PART 1

TheSophisticated Technology Marketer’s Guide to

VolumeCONTENT MARKETING 4 ON LINKEDIN

PART 1: Why does my business need LinkedIn? 1 Table of Contents

CONTENT MARKETING FOLLOW THE 4-1-1 RULE ON LINKEDIN 3 8

DELIVERING RELEVANT CONTENT: SLIDESHARE: TAP INTO PUBLISHING WITH A PURPOSE VISUAL TENDENCIES

4 9–10

SHOWCASE PAGES: REACH AND BUILD A LINKEDIN GROUPS: RELATIONSHIP WITH SPECIFIC AUDIENCES JOIN THE CONVERSATION

5 11

ATTRACT MORE FOLLOWERS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF PUBLISHING ON LINKEDIN

6 12

COMPANY UPDATES: TWO NEW POWER RESOURCES FOR ENGAGE YOUR FOLLOWERS YOUR CONTENT MARKETING TOOLBOX

7 13–15

2 Content Marketing ON LINKEDIN

This guide is the last of four volumes It’s time to take advantage of and aims to educate Sophisticated publishing on LinkedIn and become Tech Marketers on the most successful the best, most sophisticated tech means of sharing helpful content with marketer in the industry. a specific target audience and how Kelly Kyer to establish thought leadership for Global Marketing Lead — your company. Technology Vertical Become a LinkedIn publisher by LinkedIn Marketing Solutions learning to take advantage of the various means to publish on LinkedIn 1 Eccolo Media, “2015 B2B Technology Content with Company Pages, Showcase Survey Report: Volume 2,” Jan 20, 2015 If you’re a technology marketer Pages, employee amplification, then you already understand the and Sponsored Updates. importance of content marketing Develop an always-on thought and what publishing content can do leadership approach to engage your for businesses and consumers alike. audience and develop a sense of B2B technology decision-makers are leadership and authority. Share high- interested in a wide range of content quality media through SlideShare throughout the purchasing process to further position your brand and 77% of them consume between as a thought leader. 2 to 6 assets before making a purchase.1 To capitalize on the benefits of Join the conversation with LinkedIn content marketing, LinkedIn provides Groups and contribute your knowledge marketers with all the necessary tools and expertise to surrounding to publish with a purpose and deliver professionals. LinkedIn allows you to relevant content to all 347 million+ see which topics matter most to your members. audience and what your target is talking about by showing trending content.

Content Marketing on LinkedIn 3 Delivering Relevant Content: PUBLISHING WITH A PURPOSE

Earlier we underscored the importance Company Pages, Showcase Pages, of delivering relevant content in order Follow Company Ads and Company to build relationships with your targets. Updates: Be Found and Connect LinkedIn provides the following with Those that Matter Most Mobilize your Employees solutions for delivering relevant There are more than 2 million unique content to our members: publishers actively using the LinkedIn to Amplify your Message • Company Pages, Showcase Share button on their sites to send Best-in-class companies encourage their own employees Pages, Follow Company Ads content into the LinkedIn platform. to share content on LinkedIn with their networks, and Company Updates Company Pages are where you significantly increasing content reach. This is especially • Sponsored Updates can catch the eye of prospective customers by featuring thought powerful for companies whose sales reps are connected • SlideShare leadership content or anything else to the right decision makers. • LinkedIn Groups that would be relevant to your target audience, including links to your latest • Publishing on LinkedIn and greatest whitepapers, eBooks, LINKEDIN: A KEY PLATFORM FOR B2B CONTENT DELIVERY • Content Marketing Score case studies, and how-to content. LinkedIn continues to be the #1 channel to distribute content • Trending Content By delivering useful and engaging content, you’ll foster engagement and help your message spread faster. In fact, our research shows that Company Updates containing links can have up to 45% higher follower engagement than updates without links. And remember — integration with % 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 common Social Media Management vendors including Adobe, Hootsuite™, Percolate, Salesforce, Shoutlet, Spredfast and Sprinklr make it easier for you to manage your Page and Source: 2015 B2B Content Marketing Trends/ North America, Content Marketing Institute/ Marketing Profs Company Updates.

