Live Webinar: How to be a World Class Content Marketer on LinkedIn
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- Why content marketing matters and why it’s critical for your business to embrace - Why LinkedIn should be part of your content marketing strategy - How to create content that works and get to winning content - How to distribute your content on LinkedIn - What it means to optimize your content and best practices
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Live Webinar: How to be a World Class Content Marketer on LinkedIn
- 1. Rachel Rickles Content Marketing Evangelist How to be a World Class Content Marketer on LinkedIn
- 2. Let’s Talk About Why Content Marketing Matters Why LinkedIn? Creating Winning Content Content Distribution on LinkedIn Optimizing Content Key Takeaways and Q&A
- 4. It’s a Challenging World Customers make it through 90% of the purchase process before reaching out. Sources: *Forrester, “Buyer Behavior Helps B2B Marketers Guide the Buyer’s Journey,” October 2012; **Zero Moment of Truth Study, Google 10 pieces of content are consumed in the process
- 5. Today’s Buyer is More Empowered Than Ever Search Social Mobile
- 6. Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action. - Content Marketing Institute
- 7. What’s the Difference? Traditional Marketing Audience-FocusedBrand-Focused Continuous & ConsistentFractured & Campaign-Based Earns AttentionInterrupts Attention Content Marketing
- 9. Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful LinkedIn’s Mission
- 10. 61M senior-level influencers 40M decision makers 10M opinion leaders 6M C-level execs 6M Small business owners 4M IT decision makers 414Mprofessionals are on LinkedIn The Largest Global Community of Professionals
- 11. The Professional Mindset is Different Goldman Environmental Prize Peter Dinklage Love It or List It Zika Virus Napa Valley Wine Train Jupiter Recruiting Social media Employee engagement Self-esteem European Union Marketing Automation Integrated marketing Venture capital Cloud computing Design thinking #PrimaryDay #MakeABookEmotional #TravelTuesday #AskKeyandPeele #AkaiGurley Conor McGregor Curt Schilling Trending topics by social media platform
- 12. 9 billion content impressions / week 7X engagement with content vs job postings 57% mobile Professionals Engage with Purpose – and with Content 7 ways to share content
- 14. How does my content make them more productive and successful? Where are they in the buyer’s journey? How will I measure success? Who is this for? 4 Questions
- 15. Who is the Audience?
- 16. Aligning Content to the Funnel Strangers Engagers Subscribers Leads Opportunities Customers Advocates
- 17. Creating Valuable Content Company’s Expertise Audience Pain Points & Interests Untapped Opportunity
- 18. Measurement Increased site traffic Increased blog traffic Increased newsletter subscribers Increased Company Page Followers & Engagers *example metrics CPL CPQL Increased opportunity volume Increased customer spend *example metrics 10Pieces of Content Source: Zero Moment of Truth Study, Google
- 19. 4 Content Pillars that Work on LinkedIn Industry Trends and News Professional Development Leadership and Productivity Peer Experts
- 20. Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful LinkedIn’s Mission
- 21. What’s trending with your audience? Industry Trends & News Overarching industry trends Analysis of trends New information Pitfalls/Opportunities Retrospective
- 22. Ideological Professional Development Tactical • Time Management • Listening • Emotional Intelligence • When to say “No” • “How to” articles • Tips/Tricks • Listicles
- 23. How to approach this topic: Leadership & Productivity Company culture Office and/or remote space Leadership best practices Work/Life Balance CEO/Start-up advice
- 26. Showcase Page Company PageSlideShare Sponsored Content Employee/Influencer Posts Employee Profiles Sponsored InMail
- 27. Company Page vs. Showcase Page
- 29. Optimize Content for Maximum Impact
- 30. World Class Sponsored Content Consistency A/B Testing Mobile Optimized Assets Maximizing Content Value
- 31. Anatomy of World Class Post Concise intro copy Strong imagery Mobile Friendly
- 32. Maintain a Consistent Voice
- 33. You have the same voice all the time, but your tone changes. You might use one tone when you’re out to dinner with your closest friends, and a different tone when you’re in a meeting with your boss… MailChimp’s voice is human. It’s familiar, friendly, and straightforward. - MailChimp
- 35. Mobile Optimized
- 36. Maximizing Existing Content E-book/Physical Book Webinar Infographic
- 37. Key Takeaways
- 38. Content Marketing should be always-on Valuable content should answer 4 key questions 7 different ways to distribute content on LinkedIn Takeaways Optimizations are critical to continuous success
- 39. How to Get Started Learn More: Visit business.linkedin.com/marketing- solutions. Download the Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide Get Started: Sponsor content from your company page today or reach out to your sales executive Brainstorm: Establish your editorial mission statement, identify content categories you can find success
- 40. Q & A
Editor's Notes
- Today, let’s talk about all things content. Why content marketing matters and why it’s critical for your business to embrace Why LinkedIn should be part of your content marketing strategy How to create content that works and get to winning content How to distribute your content on LinkedIn What it means to optimize your content and best practices We’ll also be answering your questions at the end of the session, so feel free to ask questions as we go along.
