Earlier this year, LinkedIn rolled out a “follow” button that allowed users to connect with a company with just one click. Now, LinkedIn is broadening its appeal to marketers, rolling out two new tools to help make the connections between businesses and followers more personalized and meaningful.
Targeted Updates
With LinkedIn’s new Targeted Updates, companies will be able to interact with their followers in a more effective and relevant way. In a nutshell, the new tool allows company page administrators to fine-tune how they share content.
Using Targeted Updates, content can be delivered to either “all followers” or to a specific “targeted audience,” and company page administrators can select those specific targeted audiences based on company size, industry, function, seniority or geography.
Adding even another level of refinement, LinkedIn also will provide impression and engagement metrics for the targeted post. This data will appear 24 hours after the content was shared, and from these results, marketers will be able to determine which content resonates . . . and which needs revision.
The goal of Targeted Updates is to increase engagement and brand loyalty –and it appears to work. According to LinkedIn, examples have shown a 66 percent increase in audience engagement as the result of targeted updates.
Follower Statistics
Savvy marketers realize there’s tremendous value in tracking engagement metrics for social media fans and followers, and LinkedIn’s new Follower Statistics is designed to provide exactly that kind of detailed data.
The new Follower Insights dashboard provides follower demographics, as well as information about likes, shares, comments, total followers, number of new followers month-to-month, etc. Marketers can use these insights to create strategies to gain followers and optimize engagement.
As social media networks become more and more crowded and noisy, it’s becoming increasingly vital for companies to make their marketing messages as customized and meaningful as possible. Businesses that use LinkedIn’s company pages will be able to use each of these new tools to communicate with followers more effectively –and less obtrusively.
Have a job opening at your company? Use Targeted Updates to send that info only to followers associated with certain industries. Maybe you’re running a special promotion in one region of the country? Targeting your followers by geography can help make sure you find the right audience . . . without “bothering” others.
Note: For now, these features are in limited release, available only to early release partners.