Delivering Relevant Content: Publishing With a Purpose 4 5 steps to engaging followers on LinkedIn Showcase Pages: 1. Establish your presence REACH AND BUILD A RELATIONSHIP 2. Attract followers WITH SPECIFIC AUDIENCES 3. Engage followers

Like many companies, yours likely In other words, you can create a 4. Amplify through the network considers many parts of its business to distinct platform for each aspect be important. And to give each its due of your business that has its own attention, you likely have more than message to share with its own target 5. Analyze and refine one “voice.” With Showcase Pages, audience. It’s a unique way to directly you can build a presence and present engage the right people in the right a unique voice for every important context. And just as with Company part of your business. By creating Pages, your administrators will be able dedicated pages for your more to monitor performance through “When I ran marketing at a mobile startup, we routinely compared prominent brands, businesses, and dedicated analytics tools within the the impact of each channel at each funnel stage. We plotted initiatives using Showcase Pages, you Showcase Page experience. channels along two dimensions: volume of names and cost can extend your LinkedIn presence. per lead. LinkedIn topped all other lead sources—across both dimensions and at every stage of the funnel. When it came to content distribution and lead generation, LinkedIn quickly became the first dollar budgeted each quarter.”

Joe Chernov – Former VP of Marketing at Kinvey, now VP of Content at HubSpot

Showcase Pages: Reach and Build a Relationship with Specific Audiences 5 Did You Know:

There are more than 2 million unique publishers actively using the LinkedIn Attract More Share button on their sites to send content into the LinkedIn platform FOLLOWERS (Oct, 2014)

The more the merrier on the social • Add a Follow button to your merry-go-round. Here are some website. Your web team can pull simple, effective strategies for code for a Follow button from “Content Marketing is the planning, creation, promotion, attracting more followers with your developer.linkedin.com to add and measurement of content to a target audience with company updates: to your blog or website. This lets the goal of satisfying customers and affecting a business LinkedIn members follow your • Engage your colleagues. A study outcome. LinkedIn offers an incredibly useful platform company with a single click. by BridgtEdge found that 9 out of for research, ideation and the amplification of content the top 10 brands with the most to specific interest groups from your target customers followers on LinkedIn have at least 60% of their employees on to the Influencers that inspire them to take action. LinkedIn. LinkedIn is essential for achieving content • Cultivate a larger following marketing results.” with a multi-channel approach. Encourage your teammates to add Lee Odden, CEO @TopRank Online Marketing, Author: a link to your company page in Optimize, Public Speaker: Integrated Search, Social, and their email signatures. If needed, Content Marketing ask your designer for help creating a customized banner or button.

Attract More Followers 6 LINKEDIN BY THE NUMBERS:

EXECUTIVES RATE LINKEDIN HIGH ON VALUE THEY GAIN Company Updates: FROM THEIR SOCIAL MARKETING INITIATIVES ENGAGE YOUR FOLLOWERS LinkedIn is the number one choice for professionally relevant content LinkedIn 91%

LinkedIn Company Updates are a 3. Attract an audience by aligning your Online News Site 64% powerful way to reach and engage content to members’ needs and Twitter 29% professionals with relevant content interests by making it “snackable” across multiple devices. They are sent and valuable. Facebook 27% from your Company Page and deliver 4. Keep your audience’s attention Google+ 16% targeted content into our members’ by producing content consistently, feeds, increasing their engagement responding to timely events, with your brand. But are your updates engaging members through 1 IN EVERY 3 INTERNET USERS VISIT A BRAND’S SOCIAL MEDIA PAGE optimized? Keep the following best comments, and continually Paid Social Media advertising objectives practices in mind when creating and refining your content strategy. posting your company page updates to dramatically increase engagement 5. Extend your targeted reach beyond Primarily branding related, 45% your Company Page followers e.g. raising awareness, and overall reach. 31% by using Sponsored Updates to influencing brand opinions 1. Optimize introductions and promote your best content. headlines by thinking like a Primarily direct-response 16% related e.g. driving product journalist, adding your point of view, trails or site visits 15% asking thoughtful questions to involve your audience, and 25% including a clear call to action. A mix of both — more than half is branding 29% 2. Stand out in the feed by including a compelling image or some type of rich media. A mix of both — more than 14% half is direct-response 25%

ADVERTISERS AGENCIES

Sources: “Content Marketing gets Social,” Unisphere research, 2013, N= 217 Nielsen, Paid Social Media Advertising Report, 2013. N = 500 U.S. digital marketing and media professionals

