With over 300 million users, LinkedIn is the largest and most influential professional social network. It’s a luxurious vitrine with many experts, influencers, and decision makers looking out for what your brand is saying. Why is it, then, that brands don’t seem to be engaging with their audience?
Using Socialbakers Analytics, we looked at the September data from the top 100 companies with LinkedIn profiles. There was a lot to choose from, but being that interactions is now recommended as the best metric with which to measure your social performance, we started there.
This reveals LinkedIn’s diversity. It proves to be a useful channel for all types of brands and industries. The business-oriented social network comes out on top and is followed a set of global brands hailing from a range of industries – automobile, computer software, personal care, and energy industries – showing that everyone can (and should) get in on the action.
LinkedIn is often used by brands as the HR landing page – there’s a lot of focus on recruitment and most of the content consists of job descriptions. Because of that, we looked at the hottest job positions, as well as the locations that need professionals the most.
Is using LinkedIn exclusively as a recruitment platform a smart strategy? Short answer: no.
Where Smarter Social Marketing Comes to Play
Wrapping up the September numbers, we found a huge discrepancy between job posts and content-specific posts. The top 100 brands on LinkedIn offered jobs 65.564 times and posted rich content only 3.758 times. Granted, the interactions total (299.877) is still high but it could have reached new heights if brands were to invest more of their time in building specific content for their audiences.
The smarter social marketing strategy here is to tap into the gap, to go beyond HR and job descriptions, and start having a conversation with your audience by creating relevant content. Post often (the standard is twice a day, during office hours, for optimal engagement), bring expertise to the table, link to your pre-existing rich content, but stay on-brand and industry-relevant every step of the way.
LinkedIn’s community is full of engagement potential, and the network’s unparalleled targeting options make sure that you’re reaching the right audience. Also, it’s clear that the network is hell-bent on bringing unique content to its users – just look at their Influencer or Pulse programs. There’s no reason why brands shouldn’t contribute to this feast of rich content.
Your LinkedIn Company Page is your best place to share thought leadership articles, industry and brand news, and to give voice to your experts. Don’t leave it all to the HR team; put your social marketing and content teams to work, and get the most out of LinkedIn.