LinkedIn Introduces Targeted Updates and Follower Statistics

LinkedIn’s 150m+ users worldwide are a marketers dream.  Professionals with lots of money and desperate me-too job seekers.  A marketer with the ability to craft intelligent relevant messaging would be able to do good business on the network.  But fortunately for everyone, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner is not necessarily keen on spamming the fragile LinkedIn ecosystem with ads.  But that doesn’t mean he’s not building better ways for brands to connect with people who are interested.
The new services give marketers access to targeting and analytics for advertising campaigns for LinkedIn company pages.  This is an attempt help brands that want to connect with interested users: a brand can now target and analyze whether they are attracting users of certain demographics to their brand pages.  LinkedIn can target “hyper-focused” follower lists based on industry, seniority, job function and other features.  And they can then deliver specific content to those users.  An image of the process of targeting is given below.

After this content is sent out to those users, brands can look at their analytics dashboard which can track engagement metrics such as likes, shares, comments and more.  LinkedIn has provided some more data about the new follower ecosystem, as they’re calling it, below.  Check it out and let us know if you agree that this is an effective way for brands to engage on LI.
Additional Information about LinkedIn’s Follower Ecosystem:

• LinkedIn’s Unique Follower Ecosystem: LinkedIn’s follower ecosystem has been designed to enable marketers to: identify and acquire the right followers; more effectively engage and communicate with followers on a regular basis via relevant content; and analyze and optimize the impact of their follower relationships.
• LinkedIn’s Follow Company Button: LinkedIn Targeted Updates and Follower Statistics’ launch follows on the heels of the introduction of the LinkedIn Follow Company button – the first phase of LinkedIn’s follower ecosystem strategy – in February.  It facilitates engagement through a button added to businesses’ Web pages and other marketing materials.

Additional Research about LinkedIn Members and the Value of LinkedIn’s Follower Ecosystem:

• Members expect companies to have a presence and engage on LinkedIn:

o   63% of LinkedIn members expect companies to have a presence on LinkedIn.

• Members are “following” companies and want to maintain these relationships:

o   70% of LinkedIn members follow or would follow companies on LinkedIn.
o   Two out of three LinkedIn followers (64%) would follow companies “indefinitely.”

• Followers are active on LinkedIn:

o   LinkedIn followers are 2x more connected than the average member.
o   LinkedIn followers are in 2x more LinkedIn groups than the average member.

• Engaging followers on LinkedIn significantly impacts brand metrics:

o   Half (49%) of current followers state that they are more likely to purchase products or services from a company that is more engaged with its followers.

• Members are motivated to follow companies on LinkedIn in contrast to other social platforms:

o   Half (47%) of current followers agree that LinkedIn is a more appropriate social environment for hearing company news and updates.

10:39 by Robert dawne · 0

12 Most Effective Ways to Engage on Twitter

Even though Facebook tends to dominate social web, Twitter is an important tool for social sharing and for building your own community. Twitter is an ideal tool to use to stay informed and to drive traffic to social properties. Most importantly, it helps you build relationships with like-minded people.
Below are tips that enable you to increase engagement with your communities on Twitter.
1. Infuse personality into your profile
People trust people, not default profile images. Use a real picture of yourself and infuse your unique personality into your bio. This generates interest and encourages people to not only follow you but relate to your passions and keep an eye on your tweets. It all leads to more retweets.
2. Be the first to break the news
Choose a topic (or several topics) that are near and dear to your heart and consistently provide valuable information. That will allow you to position yourself as an expert in that area and your followers will come to rely on the valuable information that's hitting their Twitter streams.
If you stay on top of the latest and greatest, try to break the news to your followers as you get it. That will increase the number of retweets you get and will foster the conversation around your news.
3. Tweet consistently, leave space
I recommend tweeting consistently. However, most of us choose a time during the day to catch up on the news and do some research. We come across multiple data points and links that we want to share with our followers.
But sending 15 tweets within the same hour may be overwhelming to your followers and may be considered spam. So, I suggest you schedule the tweets throughout the day with at least 30 minutes between them. 4. 4.Ask and answer questions
Asking your followers a question is the best way to engage them (and get some valuable information in the process.). But if you want your followers to engage with you, you need to engage with them. Answer their questions, share your knowledge, participate. Also consider engaging in chats. Twitter becomes more beneficial to you when you provide value to others.
5. Connect people
Be a connector, in real life and on social networks. When you connect people with each other, your followers take notice and your credibility goes up. People are more likely to engage with you.
6. Be generous, promote others
Make sure you retweet your most passionate followers. Thank them and link to their social properties. #FF and #Recommend others and their work.
7. Craft your tweets
Make sure your content stands out. When you retweet, customize the copy and add your own thoughts. When you tweet the link, choose a quote or statistics from the article that you thought was impressive or interesting and tweet that instead of the headline.
8. Use under 140 characters
If you want to be retweeted, leave the room for others’ Twitter handles. Some folks prefer the old RT style to the new one. They retweet you more if you leave space for their handle and a little space to add their short comment.
9. Ask for a retweet
If you ask your followers, “please RT,” you usually see higher number of retweets.
10. Acknowledge the source
Always, always acknowledge people who shared the information with you, even if they shared it through other channels. If that person has a Twitter handle, credit them as a source.
11. Tweet the same content again
The Twitter stream moves very fast. There's a good chance that most of your followers won’t catch your first tweet. If you stumbled on great information or you want to share your own content, schedule multiple tweets in advance during multiple days. If your followers are spread across the globe in different time zones, schedule tweets during different times of the day.
12. Be open to new connections
Follow people back. This allows them to connect with you personally through DMs. And you expand your social network. I've made many invaluable contacts just because I was open to new connections.
Image credit: Thinkstock

09:58 by Robert dawne · 0