CHAPTER 1 New for 2016 The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to Why Does My Business Need LinkedIn? i Table of Contents A NOTE TO THE WHY SHOULD CHAPTER 1: CHAPTER 2: SOPHISTICATED I BE READING WHY DOES MY MARKET TO MARKETER THIS GUIDE? BUSINESS NEED WHO MATTERS LINKEDIN? 1 2 3—4 5—8 CHAPTER 3: • CHAPTER 4: CHAPTER 5: CHAPTER 6: OPTIMIZING YOUR EXPAND YOUR EASILY KEEP BUILD YOUR BRAND PROFILE NETWORK OF YOUR FINGER AND COMPANY INFLUENCERS ON THE PULSE PRESENCE ORGANICALLY 9—10 11—14 15—17 18—23 CHAPTER 7: CHAPTER 8: CHAPTER 9: 25 SOCIAL MEDIA EXPAND YOUR MEASURE THE UNLOCK THE POWER EXPERTS YOU TARGETED REACH IMPACT AND OF LINKEDIN’S NEED TO KNOW OPTIMIZE PARTNER PROGRAM 24—34 35—38 39—40 41—42 A Note to the Sophisticated Marketer technologies. What worked during the golden age of marketing still works today, but marketers, their fuel, and platforms like LinkedIn are the new black. This guide was written with you in mind, the sophisticated marketer. Everything you need to know about marketing on LinkedIn, written both strategically and instructionally. It’s your one-stop shop to the vast opportunities that await—increase The one-two punch of social media and awareness, influence perception, generate content marketing has become a vital part high-quality leads and ultimately drive of any successfully integrated marketing revenue with LinkedIn. approach. Social media no longer lives in a silo but instead is a vital component of the Let’s get started, shall we? success of many marketing campaigns. With content fueling your social marketing, we Jason Miller have arrived at the age of truly integrated Senior Content Marketing Manager, marketing strategy, and it’s being led by a LinkedIn Marketing Solutions new breed of sophisticated marketers. The sophisticated marketer is someone who takes marketing techniques, both old and new, and executes them in a calculated hybrid of strategies. This type of marketer is grounded in timeless, Mad Men-era tactics and combines them with new, modern 1 Why Should I Be Reading This Guide? LinkedIn has products that impact every stage of the purchase process. The goal of this guide is to provide the absolute best, most up-to-date, definitive guide for marketers to learn how to market to who matters on LinkedIn as part of their integrated approach to marketing. This guide is a labor of love for us here at LinkedIn. We created it to be a one-stop shop for everything a marketer needs to know about getting the most value out of LinkedIn for yourself and your company. It’s not just an instruction manual, but a strategic guide with lots of input from top thought leaders and LinkedIn marketing experts, combined with the expertise of the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions team. And it’s all about how to truly tap into the potential and power of social media marketing. That’s because social media marketing is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s a necessary part of a successful integrated marketing approach for driving awareness, leads and ultimately revenue. We call this "The Sophisticated Marketer's Guide" because we feel it’s time to take social media marketing to the next level, moving beyond theory to enlightened practice. It’s time to get real results with your social marketing, and this guide will help. 2 CHAPTER 1 Why Does My Business Need LinkedIn? These days in the business world, relationships matter more than ever. People tune out irrelevant or promotional messages. But they do want The World’s Professionals to engage with companies that focus on sharing useful and relevant Come to LinkedIn for Knowledge information and content. The companies that inform and engage aren’t just selling—they’re building relationships. There are 2 million publishers posting fresh content on LinkedIn—along with peer posts in the Feed, long-form content, LinkedIn Groups and LinkedIn is where, by far, the largest Professionals are not just coming to 7 million brand-managed company pages. LinkedIn is the definitive number of professionals gather to stay LinkedIn in huge numbers; they’re engaging professional publishing platform, where our members come to learn, connected and informed, advance their with a huge purpose. They’re coming share and get inspired. career and work smarter. More than 414 specifically to connect to networks, million professionals are on LinkedIn. These brands and opportunities by engaging are the decision makers, influencers, and with high-quality content across the THE WORLD’S LARGEST PROFESSIONAL NETWORK leaders of today and tomorrow—the people LinkedIn platform. This is a very different you want to target, all in one place. mindset and intent from other social media (in millions of members) s r e h t platforms; we're driven by our members’ o On LinkedIn, we have: professional aspirations. • 61 million senior-level influencers The world’s professionals come to 430+ 413 LinkedIn for: 396 • 40 million decision makers 380 • Industry news 350 332 • 10.7 million opinion leaders 313 • Expert advice 296 277 259 • 6.8 million C-level execs 238 • Career training 218 • 3 million MBA graduates • Peer insights and recommendations • Content published by LinkedIn’s Q1’13 Q2’13 Q3’13 Q4’13 Q1’14 Q2’14 Q3’14 Q1’15 Q2’15 Q3’15 Q4’15 Q1’16 500+ Influencers Source: “LinkedIn Announces First Quarter 2016 Results,” LinkedIn, 2016 Why Does My Business Need LinkedIn? 