The 2014 Professional Content Consumption Report, LinkedIn Report, Q214

Company Updates: Engage Your Followers 7 Follow the “Sell something, get a customer 4-1-1 RULE for a day. Help someone, get a customer for life.” The 4-1-1 Rule was coined by You’ll authentically engage in Consistent posting: Create an Tippingpoint Labs and Joe Pulizzi of conversations, build awareness, and editorial calendar of updates within Jay Baer, Digital Marketing the Content Marketing Institute. While interact with LinkedIn members your company, and highlight relevant Strategist, Speaker, Author it was originally created with Twitter without giving the impression that third-party material. Then share it with and President of Convince in mind, it can successfully be applied you’re a self-centered know-it-all. It’s all company followers. Building a cadence & Convert to your company’s content marketing part of moving to the new marketing around the 4-1-1 rule will continually strategy using LinkedIn. mindset of “always be helping” instead add value for your followers. The rule states: of the outdated “always be selling.” Sources: Tippingpoint Labs. www.tippingpointlabs.com “For every one self-serving tweet, you should retweet one relevant tweet and most importantly share four pieces of relevant content written by others.” It’s basically saying to share the love. Instead of constantly bombarding your followers with demos, webinars, and whitepaper downloads, create a cadence of helpful insights relevant to your audience. Mix in a bit of industry thought leader content; news and trends are a great way to build relationships with prospects while keeping current customers in the know. 1 Retweet 1 Self-serving Tweet

4 New Tweets Follow the 4-1-1 Rule 8 How to Use LinkedIn to Amplify SlideShare Content

SlideShare: 1. Send Company Updates – SlideShare content displays directly TAP INTO VISUAL TENDENCIES within the LinkedIn feed

We are all visual thinkers. In fact, • Upload portfolios, conference 2. Sponsor your best content to extend its reach 75% of the sensory neurons in our talks, PDFs, marketing/sales brains process visual information. presentations and more Visual content can help set you apart • Embed videos in presentations from text-heavy competition, and and add audio to make a webinar SlideShare is the perfect channel for your visual content. With more than 60 million monthly unique visitors and on an average day, “It’s almost not fair to ask for my take on SlideShare. I consider it one SlideShare is not just a repository for nearly 4 million people visit SlideShare of the top three ‘plays’ in my own content marketing efforts. I contribute your slide presentations. It’s a social (just on desktop!) with 13,000 new to the SlideShare blog. I recommend it to every one of my clients channel where you can establish pieces of content added. SlideShare and am hired often to write and design the presentations. your brand as a thought leader is the world’s largest professional and authority around topics content-sharing community. And However, I’m biased for many reasons. Atop the list: SlideShare — and keywords. that’s something you can’t afford and its integration with LinkedIn — accounts for a massive chunk of Through SlideShare, you can: to overlook. my website’s traffic, has a lot to do with the authority I’ve gained in content marketing and copywriting for the web, and is helping to bring • Share presentations, videos, me all kinds of opportunities including new business, partnerships, infographics and other documents and speaking engagements. with your LinkedIn network If you’re not using SlideShare to distribute your content, you’re missing out on, what, 60 million eyeball opportunities a month? And if you are, you know exactly how the service can align with your marketing goals.”

Barry Feldman, Feldman Creative

SlideShare: Tap Into Visual Tendencies 9 Nine Tips to Help Ensure Content Domination on SlideShare:

1. Keep your presentations short 7. Integrate your presentations into and sweet: Between 10–30 slides multiple channels: SlideShare easily is optimal embeds into landing pages and SlideShare Did You Know: 2. Be visual: Shoot for an average of blogs and renders beautifully More than 15 million pieces of content uploaded to SlideShare 19 images in your 10–30 slides in Twitter (December 5, 2013) 3. Get to the point: Aim for an 8. Repurpose your presentations: average of 24 words per slide Slice and dice them into blog posts, infographics, webinars 4. Be the authority on your topic: and videos Choose a topic and own it 9. Make SlideShare part of every 5. Focus on design and tell a story: campaign: Add a SlideShare Design your deck to pull the reader checkbox to your campaign from one slide to the next checklist 6. Rev up the SEO for each If you don’t have a SlideShare presentation: Include keyword- account, sign up from LinkedIn to rich titles, descriptions and tags in share your presentations worldwide order to give your presentations and drive more views and traffic. a fighting chance in the world of search engines as well as inside the SlideShare search results “In a recent conference, I was asked my opinion on what is the biggest opportunity in B2B Content Marketing? Without hesitation, I answered “SlideShare.” HAVE I GOT A STORY FOR YOU!

Michael Brenner, Vice President of Marketing and Content Strategy A good story captivates an audience. Think about your favorite book, at SAP, Speaker, Blogger and Social Business Marketing Leader, TV show or movie — the plot and way it is told hooks you in. Now what if every Head of Strategy, NewsCred presentation you sat through — or gave — was that spell-binding?

