The majority of marketers may be missing a trick by focusing their content promotion efforts on Facebook and Twitter, according to an agency head.
Shane Atchison, global CEO of WPP-owned agency Possible, has told The Drum that LinkedIn could play a pivotal role in adding valuable inventory into the as yet untapped mobile space.
He also spoke of “Facebook fatigue”, a ‘syndrome’ affecting people who are maturing to demand a more serious social media conversation that offers greater relevance and more professional content.
There can be little argument over the fact that LinkedIn is making major inroads into positioning itself as a serious content engine.
Central to this has been the inception of LinkedIn Today in 2011, backed up by the company’s acquisition of Slide Share (May 2012), the mobile news reader Pulse (April) and social polling app, Maybe? (May), which all served to bolster its content strategy. In October 2012, LinkedIn played to its community’s thirst for rich thought leadership content with blog publishing platform Influencers.
As the challenger social network, commonly considered the preserve of job hunters and recruiters, LinkedIn lags behind Facebook and Twitter in terms of user engagement. So, the company set out on a focused publishing drive, serving up exclusive and aggregated content and facilitating sharing and discussion to encourage users to spend more time on the network.
So what’s next for content marketing on the site? Launched in January (in invitation-only mode), LinkedIn’s Sponsored Updates marked the network’s latest foray into monetising and scaling its publishing prowess.
The programme is not a million miles away from the paid-for promoted content tools offered by Facebook (with Promoted Posts) and Twitter (with Promoted Tweets). Essentially, it offers brands the means to promote content assets, engage with their target audiences and get their content seen by as many eyeballs as possible.
Yet pilot brands involved in the programme’s early days – including American Express, Lenovo, HubSpot and Xerox – are approaching Sponsored Updates in different ways. Some are reaching out to attract new followers, some to more brazenly generate leads, while another tactic is to build awareness of a new brand positioning.
While Sponsored Updates is still in invitation-only mode, it has already extended the tool into the mobile space with it mobile app, marking LinkedIn’s first steps into mobile advertising.
Brands still sizing up whether or not to invest in LinkedIn marketing will need to consider whether its users perceive the channel as a content destination. For some users, it may be quite a leap to turn to LinkedIn as a trusted news source. Yet our verdict is that Sponsored Updates are poised to become the smart way to reach LinkedIn’s professional, engaged user base, and as such could make the serious impact on ad revenue that LinkedIn has been waiting for.
Over to You
Do you use LinkedIn marketing to promote your company’s content assets, or is it still strictly a business networking tool from your perspective?
Photo: Nan Palmero