3 CHAPTER 1 LinkedIn is a platform enabling sophisticated marketers to forge LINKEDIN BY THE NUMBERS relationships with these professionals. In fact, this is the first time in the history in media you can engage with the world's professionals in one place. It’s no wonder LinkedIn has quickly become the go-to LINKEDIN IS THE #1 CHANNEL LINKEDIN DRIVES MORE content publishing platform for marketers. TO DISTRIBUTE CONTENT TRAFFIC TO B2B BLOGS & SITES B2B marketers who use various 90% of social traffic was driven Why are the world’s professionals now What do we mean by a sophisticated social media sites to distribute by the big three networks, with half gathering in this one place, on LinkedIn? marketer? The idea of being a sophisticated content: of it coming from LinkedIn. Because the people you’re looking to marketer comes from the transition of s market to are just like you and me. We’re social media marketing from pure theory to 94% r e h all searching for the right destinations to effective use. But marketers can’t just “do” ot 89% find the best information, and there are social. Now they need to produce results actually fewer places where we’re gathering and actionable insights in order to prove 77% in large numbers. the value of their efforts. Fortunately, we no 77% longer are forced to take a spray-and-pray 61% With LinkedIn, you’re reaching a quality approach to getting our messages heard in audience in a professional context. And, the noisy world of social. you can engage them in a very meaningful LINKEDIN CONSIDERED MOST EFFECTIVE FOR B2B LEAD GEN way: by sharing valuable content with The technology is in place that allows us 80% of social media B2B leads come from LinkedIn. products tailored to how professionals to adopt a much more refined approach, engage. By doing so, you become part sophisticated if you will, to social media 80.33% of your audience’s conversations and marketing, using the world’s largest 12.73% education on the platform. professional network. 6.73% All it takes is a sophisticated marketer who 0.21% seizes the opportunity to engage them. EXECUTIVES RATE LINKEDIN HIGH ON VALUE GAINED FROM THEIR SOCIAL MARKETING INITIATIVES LinkedIn is the number one choice for professionally relevant content. LinkedIn 91% Online News Sites 64% Twitter Sources: "B2B Marketing 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets, 29% and Trends—North America," Content Marketing Facebook 27% Institute/ Marketing Profs. Webbiquity, 2013. "LinkedIn Google+ 16% for B2B Lead generation" infographic, Oktopost as shared by business2community.com, 2014. Why Does My Business Need LinkedIn? 4 CHAPTER 2 Market to Who Matters: Achieve Your Marketing Goals As a sophisticated marketer, grasp the reality of today’s purchase process: Buyers are up to 90% through the purchase process before they make direct contact with your sales team. That means the onus is on you to attract and engage these buyers by delivering content that helps them narrow down their options. That’s where the Linked platform delivers GET TO THE RIGHT ENGAGE YOUR AUDIENCE value, by: PROFESSIONAL AUDIENCE WITH CONTENT With your specific end goal now in mind, Based on your goals and the metrics you’ll 1. TARGET our targeting is the core of what enables use to grade success of your programs— Creating awareness of your brand and your success on LinkedIn. The authentic and given how members engage on the products early in the purchase process member-generated, first party data on platform—you can take advantage of a LinkedIn is more accurate and highly mix of organic content and paid 2. ENGAGE differentiated in the market noise of advertising opportunities. Positioning your brand as a thought leader audience data. We make it easy for you and engaging audiences more deeply to segment and reach your audience by with content as they’re forming perceptions offering: and decisions • RICH DEMOGRAPHIC DATA 1. OPTIMIZE Job Function, Seniority, Company Driving the right audiences to take action, Name, Geo, Industry Our innovative products help marketers navigate the complex B2B helping you generate quality leads and buying process, where multiple touchpoints influence every sale. new business • INTEREST-BASED TARGETING Group Membership, Skills, Field of Study “ LinkedIn is the only platform that the majority of B2B marketers consider • PERSONA TARGETING to be effective.” Job Searchers, Opinion Leaders, Mass Affluent, Business Travelers — "Content Marketing Research Report," Content Marketing Institute, 2014 • YOUR OWN AUDIENCE DATA Target Account Lists Market to Who Matters: Achieve Your Marketing Goals 5 CHAPTER 2 8 WAYS TO TAP INTO THE POWER OF LINKEDIN Here are strategic marketing opportunities to better reach and nurture prospective buyers.