LinkedIn has been striving to continuously improve, invest and evolve into the “definitive professional publishing platform” according to the article by LinkedIn Marketing Solutions introducing LinkedIn Sponsored Updates.
Today, we are bombarded by news and content from all over the world and it changes and grows every second. Members share news from 1.5 million publishers and over 300 notable professionals who factor in content consumed by LinkedIn’s membership. Professionals can consistently count on content provided on LinkedIn being valuable, noteworthy and timely to the general public, but it’s often disregarded due to the amount of information coming at us constantly.
Not only is LinkedIn about content, it’s about connections. And these connections may continue to grow. When LinkedIn first started out, it was about connecting to former colleagues and then connecting to their current and former colleagues to build your network.
Since then, the more than 3 million organizations that have Company Pages on LinkedIn bring decidedly respected and relevant content. With LinkedIn Sponsored Updates, these organizations can continue to build relationships with members who are not following their company, but who may benefit from relevant content as it’s presented into the homepage feed.
This new option allows companies, organizations and institutions to distribute quality content to the mass populace of LinkedIn. Superior information and content produced that may have been lost to professionals in the past because they aren’t directly connected with the producing entity or it isn’t shared with someone who is connected to them.
So much valuable content has gone astray, lost forever inside the internal company vortex – slideshows, whitepapers, articles and videos can have an immense amount of value, but you never see it because you aren’t part of the inner circle or limited outer circle of the organization that produced and distributed it.
LinkedIn Sponsored Updates present a great opportunity and have several benefits marketers and company executives can delight in:
- Re-connect with professionals that already know a business and stay top of mind.
- Build or increase brand awareness
- Expanding reach for high quality content
- Targeting to any segment of audience
- Availability on desktop, smart phone and tablets
- Clearly marked as Sponsors so you have the option of following or not, liking, commenting, sharing
- Increase content consumption and introduction to professionals you may never have been able to connect with before.
- Comprehensive analytics and tracking will be available
According to the 2013 Digital Marketing Optimization Survey from Adobe, “Companies that invest more than 25% of their marketing budget on optimization are twice as likely to see higher conversion rates.”
Unless you are following Adobe or have attended a presentation—in person or virtually, information such as this can be lost to you forever.
Marketers are increasingly looking for ways to stretch dollars allocated to the annual marketing budget, and with the continual threat of cuts, they need to find ways to successfully leverage content to be used in the most valuable way.
And, as the global marketplace changes and expectations change from straight from the hip and direct advertising of goods, services, and brands to a plethora of available information – professionals now expect to learn about prospective vendors, customers and partners through the leadership, education, insight and expertise presented in news, research results and content provided.
LinkedIn Sponsorship Updates provide today’s professional world and its marketers with another option to share, engage, connect and consume—further expanding their global reach, increasing awareness—all the while optimizing their budgets.
