really need to know about. While you can condense a lot of information, there are times when the details are just too important.
With LinkedIn’s article creation tool, you don’t have to leave any of the information out at all. Actually, you can be as detailed as possible!
You can now log into your LinkedIn account and create a complete article that is as long as you want. Best of all? You don’t need a blog to post it! You can post it directly on your personal account or your business account.
But, you’re probably here because you want to grow your brand’s account, not your personal account. So let’s show where you can find this article creation tool in the first place.
The first thing you’ll want to do is open your business page and search for this section:
As you can see on the right side of the image, there is a button called: “Write article.” Click on that and you’ll instantly be transported to this page right here:
Directly from my LinkedIn account
If you have a blog on your website or if you’ve posted articles on websites like Medium, then this should be a familiar sight.
LinkedIn managed to add a full-blown article creation suite directly into the platform without missing any feature.
While you won’t really use every single one of the features it gives you, you still have the option to choose.
With no real character limit, you can go crazy and explain as much as you want.
You might be thinking right now: “Well, it’s just a regular old blog posting tool,” and you’d be right. But the benefit is that users can access the blog post directly on the platform.
The truth is that LinkedIn doesn’t want its users to leave the app or website to view your blog somewhere else. It wants to make sure that its users stay on the platform as much as possible.
By adding a content creation tool inside the platform, people are a lot more likely to read your article. They can just click the link and start reading in less than a second.
This is why an agency with LinkedIn marketing services would use this article creation tool as often as they can. They know that the best way to get results on social media is by making it as easy as possible for a consumer.
When you consider that 59.1% of users on LinkedIn are between 25-34, you start to understand why convenience is so important. At that age, people are super busy with work, family, and other activities.
This is why having the blog post already on LinkedIn is far more convenient for them.
Newsletters
You’ve probably seen newsletters before. They are most commonly found in your email list though. We’re pretty sure you at least get two or three newsletters per week from a brand you don’t even remember giving your email address to.
Email newsletters have been around for years now. They used to be one of the best forms of marketing back when Google was in its infancy.
Did you know that the average open rates on email newsletters keep getting lower and lower as years go by?
Mailchimp, one of the leading email marketing businesses, said that the average open rate of an email is 22.61%.
While it’s not a terrible open rate, it’s not great. And, the reality is that it’s really easy to miss an email newsletter nowadays, especially when you already have so much stuff already going on.
LinkedIn saw the issues with email newsletters and decided to create a feature that makes newsletters an amazing and easy inclusion on their platform.
Truth be told, LinkedIn newsletters are pretty awesome. All the articles and news you can post on it are uploaded to LinkedIn itself. The newsletters are organized and have a modern look. They have capabilities that email newsletters don’t have.
They send the subscribers a notification alert on their phones, so they are reminded that a newsletter is out and ready for them to read.
Directly from my LinkedIn
Users don’t even have to provide their email. They can follow a newsletter the same way they follow people on social media. This solves the issue of people who don’t like sharing their email with anyone they don’t really know.
So, while that sounds like a really great way to introduce your business to a large group on LinkedIn, how could your users and subscribers exclusively benefit from your LinkedIn newsletter?
For starters, all the subscribers could access all the articles you posted that week on an easy-to-use page. Everything is all in one place.
Remember, you want to make it as easy as possible for a user to consume your content. The easier it is, the more they’ll actually read your articles.
Also, by sending a notification whenever the newsletter goes live, there is a higher chance that your subscribers will go and read at least one article.
So how can you use a LinkedIn newsletter in a way that benefits your brand?
The answer would be to create a call to action (CTA). By adding at least one CTA in every article in your newsletter, there’s a higher chance that someone will click on it.
Even though the newsletter is on LinkedIn and easily accessible, you should still be actively marketing it. If you’ve never used a newsletter before, then here are some tips:
- Make the title of the newsletter clickbaity, but without overdoing it. The same goes for each article you plan on posting in the newsletter. Be careful when you do it though and exercise moderation.
- Publish your newsletter at a reasonable time. Post when you know your target audience would be on a break or at home. Experiment and test different times until you find those that bring you the most engagement.
- Also, don’t forget to invite people to subscribe! All of this work is for nothing if you don’t have any subscribers. Luckily for you, LinkedIn made it really easy to invite people you’re connected with.
While there are more features LinkedIn is known for, like InMail, we think these two are the best ones.
Now, with all of this being said, there is one caveat you must know about when it comes to content creation. And that is that creating content takes a lot of time.
Say, for example, that you’re creating three articles during the week. With the many business responsibilities you already have, this may be a bit too much. You may even have to rethink your strategy. After all, think of all the work you have to do to create content for just one social media platform. What about the other social media platforms out there?
This is why hiring a social media agency that specializes in LinkedIn marketing services may be the best for you. They are equipped with the knowledge and tools to create all the content you need to make your brand stand out. The best part is that they do the work so you don’t have to.
What Can You Expect With LinkedIn Marketing Services?
What Can You Expect With LinkedIn Marketing Services?
The LinkedIn marketing services that each agency offers are different. Many of them offer multiple services, while others may specialize in one service on LinkedIn.
But let’s face the facts. You want to grow on LinkedIn. You want to see your brand flourish and you want people to enjoy your content.
So what services do you need to make that a reality? We’ll show you.
LinkedIn Marketing Strategy
This is a must-have service for any brand looking to scale in 2022. You can’t expect to grow on social media without any goal or strategy in mind.
An agency offering LinkedIn marketing services should offer this regardless of what you’re looking to do with your LinkedIn account.
This particular service is one every single agency should offer automatically. If an agency doesn’t, then we recommend finding a more capable and experienced marketing agency.
LinkedIn Content Creation
After you have a strategy set, the next service you should be looking for is a content creation service. Almost every agency offers this type of service, but not all of them are good.
They should be able to create a content calendar and show you all of the posts they have lined up for your business account. They should also be able to explain what the goal is with all of the content.
If they can’t explain why they are making the content, then why hire them in the first place?
LinkedIn Management
You now have your strategy set and a content calendar ready with posts, but now what? Well, we would suggest you find a LinkedIn management service that can help you publish and interact with other accounts.
This service helps you focus on other areas of your business while the agency posts and schedules content for you.
This LinkedIn marketing service is a must-have if you are always busy. Remember that consistency is everything on social media. With a LinkedIn management service, you can be as consistent as ever.
Now, finding a good agency that can cover all of those three services might be a bit complicated. That being said, CMDS offers all of these three services in one package. You can sit down and relax while we grow your business account from the ground up.
You’ll have articles created for you on a weekly basis, and an appealing newsletter that your subscribers will be delighted to receive.
We know how important LinkedIn is for marketing. We want to make sure your brand looks its best and provides the best content for people to enjoy.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Let’s do a quick summary of some key points you read in the article.
- We talked about the importance of LinkedIn and why you should care more about it.
- We showed you two of the best features LinkedIn has to offer and what makes them unique.
- We went through the three most important LinkedIn marketing services you should consider if you plan on hiring an agency.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave them down below and we’ll make sure we get back to you as soon as possible.