Category Archives for "LinkedIn"

When venturing into social media advertising the explanation given behind the elements can be dry. You will find definitions for the various factors involved in creating and running an ad campaign, but what you are likely wondering is: "How does budget affect who sees my ad?" "How does this work?" At AmpliPhi Social Media Strategies, Client Success Manager, Lauren Miles has gained extensive knowledge on the process of running these social media ads. Lauren gives an inside look to running ads on LinkedIn and some of the best practices to answer these questions.

When venturing into social:

How does budget affect who sees my ad? How does this work?

Imagine an auction being run behind the scenes in cyberspace. This is like what happens during the ad bidding process on social platforms. Each time we refresh our home pages, this auction is run and WE are the items advertisers are bidding on. A number of paddles go up to ‘buy’ someone seeing an ad, which will determine how high the winning bid is. In larger markets like New York or LA, the cost to reach a 21+ year old woman who is interested in Joanna Gaines and wine will be higher. There are additional advertisers in these markets who likely have more money to spend and can beat you out during the bidding process.

This is why we encourage the use of data-driven audiences. Once you begin to understand the custom audiences of users (for instance, those who may have engaged with your company on Facebook), you move up higher in their propensity to enjoy or relate to your content, therefore giving you a leg up in the auction process to achieve them at a lower cost.

Social platforms do not want to show us ads we aren’t interested in. Clicking and buying that item we saw on Instagram matters less than if we click to 'hide ad'. If users stopped seeing relevant ads (for example, showing diaper ads to someone who doesn’t have any children), then the platform's members may start to use the platform less and advertising dollars would dwindle.

Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn allows for both a daily budget AND a lifetime budget. 

Daily Budget: When a campaign is set to a daily budget, the platform will stop showing the ad once you reach your spend threshold for a specific day. This means that if you wish to spend $5 a day for 30 days, you can be sure that the ad will run for those 30 days, and will be at or around $5 each day*. This type of budget is best for long standing ads that promote brand awareness.

The downside to limiting yourself to a daily spend means missing out on potential targeted audience members who could see that ad if you’ve already reached your budget for the day. 

*LinkedIn Note: There may be a short period of time after your budget is reached when your ads continue to display. You will be charged for clicks or impressions that are delivered during that time up to 20% beyond your daily budget.

Lifetime Budget: Selecting a Lifetime Budget is the best option if you wish to get your ad to as many people in your audience as quickly as possible. You set your auction limit and the platform goes to bat for you in an attempt to win as many individuals in your target audience as your budget allows. Once the platform spends your budget, your ad will stop running.

With LinkedIn allowing for both a Daily and a Lifetime budget you can have the peace of mind that knowing that your ad will not spend more than your allotted daily amount, but also will not exceed a certain overall budget.

When searching the internet for advice on how much to spend, or how often to post, I’m sure you have become frustrated that this information-these magic numbers-do not exist. Research your area and take the time to learn what works and does not work for you.

Have you tried LinkedIn ads? How have you become more comfortable when deciding on a budget? We would love to hear from you in the comments!

When I was still wholesaling 401(k) plans in 2013, I was on an advisory board tasked with helping to devise our company’s social media strategy. 

We bought a software system that allowed our field sales reps to push a button and share company-approved social media content. Back then, that was the “safe” way to incorporate social media into our sales process, and it was frankly the only way we could actually use social media to share content. This option was definitely better than nothing at all. For those of us in business development, we all know that the “fortune is in the follow-up” – when people think about you more often than not, you get more shots to win business.

Today, financial services entities allow their registered reps and company staff to do much, much more than just push a button. Many of us are permitted to use social media in ways that are both personalized and specific to our business objectives. For this column, I interviewed three such people who use social media to drive their marketing and business development goals. 

Kate Barton, Marketing Manager at Clearview Advisory 

“In our strategy for social media, we use LinkedIn as a way to stay in touch with people we’ve met or want to work with,” says Barton. “We incorporate it into our drip marketing campaign. We work with small to mid-sized businesses, and some may not have worked with an advisor before. They can be hesitant to sign on the dotted line, and we recognize it takes a while to gain their trust. It’s a big decision to hire an advisor!”

She adds, “LinkedIn and social media allow us to interact with people on a neutral platform and build a relationship over time. We use our own photos and original content almost exclusively and we hire a photographer every couple of years to take fresh photos.”

To highlight two of Barton’s key points:

• As she said, LinkedIn and social media can be considered “neutral” platforms. In addition to the direct one-on-one follow-up in which we all participate, social media allows us to stay in front of people in an indirect manner. More exposure for you = more people thinking about you = more opportunities.
• Using their own photos allows Barton and her firm to distinguish themselves from similar firms. I call this “anti-stock” photography. Instead of featuring nameless people on your website, brochures, and social media posts, highlight the people who actually work there. The main thing that differentiates your company from others? Your people. Make sure you show the public you’re real people. 