SlideShare: Tap Into Visual Tendencies 10 LinkedIn Groups: JOIN THE CONVERSATION

Companies often talk about ‘joining Plan to participate the conversation’ and ‘establishing You can join up to 50 groups but let’s thought leadership.’ By participating face it — you and your colleagues in discussions taking place in LinkedIn may not have the time to invest in Groups, you can join the conversation cultivating conversations, connections, and develop thought leadership for and relationships at that volume. Once your company. you pinpoint the groups that will prove Participate in Group Discussions the best investment of your time, it’s As a sophisticated marketer, you know critical to put in the time to participate. LinkedIn Groups for Business Weigh in on active discussions, that true and meaningful engagement HubSpot’s Inbound Marketer’s LinkedIn Group is another stellar with prospects and customers is and point fellow group members example of how a marketer can best utilize a group within LinkedIn. sparked and maintained through to additional information of value, interactions. The trick is finding the whether that’s content published by HubSpot now has more than 50,000 followers for its Company right forum for this engagement, your company or another organization. Page, and more than 96,000 members within the Inbound The key is to position yourself as a and LinkedIn Groups is a terrific way Marketers group — significant audiences for its messages about to become part of a community trusted and helpful peer rather than as best practices for inbound marketing. comprising your target audience. a marketer focused on reeling in the next customer.

LinkedIn Groups: Join the Conversation 11 Take Advantage OF PUBLISHING IN LINKEDIN

Publishing on LinkedIn gives every The real power of publishing on professional the ability to share their LinkedIn can be unleashed when you expertise with the world. Once for combine subject matter expertise, the sole use of an exclusive group Company and Showcase Pages, Three Reasons to Publish of Influencers, now all members are employee amplification, and finally invited to publish longform content Sponsored Updates for an always- on LinkedIn. on thought leadership engine. For Long-Form Content on LinkedIn: Using an intuitive blogging tool that example, your CMO/CEO publishes seamlessly integrates with your profile a thought leadership piece on LinkedIn. 1. The content you publish is attached to and becomes a part on LinkedIn, you can publish new You then publish it on your Company of your LinkedIn profile and positions you as an expert Page or Showcase Page, or both, and and previously published content on and thought leader. LinkedIn to quickly grow your audience ask your employees to share with their networks, and finally extend and network. Articles posted with 2. You can create an always-on strategy with your the tool are searchable by keyword in the reach of the post using targeted C-level team, subject matter experts and employees by LinkedIn’s post search box and if your Sponsored Updates and Direct post is viewed enough times, it can get Sponsored Content. delivering your message with credibility and authenticity. picked up by Pulse, the news app and content brand for LinkedIn. That means 3. Your posts have the potential to be featured on LinkedIn Pulse you can grow views, comments and and recommended to a much broader group of members. shares by leaps and bounds.

Take Advantage of Publishing in LinkedIn 12 Two New Power Resources FOR YOUR CONTENT MARKETING TOOLBOX

We believe in the power of content marketing. That’s why we’re continually developing new resources that help you achieve even more from your content marketing strategies and initiatives. And we are certain you’re going to get tons of value from these two new resources: 1. Content Marketing Score 2. Trending Content

Content Marketing Score

Quantify Your Content Marketing • See how you stack up against CLOSING THE CONTENT MARKETING GAP29% Efforts On LinkedIn your competition As a sophisticated marketer, you know • Rank your brand with GLOBAL MARKETERS ARE USING CONTENT MARKETING TO ACHIEVE THEIR you need to prove the impact of your a comprehensive score 42% content marketing initiatives. Ideally GOALS, BUT DON’T FEEL THEY’RE BEING EFFECTIVE AS THEY COULD BE. using content marketing you want to: Like the most effective content marketers, we bet you reach your feel they’re being effective • Understand the content and topics audience in multiple ways across that resonate with your audience LinkedIn, via Groups, company Australian 89% • Measure the effectiveness of your updates, employee posts, Sponsored content-based campaigns Updates, and influencer posts. US 86% 38% • Benchmark the success of The Content Marketing Score from UK 85% your program LinkedIn ties all of this outreach together so you get an integrated view Sources: Content Marketing in the UK: 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Content Marketing Institute/ of how your efforts are paying off. DMA UK, Content Marketing in Australia: 2013 Trends — Content Marketing Institute/The Association for data-driven marketing & advertising (ADMA), 2014 B2B Content Marketing Trends — North America: Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs

