4 Components of a Killer Content Marketing Tactical Plan on LinkedIn

“People spend time on other social networks, but they invest time on LinkedIn.”

For the first time in the history of media, users can engage with the world’s professionals in one place. The LinkedIn network provides access to a  quality audience within a professional context.

Furthermore, professionals engage with purpose and content on LinkedIn including:

• 9 billion impressions per week
• 15x content than job postings in the feed
• 57% of visits coming from mobile

There is no doubt that many opportunities exist within the platform but many marketers are still trying to find a way to utilize LinkedIn to create and amplify great content. Below are 4 content marketing opportunities shared by LinkedIn’s Jason Miller and Alex Rynne that will help you build your LinkedIn Tactical Plan.

#1 LinkedIn Company & Showcase Pages

Company pages are your brand identity on LinkedIn and should represent the highest-level information about your company. Showcase pages allow you to connect with more specific audiences on the platform. Below are some of the common objectives that Showcase pages can help you achieve as well as some key metrics to track.

Common Objectives:

• Brand awareness
• Thought leadership
• Lead generation
• Event registration

Key Metrics:

• Page Followers
• Post Clicks
• Engagement
• Comments
• Inquiries
• Leads

Action items to make your Company Page successful:

1. Create a plan that enables you to post 3-4x per day
2. Dedicate resources to engage with and respond to followers’ comments
3. Change header image every 6 months

#2 LinkedIn Slideshare

With over 70 million monthly unique visitors and 13,000 new pieces of content per day, marketers should take the time to leverage this channel as more than just a place to repurpose content.  

Maybe the most unique opportunity with Slideshare is the integration with the LinkedIn platform. The integration allows you to put a face to the people looking at your content. Great insight for marketers to understand who’s viewing and engaging with the content. If it’s the target audience great, if not what about the content is drawing visits outside the target audience.

Common Objectives:

• Lead generation
• Brand awareness / Thought leadership
• SEO

Key Metrics:

• Inquiries
• Demographics of readers/followers
• Linkbacks
• Keyword Rankings
• Views
• Actions (downloads, likes and embeds)

Action items to make Slideshare more effective:

1. Upload new content weekly
2. Highlight decks on profile page
3. Group content into playlists
4. Add lead forms

#3 Publishing on LinkedIn

Over 1 million members are publishing more than 130k posts a week on LinkedIn. Interestingly, approximately  45% of readers are in upper ranks of their industries, managers, VPs, CEOs.

LinkedIn is a great place to publish original content that aligns with your network on the platform. If you create content elsewhere on the web, you can also repurpose that content (and link to the original content) through LinkedIn to expose your community to more of the content that you’re creating.

Additionally, LinkedIn has published Writing Themes for 2016 which gives you a sense of what type of content they’re looking to promote and amplify each month of the year.

Common Objective:

• Thought Leadership

Key Metrics:

• Post views and profile views
• Demographics of your readers
• Likes, comments and shares

Action items for publishing:

1. Create content that matches what you feel passionate about
2. Recommend bi weekly or monthly publishing

#4 LinkedIn Sponsored Content

Sponsored Content allows you to publish relevant content in the feed, targeting audiences beyond your company page followers.

For Sponsored Content, 75% of clicks come from mobile so before you dive in make sure your content is mobile friendly.

Common Objectives:

• Brand awareness
• Thought leadership
• Lead generation

Key Metrics:

• Engagement rate
• Impressions
• Followers
• Inquiries

Action items for Sponsored content:

1. Select a compelling image
2. Run 2-4 per week
   1. Run for 3 weeks, test and iterate
   2. Add url tracking code
   3. Set up campaigns by audience
   4. Shift budget to the audience with the highest engagement rate

Are You Taking Full Advantage of LinkedIn’s Publishing Capabilities?

As you can see, there is no shortage of opportunities for publishing and amplifying content on LinkedIn. However, it takes time and effort to begin building your content cred on LinkedIn. If you want to get started but need the help of content marketing experts, contact TopRank Marketing for more information.  

Disclosure: LinkedIn Marketing is a TopRank Marketing client.