Derek Notman, CFP 

“I leverage social media by creating a series of short videos that build upon each other to tell a story and take viewers on a journey, which ultimately led to my website which offered even more value, (e.g., a webinar and eBook),” Notman says. “I also made it a point to create a lot more original content that wasn't about selling anything but focused on the benefits and outcomes of my services. Both of these led to exponential growth and sales.” 

He adds: “A strategy I would recommend using: create short, personalized videos to send as direct messages and via email. My response rate was drastically higher, and I also receive a lot of positive feedback about how personal and different my approach is.”

Notman does a great job here of highlighting the power of video. Fifteen years ago, YouTube didn’t exist, and even if you were lucky enough to have good-quality video to share, how would you have shared it? Today your website and social media accounts allow you to distribute video for free, and what better way is there to have people “experience” what you’re like in real life? So consider adding video to your marketing mix in 2020 if you haven’t already.

Alyssa Rock, Bolder B2B Marketing

“I partner directly with our top sales executives and internal thought leaders who have the best LinkedIn networks (clients and prospects) and provide the correct content, hashtags, and even emojis for them to post on their profiles, Rock says. “I prefer using their personal pages instead of LinkedIn company social media pages/showcase pages.”

The point of social media “is to be social and spark engagement,” Rock points out. “We convert leads faster when the content is shared on the personal profiles of those with boots on the ground. I leverage these tactics heavily around trade shows and webinars and consistently outperform any paid placement.”

She hits the nail on the head. You’ll never meet someone who loves LinkedIn company pages and the ability to hyper-focus on targeted prospects with LinkedIn ads than Yours Truly. However, as much as we all love our company’s brand, our clients and prospective clients prefer connecting with individuals – like you.

Is what Rock suggests scalable? Nope. And that’s the point. Personal touches (i.e., the thing that best drives business and engenders trust) outperforms robo-messaging, and it will continue to do so. Rock acts as an accountability partner of sorts for her executives. They know they need to participate in the content creation process, but not take on that burden entirely themselves.

In 2020, your clients and prospective clients will use social media more and more, and if you’re not showing up in some capacity, you’re going to miss opportunities to win business. Here’s my top suggestion for implementing a strategy that will take hold and stick: First create a “not doing” list and write all the tactics down that you’re knowingly not implementing. Not on Twitter? Great! Give yourself credit for something you’re not doing. Instagram? Is that a thing these days? Nope, not using it.

Once you create a long, long list of what you’re not doing, list three things you’ll actually do in 2020  like weekly LinkedIn posts, monthly videos or a one-time photo shoot, for example. The revisit your list of “not doing” items, feel great about them, and focus on the activities that drive results. 

Why You Need Video Posts on Your LinkedIn Company Page

For a little over a year, LinkedIn company pages have been allowed to do video postings. I don't see a lot of companies doing it, though. Through data, I can show you why you should really be posting video on your LinkedIn company page.

Let's take a deeper look into why.

When you look at a typical company page LinkedIn post you can see some stats at the bottom (when viewing the page as an administrator). Typical posts include status or photo posts. You can see the impressions, reactions, click-through rate, comments, shares, clicks, and the engagement rate. This seems like a lot of data...

But what if I told you that you could gain even greater insights by posting video content?

Here are the steps how:

Step One: Click Show Stats in the lower left corner of any video post.

Step Two: Click on the 'Total Video Views' blue number.

Step Three: Analyze Lifetime Data then proceed by selecting 'Audience'.

Step Four: Analyze further business analytics.

These analytics are GOLD (not literally, but they are pretty much just as valuable).

The analytics include the 'lifetime' of the video (the average length of watch-time by viewers), the views (number of times the video was watched) and the number of  viewers (or unique people that have watched the video for longer than 3 seconds). 

But, if you click on 'Audience' what you'll see is data that we just don't get from typical posts.

THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT. Why?

Walking from right to left on your screen, we see the locations from which people have come. This can be especially useful when trying to target certain audiences by geographic location.

The second column is the job title of the person...which also useful information.

But there is one section that is particularly fantastic.

This is the 'people from these companies viewed your post' section.

If you are responsible for your company LinkedIn page, accessing this data and presenting it to the person who oversees your work will set you apart. Those doing business development and other sales-related roles love to know who's seeing your marketing material. Why is that?

Here's what I discovered after doing 3000+ business development meetings - sales is about confidence more than anything else.

There is a monstrous gap in sales between 'I have never heard of your company before' and 'for some reason your company rings a bell'. Imagine if you empower your business development people, your sales professionals, or other co-workers by saying:

 "We published this video and these people from this company saw it."

How would that make them feel? It would make them feel very confident. It would make them feel pretty darn good, because marketing is helping them do their jobs better.

So what do I want you to do?