- First, why does content marketing matter? We’ve all heard it, we all know we should be doing it… but why?
- Because it’s a challenging world for marketers today. With so much available at the fingertips of would-be customers, 90% of the buying decision happens before you ever even know that they exist. Not only do they have a ton of information available to them, but the latest stat indicates that buyers now consume 10 pieces of content, on average, before a purchase decision is made. This means there’s a lot that needs to aligned and a lot to compete with in order to attract customers.
- And, buyers are able to consume so much content before they reach out to your company because there’s no shortage of online destinations they can visit to to find information about products, compare prices, get social recommendations and so on.
- Now, this is how the Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing – it is… Why is it so important to define content marketing?
- Because it’s much different than traditional marketing. Traditional Marketing is typically brand-focused – what we’re great at, what we can do, we’re really awesome-we promise. It also tends to be fractured in it’s approach – rather than having a full-fledged strategy and mission, there may be multiple campaigns occurring at the same time that are often inconsistent. And, finally, it interrupts attention – it tends to scream: look at me, look at me. Now, compare that to Content Marketing, where you’re focused on the audience – what do they need, what will they respond to? It’s continuous and consistent – really taking on the “always on” approach and consistently delivering quality content for the audience. It should also earn the attention of the audience – content marketing gains trust and respect, developing relationships with the audience.
- So, where does LinkedIn fit into your content marketing strategy?
- Let’s start with LinkedIn’s mission, which is to…
- So, LinkedIn is where the largest number of professionals gather to stay connected and informed, advance their career and work smarter. There are over 414 million professionals on LinkedIn. These are the decision makers, influencers, the marketers and IT folks – essentially the people you want to get your message in front of - all in one place.
- The reason our mission statement is important is because we connect with people differently than other social networks. Take a look at the trending topics from a few weeks ago on Facebook and Twitter - you have topics like…. Now, here were the trending topics on LinkedIn for the same time frame. People invest time on LinkedIn to be better in their careers, to learn something new, and grow as a professional. From what we can see from the other platforms, people use these channels as a distraction to break up their day.
- And this mindset has led to the incredible growth of content on the LI platform: 9 billion content impressions every week, which includes posted articles, photos or videos, and activities by other members. With this volume, it’s no surprise that our members are engaging with content 7 times more than they are with job postings – this is not a “job seeker” platform. And, it’s important to note that the majority of this engagement is mobile. More than 57% of the time, they’re accessing this LI content over their mobile device. Finally, there are 7 ways to share content on LinkedIn, which is a huge opportunity to reach your target audience.
- OK, so now that we’ve talked about why you should leverage LinkedIn when developing your content strategy, let’s talk about creating content that resonates with your audience. That winning content we’re all trying to create.
- There are four questions you want to ask yourself when you’re creating content. These questions will help guide you to build content that resonates with your audience. - First, Who is this for? Who is my audience and why do they matter to me? - Where are is my audience in the buyer’s journey? Do they know about my brand? Are they already customers? - How can I help them be more productive and successful? How will the content I create help them? - How will success be measured? Are we looking at improving brand identity or are we looking for leads?
