Every social media app is different and LinkedIn certainly stands out from other platforms like Instagram and TikTok. This is because LinkedIn is primarily known for its networking capabilities thanks to its large user base of industry professionals and organizations.
This is exactly what makes this platform so enticing for marketers. By tapping into this large audience of people who often make purchasing decisions on behalf of their company, LinkedIn has become the go-to place for B2B marketers.
Why your brand should use LinkedIn in 2021
New LinkedIn features help increase user engagement
LinkedIn is the perfect platform to engage with your employees
LinkedIn is a great first step for B2B businesses
1. New LinkedIn features help increase user engagement
This year, LinkedIn added many new features that not only offer brands new ways to interact with their audience but help boost user engagement as well.
First, it seems like every social media platform is getting its own version of Stories and LinkedIn is no different. In September, the company announced it was releasing Stories in the U.S. and Canada. Like Stories on Facebook and Instagram, the feature on LinkedIn disappears after 24 hours. Users can feature short 20-second videos or images and tag other LinkedIn users with the @ symbol. Stories are an effective way to share spur-of-the-moment, authentic content with a brand’s audience.
LinkedIn Polls are another recent feature, introduced in May 2020. This interactive feature is built into an in-feed post, allowing users and brands to ask their audience questions with up to four answer options.
What your brand should do on LinkedIn in 2021:
- Review new features that your brand can use in its organic content to boost user engagement. Polls can even help brands get user feedback.
- Consider how short video content can fit into your brand’s content mix.
2. LinkedIn is the perfect platform to engage with your employees
Did you know that LinkedIn’s algorithm prioritizes content from people in your network? With this in mind, brands on LinkedIn can not only develop a stronger connection with their employees on the platform, but use employees as part of their content strategy.
After creating a post on a LinkedIn company page, users can click the “Notify Employees” button to send a notification about the new content to all employees. By sharing a new post to employees as soon as it goes live, you’re giving your content a potential boost in engagement by getting more eyes on it.
With many people using LinkedIn as part of their professional network, chances are your company will have a number of employees on the platform as well. This gives brands an excellent chance to promote employee content, such as sharing a post they made on their feed. Here’s an example from Alger, a financial services company, sharing a post made by its CEO, Dan Chung.
What your brand should do on LinkedIn in 2021:
- Determine which posts you want to share with your employees on LinkedIn. Note that you shouldn’t share every single post as this can fill your employees’ feed with less relevant content. Instead, focus on key messaging you want your employees to know about, such as company-wide events, initiatives, and updates.
- Create a social media presence for your company’s executive team to complement your brand’s existing LinkedIn presence. The company-related content that a CEO shares may differ from the content your business page shares. This means you have the opportunity to reach your target audience in different ways.
3. LinkedIn is a great first step for B2B businesses
For marketers, the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that having a digital presence can give brands an advantage over their competitors that aren’t online. More consumers turn to online resources—such as social media—to research products and services, making a strategic online presence even more crucial.
In addition to creating content to post in your brand’s feed, there are also paid social media marketing options that can help put your company in front of the right audience. LinkedIn offers a variety of different ad options: video ads, conversation ads, dynamic ads, text ads, sponsored content, and more.
For those new to digital marketing or LinkedIn, it may be difficult to understand how digital marketing and social media platforms can help your company. In one of our latest interviews with our account manager, Julia Pyo, she explains why paid social media marketing is so important for brands, especially as we move to a post-COVID-19 economy.
What your brand should do on LinkedIn in 2021:
- Review your company’s current activities on LinkedIn. If you’re new to the platform, look at ways to start strong by building a complete and optimized profile (our LinkedIn 101 article can help).
- Develop a strategy that uses both engaging content you can post to your company’s feed, and paid marketing to target your specific audience.
If you missed our previous article, click here to learn why your brand needs to be on Instagram in 2021. Be sure to check back every other Monday to read the rest of this mini-series, which will feature other social media platforms, like Facebook and TikTok.
Whether your brand is on LinkedIn, Instagram, or another social media platform, it’s important to keep track of important KPIs (key performance indicators) to understand how your content is performing. Our team has developed a free KPI Checklist to help you understand what metrics you need to track for your business and why.
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