Think about doing very simple LinkedIn company videos. These videos don't need to be overly developed or big productions. Just do short bios of people contributing to business development at your company or something you think might be useful for your audience.

Take that data, share it with those who are doing business development, and let them know about your contribution. What you are doing is bridging the gap between 'I have never heard of you in my life' and 'for some reason you ring a bell'.

I hope you found this useful! Have you posted a LinkedIn video on your company page? How did you analyze the data? Did you find something different than me? I would love to hear in the comments below!

These 5 Lessons I’ve Learned Will Make You Rethink How You Use LinkedIn

If you’re interested in using social media to engage with your customers, you’ve probably spent some time memorizing some rules about when to post on each social network. Maybe you’ve studied a chart like this one:

For LinkedIn, the traditional wisdom says 7a.m., noon and 5 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday are the best times to post.

As much as I like these charts, they don’t apply to everyone. Instead, I’m a big fan of sharing what I’ve proven to be true with my own data, so here it goes:

1.) The timing of your post on LinkedIn is WAY less important than the content of your post.

Because of the volume of content, and the behavior of users on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, timing is more important on those networks than on LinkedIn. The shelf-life of a Tweet seems to decrease every time someone writes about it. A few years ago, the shelf-life was a day or so. Now? We’re talking less than 3 hours.

The beauty of posting on LinkedIn is that high-quality content has a long shelf-life. The most clever Tweet will be forgotten within a day at absolute best. But an original article or a thoughtful post on LinkedIn will still spark conversation and engagement for weeks after you post it. I noticed this week that I had notifications of likes, comments or shares on posts from a day ago, three days ago, and 14 days ago. My best content is still generating conversation weeks after I post it.

Why is that? I’m not an expert in LinkedIn’s algorithm, but I think it relates to the behavior of users on LinkedIn. For the most part, LinkedIn users don’t get on the platform looking to waste time. They go on with a purpose — they want to connect with people in their industry and gain business insights by reading articles and posts from business people they admire.

2.) Don’t take engagement for granted.

Unlike on Facebook, where we often feel obligated to like certain posts — your cousin’s engagement announcement, your niece’s first birthday party, etc. — there’s no obligation within your business relationships. The likes, comments and shares that you earn tend to be much, much more meaningful. Savvy LinkedIn users are looking for content that will enrich their lives and enrich the lives of their followers, so if they like, comment or share your content, you can be sure it’s not an idle gesture.

If you’ve only got a few minutes available to devote to your social media effort, spend that time on LinkedIn. The longer shelf-life of your posts and articles means you’ll get the best bang for your buck by sharing relevant content with LinkedIn’s business-savvy audience. When someone in your network engages with your content, read it as a hat-tip, a sincere thank-you, and an opportunity to start a one-on-one conversation with them.

3.) Share content that will still be relevant weeks from now.

Since content on LinkedIn tends to stick around, it’s important to share evergreen content. A user might login to LinkedIn twice a month and catch up on all of the most interesting news from her network from the past two weeks. If that includes your post, you want to make sure it’s still relevant two weeks later. In fact, you probably want to make sure it’s still relevant six months later. If someone looks up your profile and takes an interest in your latest post, she might click through to your older posts to see what other insight you’ve shared.

4.) You don’t have to be world-famous, just famous in your world.

A major source of anxiety for professionals who use social media? You can follow all the rules and best practices, and you can still end up with lousy numbers. The pageviews aren’t hitting your targets, you haven’t reached 1,000 followers, or your content isn’t going viral.

But here’s the thing: going viral, or becoming world-famous, shouldn’t be your goal.

Here’s a question I like to ask in training sessions. What’s the most famous painting in the world? Most people will tell you the Mona Lisa.

But what’s the most famous farmers market in the world?

You’re probably picturing the most popular one in your town, no matter where you live. Why? Because farmer’s markets can only serve people within a small radius. Their entire premise is based on selling locally produced food, so garnering national fame is completely irrelevant for them.

Your job on social media is not to garner national fame. You simply need to become well known and respected in your own circle, just like a farmer’s market only needs to be famous in its own town to be successful. And doing that is easier than you think.

Curate your LinkedIn network by connecting with decision makers and influencers in your industry, and focus on providing meaningful content for them.

5.) Things work so well that you stop doing them.

There’s an old adage in sales – “Things work so well that you stop doing them.” After doing the same activities, telling the same stories, and seeing the same people, a salesperson wants to mix it up a little. I definitely experienced this phenomenon between the years of 2008-2015, when I was averaging 16 in-person meetings per week.

This same idea applies to social media as well. Much like consistent sales meetings or steady trips to the gym to workout, social media activities compound over time. Create a schedule, stick to it, and watch as your time investment on LinkedIn becomes more and more valuable.

Which of these 5 tips do think are most important? Have you experienced anything that contradicts what I’ve found?

5 Ways to Overcome Your Fear of Approaching People at Networking Events

What is Social Listening and Why is it Important?