- Let’s start with the audience you want to reach. This may seem like an obvious first step, but it’s critical to identify who is important to you – IT Managers, CMO’s, Operations, Sales Leads, SMB Owners, Customer Success, Influencers… you want to think about who that audience is and then engage them with appropriate content. Keep in mind, it’s important to not only consider the function of your audience, but also about their seniority level in the organization. For example, you’ll want to have a different conversation with a CMO than a Marketing Coordinator. Both are important to reach, but you’ll want to communicate differently as their interests and needs are different.
- When thinking about your audience, it’s important to understand where they fall in the buyer’s journey. Even if you’ve identified your target audience, where do they fall in the funnel? I often relate this to dating – you’re not going to ask someone to marry you on the first date (most likely). You’re going to want to introduce them to your family and friends, get to know their interests, and understand whether it’s a good fit… Only then will you make the commitment and investment. And, within all of those stages, different conversations take place. That’s exactly how you want to communicate with your audience based on where they are in that funnel, otherwise you’re going to be viewed as either creepy (if you’re going too fast) or perhaps aloof and annoying (if you keep having the same conversation over and over). So, understanding which stage your audience is at is will help you identify the type of content you should be creating.
- When developing content, there’s an important distinction between creating content and creating valuable content. Valuable content lies at the intersection of three key elements: - First, think about your company’s expertise – what do your employees know more about than anyone else? What expertise does your company provide that others can’t? When developing this piece, think about how you can go beyond the product. Maybe your company focuses on cloud security – but why does that matter? What expertise are you able to bring to the table? - The second piece to creating valuable content is understanding what your audiences pain points and interests are. We all have lead goals we need to meet, but it’s less likely we’ll get quality leads unless we put our audience first. What challenges are they facing, what topics are they interested in learning about, is there a timely topic that you can weigh in on (and would be interesting to your audience)? So, going back to the cloud security example, what is your audience risking if they don’t have a secure cloud connection? Are there mistakes to avoid when selecting a cloud security provider? How do clients know they need cloud security? Again, this isn’t a product sheet – it’s helpful information that potential clients should consider when choosing a cloud security vendor. - Lastly, is there an untapped opportunity your company can capitalize on? Are you doing something really cool, but no one knows about it? Are there audiences you’re not reaching that would benefit from your product? Think about something you can leverage that no one else in the industry is doing. In your content planning phase, these key elements will help guide the type of content you should be creating.
- **Add “Example” to the measurement verbiage Once we’ve identified who our audience is, how we want to address the audience based on where they’re at in the funnel, and how to create valuable content for them, we need to talk about how we’re going to measure success. With this, we need to remember that not all content is created equal. We just saw that our audience can be anywhere in the buyer’s journey and so we can’t measure content that is meant for strangers the same way we measure content meant for customers (remember: we’re going to have different expectations for a first date than we are a wedding). So, when we create content that is designed to reach new audiences or even warm audiences, we’ll want to measure things like increased site traffic, increased newsletter subscribers, and even an increase in your LinkedIn company page followers. But, content is also needed for those that are already familiar with our company – we need to continue the conversation to keep our relationship strong. This is where we can begin to measure cost per lead, cost per qualified lead as well as the number of opportunities generated and whether there was an increase in overall revenue. And, keep in mind that it can take up to 10 pieces of content consumed before a purchase decision is made. So, even when you’ve generated a lead, you’ll need to continue the conversation before they become a customer.
- When we think about content on LinkedIn, we think about a destination where we can get relevant information, guidance, or inspiration – as well as to feel connected to other like-minded professionals. So, now that we’ve discussed the questions we need to answer in order to create great content, let’s talk a little bit about the kinds of content that we’ve seen work well on LinkedIn, which are: - Industry tends and news - Professional development - Leadership and productivity - and Peer expert guidance
- But, before we get into the meat of these 4 pillars, I want to bring us back to LinkedIn’s Mission Statement – which is to Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. Now, the reason I brought us back here is because when we think about posting content to LinkedIn, we should first and foremost think about how our content will make the audience more productive and/or more successful. Now, that’s easy to say, but what does that really mean? I’m going to show you some examples of content that is informative, helpful, and even inspiring that help LinkedIn members in their every-day lives.