Two New Power Resources for Your Content Marketing Toolbox 13 Benchmark Your Content Performance Turn Insights Into Content Gold Think of the Content Marketing All that information is valuable, Score as a barometer that helps but we know insights are useless your company, product and brand unless you act upon them. And the understand the impact of its content Content Marketing Score makes marketing efforts on LinkedIn. By that possible by providing specific attributing a score to your content, recommendations on defining and A Dynamic Duo the Content Marketing Score adjusting your content strategy to While Trending Content gives you insight into the hottest quantifies the influence of your achieve the best results possible. topics across LinkedIn, the Content Marketing Score is company, product and brand These may include suggestions specific to your company, product and brand. on LinkedIn. to experiment with new ways to increase your follower base by The Content Marketing Score utilizing Sponsored Updates, provides this insight by: encouraging employees to publish more posts, or focusing on your • Highlighting the audience(s) content relevance. consuming your content on LinkedIn In a nutshell, the Content Marketing Score from LinkedIn: • Quantifying your company’s content presence and • Analyzes who engages engagement on LinkedIn with your content In other words, it tells you if members • Compares you to your peers within your target audience are • Suggests how to improve Your Overall Content Marketing Score engaging with your content. And your score By Target Audience and Topic it can show you how you stack up To receive your custom Content against your competitors. You can WHO: Audience = Decision Makers WHAT: Topic = Leadership 1,400 even see a breakdown of how you’re Marketing Score, please contact 1,200 of performing across the different areas your LinkedIn account executive 7 10 1,000 of LinkedIn — whether by Groups, or account manager. Peers: 800 Blackrock updates, or posts. Microsoft 600 Dell CMS Score Capgemini 400 250 Oracle 200 Citi Amex 0 CLIENT Accenture Best in class Weaker content Salesforce influence influence

Two New Power Resources for Your Content Marketing Toolbox 14 Trending Content Be Trendy (With Your Content) You’ll see which topics matter, and Your target audience is on LinkedIn. which members are sharing the most Now it’s just a matter of delivering content on any given subject. You’ll the content that attracts and engages even be able to pinpoint which topics Awareness Scope Plan Select Implement them. But how do you know just are going viral. which topics will catch — and keep 1 IT industry news / strategy info — their attention? And how do you How do we deliver this invaluable data? We evaluate influencer articles, know which members will be most 2 Best practices, how-to’s, checklists interested in your content? network updates and Sponsored Updates to understand what content Whether you’re new to content 3 Product / solution demo / software trial marketing or looking to drive even members are sharing. Using a complex more engagement with your existing algorithm built by our data science 3 Diagnostic/assessment tools content, Trending Content from team, we put each piece of content LinkedIn can help you focus on into one or more of over 17,000 topic the topics that matter. categories. We then layer on member profile attributes to understand who 1 General industry topics, prioritized for your audience On a daily basis, LinkedIn members is sharing the content. THREE 2 Expert content on the direction and use of your actively engage with content from TYPES OF industry’s products four primary sources of inspiration, With all that insight, you can fine- CONTENT 3 Product-specific content, such as user reviews and case studies, to drive consideration for your company insights, and information on tune your strategy to align with the our network: latest trends. That means you can increase the likelihood of your own Source: Commissioned study conducted by comScore in the US on behalf of LinkedIn, Q3 2013 • News from publishers content going viral, and reach and • Peers on LinkedIn groups engage more LinkedIn members. To receive your custom Trending Content • Thought leaders analysis, please contact your LinkedIn • Brands account executive or account manager.

Align Your Content Calendar These tools are currently available With Your Audience for LMS Customers, who can get their With LinkedIn, you can see trending score by contacting their LinkedIn topics across all those sources: Account Executive. LinkedIn Groups, news posts, thought leadership posts and discussions, and Company Pages.

Two New Power Resources for Your Content Marketing Toolbox 15 To lean more... DOWNLOAD THE OTHER THREE VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES! Volume 1

ABOUT US RELATIONSHIPS MATTER Laying the Foundation LinkedIn members number more than With LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, 347 million professionals. That’s over brands build relationships with the half of the 600 million professionals on world’s professionals by using accurate the planet. This represents the largest targeting to deliver relevant content group anywhere of influential, affluent and communications. and educated people. Volume 2 As today’s connected professionals Professional Publishing Platform seek out ideas and insights from the Building Your Professional Our evolution into a professional people and brands they trust, publishing platform drives increased marketers use LinkedIn to target Brand on LinkedIn engagement on LinkedIn. Compared advertising and publish relevant with other professional publishers, content in a professional context. content on LinkedIn works differently. Brands extend reach through the The rich data on our platform means social sharing that occurs naturally we can deliver the most relevant on LinkedIn, as well as by extending Volume 3 content to our members. LinkedIn data to their sites and brand experiences through APIs. Tapping into the For more information, please visit Power of LinkedIn our Marketing Solutions site.

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