Does Your Marketing Strategy Account For User Intent?
With more than 1 billion members, Facebook boasts the largest membership of all social networks; thus making it the biggest player in the social media arena. However, having mass appeal has its downside, and many brands have had trouble tapping into the vast network. This year, GM cut its entire Facebook ad spend of $10 million, as product director Pat Morrissey states, ”the return on investment of Facebook ads is just not there”.
This statement isn’t true across the board; many brands do see a positive ROI on Facebook, especially in branding and community interaction.
However, Facebook lacks user intent. Facebook thrives off of its coolness and mass appeal; users flock to the site because their friends are also on the site. Users never joined Facebook with the intention of buying items, or being solicited by companies.
There is one social network built upon the basis of user intent…LinkedIn.
Defined as the “professional network”, LinkedIn set out to become the social network for professionals and has done just that.
Does Your Business Need A LinkedIn Social Media Strategy?
No. With LinkedIn’s user base neatly defined, a company can evaluate whether or not a positive ROI could be attained before jumping in. Every business has a unique social media strategy; just because there’s a shiny new social network to join, doesn’t mean it’s strategic to do so.
In becoming the one-stop professional network, LinkedIn has curated a platform that maximizes utility for users and companies alike. Although one could share personal dialogue, status updates, pictures, and other media on LinkedIn, only professionally driven communication is found. With a much more defined scope than Facebook, LinkedIn provides companies a more transparent breadth of opportunity.
How Can A Business Leverage LinkedIn?
Let’s look at the opportunities provided by LinkedIn, as this will clarify if and how your business should leverage the platform.
Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn offers premium subscriptions to its users. Since these users have the intention of networking, job searching, and researching new career paths, brands can reduce their HR and Recruitment costs by doing the following:
- Recruitment and Career Branding Opportunities
- Creating a Company career page.
- Enlisting in the various Talent Solutions; upgrading to a recruitment membership for finding and contacting top talent.
- Posting jobs; postings are directed at ideal candidates (both passive and active job seekers)
- B2B Marketing
- Creation of a Company page
- Linkedin Groups – create, join, and engage with members of hyper targeted groups based on industry, shared interests, geography, and more.
- Questions & Answers – Become an expert by asking and answering questions related to your industry and your company’s services.
- B2B Advertising
- Use of their proprietary PPC and CPM platform.
- You can customize your audience by job title, job function, industry, geography, age, gender, company name, company size, or LinkedIn Group
Take Action, If It Makes Sense.
For many B2C, e-commerce, and retail companies, LinkedIn may only prove useful for recruitment and HR functions. However, for B2B and enterprise type companies looking to showcase thought leadership and enhance business relationships, LinkedIn provides immense value. It may not be the “coolest” social network on the block, but it may prove most useful in your marketing efforts.