- The first category we’ll discuss is Industry Trends and News. This may seem a bit obvious, but it’s important to understand that content that helps your audience understand their industry trends, or the latest information will help build your brand as a leader in the space, but will also likely drive more customers in the future. So, you’ll want to think about your space and how you can add to the conversation. Are you going to forecast trends for the coming year? Give a retrospective of what’s worked in the first half of the year and how your company will course-correct for the second half of the year? Perhaps you have a different perspective to lend to current industry events and thought-provoking analysis. There are a lot of ways you can approach this category, without just posting a press release.
- Next, let’s talk about how our audience wants to develop themselves professionally. I like to break this down into two sub categories – Ideological and Tactical (or practical) development. For ideological development, this is an article that discusses the skills you can (and should) learn to have a successful career. So, our ideological development focuses on things like: - time management - listening - leadership traits - emotional intelligence Those soft skills that for most of us constantly need honing and adjusting. This type of content is usually very high level, where it gives the audience the ways to be successful, but doesn’t necessarily give the steps to achieve each skill. Then we have Tactical or practical development – things that your audience can apply to their everyday lives to become better at their jobs. We can think of this as the tactical execution to the ideological information. This category often covers things like “how to” articles – how to ask your boss for time off, how to use Snapchat for business, etc. There’s also tips and tricks – how to use project management software to become better at time management, for example. And, finally, listicles – 5 ways to impress your boss, top 10 email subject lines for lead gen, etc.
- Next, we have the category of leadership and productivity. We can approach this topic in a number of ways: Company culture – this can include articles about ways to improve company culture, what happened to your culture when you grew from 50 – 150 employees (and how it was handled), etc
- Now that we have the basics of creating great content down, let’s talk a bit about how to distribute that content on LinkedIn.
- There are 7 different ways to distribute content on LinkedIn – - Let’s start with Employee Profiles – your company’s employees represent a huge opportunity to get your message in front of a larger audience. Often, the number of connections your employees have is 2, 4, or even 10 times larger than the followers to your company page. So, the content your employees engage with (like, share, or comment) is reaching a much larger audience than you would on your own. - We also have Employee and/or influencer posts – This leverages the Peer Experts we were just discussing. Tapping into your existing talent to write posts (either about your company, the space you operate in, or even personal learnings) can help boost not only your brand identity, but your credibility. - Sponsored InMail is a great feature that allows you to reach a targeted audience within the LinkedIn inbox. Perhaps you don’t have every ITDM’s email address in your CRM – this feature will allow you to reach those audiences based on their profile data on the LinkedIn platform. - Then there’s Slideshare, which allows you to upload content in a more visual format. This is a great way to repurpose long form content you may already have into a visual deck that’s easy to consume. Finally, I want to talk about the big three – Company page, Sponsored Updates and/or Direct Sponsored Content, and Showcase pages. The company page is really at the heart of these - Showcase page – The showcase page is a great option if your company has multiple divisions. For example, Intel has a company page as well as a showcase page for their IT Center business division. This allows you to post content that is more specific to the audience that may be following you because they’re interested in a particular product line. - Sponsored Updates and Direct Sponsored Content – This is really the meat of posting content on LinkedIn. These updates show up in the feed of a targeted group of members.
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- When creating Sponsored Updates, it’s important to remember a few things: 1. Keep your intro copy concise. The more text you put in this field the more likely members are to skim over it straight to the next piece of content in their feed. Think about your own behavior. When there’s a lot to read in a compacted space, it’s less likely that you’re going to read through all of it and then click to learn (or read) more.
- **fix the blue dotted line to animate
- <Note: this is an editable version of the ‘very few big destinations slides’ where you can add/delete logos> Why are the world’s professionals now gathering in this one place, on LinkedIn? Because the people you’re looking to market to are just like you and me. We’re all searching for the right destinations to find the best information, and there are actually fewer places where we’re gathering in large numbers. Think Amazon for buying stuff, Google and Baidu for finding information across the web, FB and QQ for connecting with friends/family, YouTube for watching videos
- **Add that we’ll send the deck after the webinar is done
- So, where does LinkedIn fit into your content marketing strategy?