How B2B marketers can strategize LinkedIn Advertisement in 2019
“Lack of a clear strategy is the biggest mistake. Users sign up to LinkedIn but then have no clear plan in mind how they will use it.”
– Steve Phillip, Leading Coach, and Expert on LinkedIn best practices
Whether they be demand generation marketers focused on lead generation, B2B marketers looking to build brand resonance or marketers striving for both the aforementioned purposes, LinkedIn is the social networking platform having a goldmine of a diverse suite of marketing solutions for all of them.
LinkedIn boasts the congregation of nearly 600 million business professionals for diverse purposes such as to find jobs, grow their networks & share valuable insights relevant to their niche.
The platform is growing exponentially.
According to Hootsuite, from having 467 million users in Q3 2016, the platform surged to 590 million users by the end of 2018 (which means a whopping addition of 123 million users in two years).
According to a survey conducted by oktopost.com, more than 80% of the total leads generated via diverse social media platforms come from LinkedIn.
The two vital features that B2B marketers need to understand about the LinkedIn news feed are:
- It is primarily focused on native, organic content
- It is based entirely on algorithms
- It drives sales
- Serves as an excellent platform for recruiting talent into the business
- Is an excellent platform to get the daily dose of the industry-specific news digest
- Can be used as a platform for blogging &
- Serves as an excellent platform to video-advertise
How B2B Marketers can make the most of Their LinkedIn Advertising
LinkedIn provides a wide array of advertising opportunities for B2B marketers to capitalize upon, which range from the in-built research library by LinkedIn, to core social networking & benefits of retargeted campaigns, to platform functionality for content marketing & advertising endeavors. Let’s scrutinize the specific aspects of LinkedIn advertising that the marketers need to incorporate into their advertising strategies (particularly those that optimize audiences’ engagement reflecting on the recent algorithm update), to optimize their Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI): 1. Frequent Posting of high-quality content at irregular intervals, including the weekends: LinkedIn algorithms prefer natural posting schedules. So, pre-scheduling of posts is a strict “no-no”. Posts can be penalized for appearing at the same time every day. Posting throughout the week is important, which means that posts need to be published even on Saturdays & Sundays. Content needs to be of high-quality & should be based on past engagement behaviors of users & on monitoring the pieces of content across the platform that are doing exceptionally well within the same niche. Every time something is posted, the LinkedIn algorithms analyze whether the content is spammy, of a low-quality, or good to know. LinkedIn doesn’t require users to post dozens of posts in a day. One high-quality post per day is sufficient (Source: HubSpot). Sharing pieces of content on LinkedIn daily, keeps the prospects in a loop, as well as keeps them intrigued. 2. Research & Create highly engaging pieces of Content: The content being advertised on LinkedIn should be of high-quality to grab the attention of the users & to keep them engaged. If a piece of content is marked as spam by the audiences or is hidden by them from the newsfeed, it is not good news for the marketers. users click on “Report this Post” or “hide this Post”, LinkedIn may penalize the posts. If posts by a company are being frequently reported or hidden by the audiences, LinkedIn algorithms will filter such posts out of the news feed of the prospects. 3. Focus on Posting Network-specific pieces of content: Posting network-specific pieces of content for engaging with the connections & niche-specific audiences is a good practice. If the connections engage with the posts, LinkedIn will reward the posts with higher visibility. In contrast, if the posts are reported or hidden, LinkedIn can remove the post from the feed altogether or can display it less frequently. When creating network-specific campaigns, it’s entirely up to the network to engage with the post to maintain its vitality or deny it the same by reporting or hiding it. 4. Create relevant posts: LinkedIn also employs humans to scrutinize & review the posts on LinkedIn to establish. Whether the post is relevant enough for the target audience. The human panel also deduces whether the post can be shown somewhere else like on a channel. Whether any key takeaways can be derived from the post for future algorithm tweaks and product development. The intervention from human minds is primarily because the LinkedIn developers. Want to understand why exactly a post might be performing exceptionally well on LinkedIn. The news feed of LinkedIn is unique in that it might even prioritize posts that are several weeks. Old based on its relevance for a niche-specific audience. This element is missing from the past-paced news feeds on other giant social media platforms such as Facebook & Twitter. 5. Focus on tone of voice: When it comes to the language of posts on LinkedIn, it needs to be a more professional language. Than say a language that the marketers use on platforms like Twitter. However, being a bit informal & humorous may also serve the purpose, as at the end of the day it is a social networking platform. 6. Opt for a Mobile-first approach: According to a report by Falcon.in, about 60% of LinkedIn users access the network from their phones. Hence, marketers should make sure that posts have been optimized for mobile viewing & have compelling messages & interesting visual appeal to drive conversions. 7. Diversify the Content Strategy: The content strategy on Facebook needs to be diversified & shouldn’t follow a fixed pattern. Pieces of content should be mixed with tips, opinions, videos, images, quotes, & hyperlinks to other vital pieces of content. 