Businesses hang out online on all sorts of places these days; Google+, Twitter and Pinterest, just to name a few. Social media is clearly still a driving force behind company branding, customer engagement, and an excellent source to share content. A lot of us have been caught up in the social media whirlwind for quite some time now, and you might be thinking you have hit your max for both social and content marketing.
If you find yourself nodding along in agreement, it’s time to hit the brakes. LinkedIn is on the rise as one of the most popular social networking platforms in 2015. In fact, a recent study has shown that LinkedIn beats Twitter at content marketing.
Not only that, its purpose is to connect with like-minded business owners in your field. It can even be used as a source for lead generation and luring in top talent to add to your company — and it’s all possible by using it as a content publishing platform.
LinkedIn’s Transformation as a Content Publisher
Initially, LinkedIn served as a professional networking platform for business professionals. As the need for powerful and engaging content grew, LinkedIn users began requesting the ability to publish content directly on the platform.
LinkedIn listened to their audience and opened a content publishing option to premium members. In early 2014, LinkedIn slowly began to unlock its publishing feature and allow all members to use it as a content marketing tool. LinkedIn moved forward with this decision as an effort to help businesses better build their brand and reach an untapped pool of audiences.
LinkedIn recognized that many professionals have valuable information, insight, and experience to share with their audience. Not only are brands now able to maximize their exposure with LinkedIn’s publishing platform, they are able to educate with content that can turn into conversions. After all, informative content is one of the driving forces behind the highest quality content that there is.
Benefits of Publishing Content on LinkedIn
While there are thousands of resources online where you can print and distribute your content, LinkedIn should be near the top of your list.
- LinkedIn generates 184 million unique visitors per month
- It has a conversion rate that is 3 times higher than Facebook and Twitter
- It has 172,000 sign ups per day
- There are over 2 million groups to join and network with those in your industry
- Starting to see the benefits of LinkedIn yet?
LinkedIn Offers SEO Benefits
While creating fresh and relevant content will certainly help your SEO, you can double your efforts by publishing original content on LinkedIn. Since the social platform has a high domain authority (in other words, Google likes it), it can help you expand your organic reach in the search engines.
Don’t forget, you can also optimize your own profile for professionals to locate on LinkedIn. A few simple tweaks to your headline can make all the difference.
Fewer Distractions so Visitors Can Focus on Your Content
Think of how easily distracted you are when you are on Facebook; the photo of a cuddly puppy or your cousin’s new baby can easily get you sidetracked. Let’s not even get into the black hole known as Pinterest.
The advantage with LinkedIn is that users are almost always focused and in the business mindset. There’s a lot of noise you have to cut through on other social platforms, but there’s a lot less of it on LinkedIn. And let’s be honest — it’s kind of tough to compete with cute photos of puppies.
Taking Content Beyond Blogs
Even though LinkedIn’s publishing platform caters to blogs and articles, you can do so much more with LinkedIn in term of content marketing. Its publishing platform not only allows blogs, but it also encourages sharing for SlideShare slideshows, photos and videos. With LinkedIn, you are encouraged to go the extra mile with your content marketing efforts.
Strength (and Sales) in Numbers
Another advantage of LinkedIn’s new publishing platform is that members are able to reach professionals who are not in their own network. Furthermore, brands can build their own group of followers.
Imagine influencing a group of professionals who are ready and able to make buying decisions. It’s entirely possible with LinkedIn’s publishing tool, and it is super targeted to leaders and brands who are ready to buy your products and services.
LinkedIn Content Marketing Score Gives Insight to Your Best Content
Measuring the effectiveness and success of your content marketing can be an uphill battle. However, LinkedIn saw the need for a program designed to rate the quality and effectiveness of user content. With that, LinkedIn’s Content Marketing Score was born.
How LinkedIn Content Marketing Works
The Content Marketing Score uses its own algorithm to determine the success of your content marketing efforts on LinkedIn. First, it measures engagements from your company pages, LinkedIn groups, influencer updates, and employee statuses. It then gives you a score based against your competitive set.
The best part about LinkedIn’s Content Marketing Score is that it gives recommendations on how to improve your score that will help you achieve a better reach and engagement level.
This puts you in the position where you are always striving to add quality and relevant content to attract new customers.
Use LinkedIn Groups to Generate New Content Ideas
Engagement on LinkedIn is one of the keys to success on their platform. With that said, LinkedIn groups offer a lot of potential to not only network, but generate new content ideas and interact with other professionals.
As you interact with groups on LinkedIn, keep in mind that remaining helpful and informative is your best route to success. Keep questions and interesting takeaways on the backburner, as these can easily turn into new blog topics, slideshows, and more.
This can help with your efforts to continuously feed your LinkedIn audience with new content and not lose steam along the way.
4 LinkedIn B2C Marketing Content Marketing Techniques
You might think that LinkedIn is only effective for B2B marketing and prospect searching, but there are opportunities to reach customers in B2C fashion. In fact, Content Marketing Institute found that 71% of marketers use LinkedIn to market B2C.
With that said, here are a few techniques you can use on LinkedIn to keep your content B2C friendly.
- Make your content quick to absorb: One of the biggest differences between B2C and B2B content marketing is that B2C customers are often looking for immediate solutions. While many B2B customers need time to analyze and weigh cost factors, B2C content needs to be quick and to the point.
- Focus on what consumers care about: Generally, customers care about themselves and meeting their own needs. Always cater your content to your audience and describe exactly how your products and services will yield the results that they are looking for.
- Aim to entertain: B2B content marketing can consist of whitepapers and studies, but B2C can be a little more lax and creative. Put a creative spin on your content to help your company cut through the noise.
- Education is key: Whether you are marketing B2B or B2C, education is crucial for establishing yourself as a thought leader.
Ways To Use LinkedIn For Content Curation
Curating content is quickly becoming a solid foundation of many content marketing strategies. While there are all kinds of techniques to curating content to share with your audience, LinkedIn is perfect a perfect spot to find some of the best content on the ‘net. Here’s why:
- Many marketers are focused on generating compelling content specifically for their LinkedIn audience. With this in mind, it’s safe to say that most content you will find on LinkedIn will be polished, educational, and full of helpful information that your audience will love.
- Since LinkedIn offers the ability to post images (think infographics) and slideshows, you will have direct access to multiple types of media to share in one convenient place.
- LinkedIn offers all of the benefits that content curation brings: establishing yourself as a thought leader, building new relationships, showcasing new points of view, and engaging your target audience.
If you are curating content, be sure to add LinkedIn to your curation efforts for some variety and new opportunities.
LinkedIn: The Missing Link to Your Content Marketing Strategy
LinkedIn is clearly becoming a powerful platform to generate, share, and create content. Regardless of your profession, if you aren’t using LinkedIn for your content marketing, you are depriving yourself of serious branding, networking, and client discovery potential.
