There have been no shortage of articles slamming Microsoft for its recent $26bn purchase of LinkedIn.
Apparently, no one uses it and the endorsements feature is so annoying we should all delete our accounts. But if it’s so bad, why are 94% of B2B marketers still using the network? I very much doubt we are all suffering from some sort of collective madness.
Source: Content Marketing Institute
With more than 100 million active users, LinkedIn’s unquestionably a powerful social media platform. This became evident to me several years ago while providing consultancy to a headhunting firm. Nowadays you’d expect anyone in recruitment to be all over LinkedIn but it wasn’t the case then. Many recruiters saw it as a threat and were busy trying to justify why people shouldn’t embrace this new digital network.
We quickly discovered, however, that being active on LinkedIn was driving huge amounts of website traffic, and not just any traffic. Traffic from the network was by far and away the best performing marketing channel, leading to the highest percentage of website conversions.
It isn’t just the recruitment sector that’s thriving on LinkedIn, however. My colleagues within Fourth Day PR work with numerous B2B technology companies looking to establish their reputation and build relationships on the social media platform. And analysis of the impact of this activity routinely shows that LinkedIn continues to stimulate positive website visitor behaviour.
There are five reasons why I believe this is the case:
1. Trusted source of news
LinkedIn has become a trusted news source for professional people. If you’re a train commuter like me, you can easily spend an hour a day on the mobile app reading posts published on your news feed. The mobile app has become so popular that this is how half of all users access the network.
The benefit of using LinkedIn as a news source is that it’s where you find your peers sharing stories about your industry and engaging with each other. That being the case, it’s the perfect place to seek to influence a B2B audience relevant to you.
2. Susceptibility
The great thing about LinkedIn is that people are actively seeking to be influenced on the network. If you look at the top posts on LinkedIn, it resembles a series of self-help and personal development books, but in blog form. This is not surprising as LinkedIn’s stated mission is to connect the world’s professionals to make them ‘more productive and successful’.
This means that people are already in a frame of mind where they want to learn and read educational posts – and are, therefore, susceptible to persuasion.
3. Niche expertise
No matter what your niche, you’ll be able to find a sector specific group on LinkedIn (some are managed better than others) where debates regularly take place. This makes it an ideal place for those seeking to stay on top of the latest industry innovations and developments. It also makes it the perfect channel for a highly targeted PR campaign. Rather than broadcasting to the masses, you are connecting with genuine prospects.
LinkedIn’s blogging platform, Pulse also provides a perfect way to demonstrate expertise, and encourage those prospects to learn by visiting other pages on the internet – including your own. This is allowing brand spokespeople to raise awareness of their business, educate the market and influence decision making.
4. B2B buying behaviour
When it comes to B2B procurement the majority of buyers carry out purchasing research online – and when you consider that one of the most influential factors when it comes to B2B buying is word of mouth from peers, LinkedIn becomes highly significant.
Increasingly, word of mouth is happening digitally, and there are few better places to keep up-to-date with your peers than within this network.
Source: Blanc and Otus
5. People buy from people
LinkedIn provides a platform where people can see the human side of any business, and actively engage with its employees. And we all know the adage that people buy from people – it’s a cliché because it’s true.
Companies that appreciate this are encouraging their staff to act as micro-marketers on LinkedIn and there are plenty of ways they can do this – through their updates, comments, group posts, Pulse posts and InMail. It’s not surprising that the more active employees are the more visible a brand becomes.
In summary
When it comes to influencing a specific B2B audience, there are few places where you can be as targeted as you can on LinkedIn. There are also few channels where those targets are as willing to listen.
There needs to be a recognition that people are not on LinkedIn to be sold to. However, they do want to read educational material and engage in informative industry debates. If you remember this, there are plenty of ways you can get involved in these discussions on LinkedIn. When done in the right way, it will generate highly relevant web traffic and become a key lead generator.
By Paul Maher, head of content at Fourth Day PR
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