8. Use keywords wisely: The marketers must make sure that while they follow the SEO directories & the best keywords within the niche, their content isn’t very generic or else it might lose its impact. The pieces of content shouldn’t be studded with too many keywords & with irrelevant hashtags. After all, the prime aim of the posts is not just gaining visibility across a wider audience-base, but also to generate ample Click-Through Rates (CTRs). 9. Timing Matters: The timings of posts matter a lot on LinkedIn. While sticking to an ardent posting schedule is a derogatory practice when it comes to LinkedIn advertising. The marketers can always perform a bit of research to derive details about the target geographies of their niche-specific. Audiences & when they are most likely to be active on LinkedIn, keeping their time zones & working schedules in consideration. Reviewing analytical insights & test-running diverse campaigns can help the marketers in optimizing for the timings of their posts. According to a report published by Falcon.io, posts published at 8 AM, 12 PM & between 5-6 PM, perform the best on LinkedIn. 10. Using Appropriate #hashtags: LinkedIn hashtags need to be highly relevant & professional. Marketers can always use a standard set of keywords that have been optimized to reflect on brand equity. Funnier hashtags can be used on platforms like Twitter, not on LinkedIn. Also, hashtags need to be highly relevant. Using too many irrelevant keywords just from the motive of gaining higher visibility might be a bad idea. Even if a post gains very high visibility, through irrelevant hashtags, it wouldn’t generate enough CTRs, which would mean dwindling conversions & failed campaigns. 11. Abide by the LinkedIn Posting Guidelines to gain the maximum out of advertising endeavors: LinkedIn has clearly defined what kind of content they want to display. They are innately biased towards pieces of content that are relevant for a niche-specific audience & for the brands at large, pieces of content that provide protips for professional growth in diverse careers & have industry relevance. Also, the content needs to have the citation if has been derived from reputable platforms, the more credible the sources are, the better it is for the visibility of posts & the conversions. Certain formats of content, particularly those pertaining to technological investment have been developed by LinkedIn & LinkedIn is prejudiced towards those. These include the following:- Long-form content shared through LinkedIn Publisher (inviting people to read descriptive text elsewhere & adding canonical tags to the posts is a useful strategy to optimize posts)
- Conference frames (local events are of high relevance for LinkedIn algorithms, having videos with conference frames can help in optimizing news feed for target audiences)
- Native Videos (videos should be uploaded exclusively on the LinkedIn platform to optimize them in news feed, rather than marketers providing links for videos on YouTube)
- LinkedIn Live video functionality (LinkedIn is test-running its latest live-streaming feature, which is available in Beta to select participants. Marketers can sign up for this new functionality & use the same to optimize their news feed)
- Employees of a particular company need to follow their company & should also update their LinkedIn profile to display the place they work for
- Industry influencers who are active on LinkedIn should be followed (this will expose marketing content to a larger & unexplored audience base, providing marketers with a platform to showcase their interests as well as an affinity for the industry)
- Joining niche-specific groups on LinkedIn & sharing pieces of content with them
- Commenting on content relevant to the industry (the comment should reflect on a particular insight which has been deduced or should ask for some additional information or add additional perspectives or insights; amateurish comments as “Nice Post” should be avoided)
- To bring more relevant followers, the links to the LinkedIn page of a company should be displayed on their primary domain as well as on their careers page
- Mentioning people using @ name tags (to credit people for your posts or to invite them to engage with your post, this is a useful strategy)
- Pieces of content being posted should be highly-relevant & engaging & should be posted on frequent intervals
- The posts should generate ample amounts of likes, comments & shares from partners, employees as well as from influencers
- High employee engagement is beneficial for the LinkedIn Page of a company & hence, the number of shares by employees matters
- Strategize & invest aptly in Paid Campaigns powered by LinkedIn as they prove to be beneficial for the organic contents as well
- They showcase a brief value of the post on the platform itself
- They eliminate the link preview to the posts as it can get pretty mundane for the readers
- Sponsored Content: This ad format appears directly in the LinkedIn feed of professionals. The target audiences may be provided with brand messages on their preferred device platforms viz. – desktop, tablet or mobile. Rich media can be used to stand out in the feed. Ads can be tested & optimized in real-time.
- Sponsored InMail: This unique & native ad format by LinkedIn allows marketers to deliver relevant & personalized information through LinkedIn Messenger which helps in optimizing the conversions through the ads. Furthermore, the target audiences can be reached via desktop or mobile. The ad campaigns can also be split-tested & optimized, to best resonate with the interests of the buyer personas or target audiences.
- Text Ads: These relatively simpler ad campaigns can be used to create pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) ads. These ads can be created & launched within minutes & can be used to deliver tailored messages to the target audiences. With these ads, marketers need to pay only for the ads that fetch a value (i.e. per click made or per impression generated).