While LinkedIn makes its focus B2B content sharing, you may be surprised just how many of your customers and clients are finding you on this network. LinkedIn is one of the first websites to be displayed in a Google search for a specific keyword, and many of your audience members are already on this professional network for their own careers. Because of this, LinkedIn should not be ignored as a content curation tool. There are five main features that the network offers – and each should be considered an opportunity.
Posting Presentations
One of LinkedIn’s newest features is SlideShare, a recently acquired third-party feature that has been fully integrated into the network itself. Just the SlideShare feature alone gets more than four million visitors on any given day, and more than 10,000 new pieces of content are uploaded every day.
The best reason to use this feature is to drive traffic back to your site. Presentations can be almost anything you can imagine: webinar recordings, influencer videos, infographics, presentations, product tutorials, and more. Anything that is short, informative, and segues nicely into an inbound link is perfect for this feature.
Showcase Your Stuff
Rather than having a profile page or fan page, LinkedIn calls your main hub your “showcase page” or “company page”. However, this is not a static landing page to ignore. Treat this page similar to a frequently-updated news page of a website, and you’ll be tapping into the real power behind this feature.
This feature is particularly useful for sharing the content that helps define your brand, such as how-to articles, industry articles, bold visuals, research data or case studies, and even eBooks. Your goal for this page is to generate LinkedIn page followers, engagement, and specific actions – such as signing up for a newsletter or registering for an event.
Going into Groups
A LinkedIn Group can be considered your own forum, specifically dedicated to your business. Here, the goal is to get a large number of group members actively discussing a quality topic as often as possible. The goal should be less about self-promotion, and more about building a community around your brand.
LinkedIn Groups are commonly used to promote discussions about your industry, leadership, trends, and more. This can also be used a crowdsourcing tool to feel out the viability of new ideas or products.
Publishing Posts
LinkedIn’s Publishing feature is similar to a blog, though it carries a bit more credibility as a professional platform than any WordPress website out there. More than three million posts are currently hosted on this platform, and it grows by the hour. LinkedIn data shows that 45% of the readers of this platform are upper-ranking industry pros, including CEOs, VPs, and managers.
This feature is suited for posts that offer expertise, opinions on industry trends, and more personal educational posts that help your readers feel connected to you on a human level. Your goal, once again, is less about promotion and more about building community and presenting yourself as a leader. Post likes, comments, and shares will be your main metric of success.
Share and Sponsor
For the best lead generation and brand awareness tool on LinkedIn, look no further than the sponsored update or the direct sponsored content features. Just about anything can be shared here, from company news and webinars, to visuals and blog content. Be sure to choose compelling content that includes links, and add URL tracking tools so you can gauge how well the sponsored campaign is working.
This tool sends your message out to relevant LinkedIn users beyond those who follow your page. You can customize content to be more personalized to specific groups on LinkedIn, and test multiple content pieces in real-time to adjust and optimize.
Combine and Conquer
The best strategy for LinkedIn content curation is to combine all five of these features and use them to your benefit. Some of these features allow you to engage in conversation, while others allow you to create more personalized experiences and leverage your customer personas more efficiently. By utilizing each, you have created a powerful content curation strategy that doesn’t require you to hop from network to network to meet a huge range of content marketing targets.
