How to Engage Your Audience on LinkedIn: Step Five, Analyze Engagement – Social Business Connection – Blog – Social Business Connection – Dell Community

One of the more critical steps in any social media marketing strategy is analysis. How do marketers know when their strategy is working, or when specific components need work? Testing and analyzing engagement on LinkedIn helps marketers spot areas of opportunity and better build their community.

 

In the first four posts of our How to Engage Your Audience on LinkedIn series, you learned to:

 

• Say Hello,
• Create an effective content mix,
• Foster quality interactions,
• And become a part of the conversation on LinkedIn.

 

Now, it’s time to learn how to analyze engagement and use these insights to improve your LinkedIn marketing strategy.

 

LinkedIn Pages and Groups Analytics

 

LinkedIn offers analytics both for Company Pages and LinkedIn Groups.  Groups statistics work a little differently than traditional analytics, in that they are available for all LinkedIn members to view. These insights focus on demographics, growth, and activity.

 

 

Analytics for Company Pages cover a range of insights including page views, unique visitors, and demographic information on members who visit the page. This includes member industries, functions, and companies.

 

Company Page administrators can also see a comparison of how their data compares against that of similar companies.  Using LinkedIn analytics to gauge content performance helps marketers understand which content types and topics generate the most interest amongst page followers.

 

 

In addition to using LinkedIn Analytics, website analytics can reveal how effective content posted to the LinkedIn Page is at driving traffic to the website. Google Analytics is one of the more popular options that allow marketers to see which visitors arrived from specific websites.

 

Which LinkedIn Metrics Matter?

 

Choosing which metrics to use to measure success in social largely depends on the purpose of the campaign and the company’s goals.

 

If a post is meant to drive traffic to a product page on the website, LinkedIn Analytics will show which members saw, responded to, or interacted with the post. Website analytics can then show how many people visited the website after clicking on the link on LinkedIn. Of course, sales data will show whether the visitor converted to a buyer.

 

 

When the goal is to build brand awareness, engagement is a good metric to evaluate. Each post on the Company Page has Like, Comment and Share options for members. Beside each of these options, a counter appears to show the number of people who have liked, commented, or shared. The Analytics tab also shows how people interact with page content.

 

In a program such as Google Analytics, marketers can also see how long people who visited the website stayed on the page they clicked through to visit. This is a good indication of how the content fit their needs.

 

Use this data to understand who your followers are and which content performs best with them. Refine your strategy and optimize the conversation based on these insights.

 

Do you have questions about LinkedIn analytics and how to measure engagement? Share your thoughts in the comments!

[Read Original Post Here:]  How to Engage Your Audience on LinkedIn: Step Five, Analyze Engagement – Social Business Connection – Blog – Social Business Connection – Dell Community.

How to Engage Your Audience on LinkedIn: Step Four, Be a Part of the Conversation – Social Business Connection – Blog – Social Business Connection – Dell Community

Are you a LinkedIn conversationalist or a wallflower? In previous LinkedIn engagement posts, you’ve learned some great strategies to help you get started. Now that you’re building your presence, it’s time to really insert yourself in the conversations happening every day on LinkedIn.

There are now over 175 million people from 200 different countries using LinkedIn. You can even drill down to see how many users live in your country or target market, using the SocialBakers LinkedIn statistics tool.

Once you have built a network of connections, participating in the conversations going on within your network is easy. Set aside five minutes each day to read your LinkedIn newsfeed and like, share, or comment on updates from your connections. This shows them you are actively listening and interested in what they have to say. It also puts your name out in front of their broader network.

LinkedIn posts about news articles and blog posts are a great place to add your own commentary. Instead of commenting off-site on the article, add your perspective in the LinkedIn post comments to get maximum benefit within the network.

LinkedIn Groups are a fantastic place to join conversations and connect with new people. Search for Groups relevant to your industry or products. LinkedIn even offers a selection of “Groups You May Like” for each user. As a group member, you can participate in existing conversations and start new ones of your own.

Offer something of value to other members when you join the conversation. Perhaps you have a unique experience or perspective to share. You might have access to resources that would help guide the conversation. Practice good etiquette by linking to your own website or blog posts only when necessary to avoid coming across as a spammer.

The NextGen blog has great tips for LinkedIn Group discussion etiquette, to help you make a positive first impression. You can read their full Let’s Talk Discussion Group Etiquette for LinkedIn post on their blog. Among their best tips:

• Avoid overt sales pitches and use the “Promotions” tab where available for sales information.
• Be active on LinkedIn and make the effort to participate in conversations regularly.
• Understand what is acceptable for each Group and read their posting guidelines.
• Share relevant information that will benefit other members.
• Focus on intelligent, meaningful conversations.

Wherever conversations are happening on LinkedIn, you can use them to build your presence and make new connections. As you meet new people, you can begin to invite them to connect with you, allowing for conversations more often.

Don’t make the mistake of blanketing group members with invitations to connect. Start a conversation in the Group first so when a person receives your invitation, they will recognize you and are more likely to accept the request.

LinkedIn isn’t like Twitter, where you can follow anyone you choose.  There are barriers that make it more selective. This is to your advantage though, as it forces members to forge more meaningful relationships.

You want to converse and connect with people who may become your customers or have some other value to offer you and your business. They are seeking the same thing! When you provide helpful information or fulfill a need in conversation with other LinkedIn members, you build your reputation, authority, and influence within your social network and beyond.

Do you have a tip or favourite strategy for joining discussions on LinkedIn? Share with our readers in the comments!

[Read Original Post Here:] How to Engage Your Audience on LinkedIn: Step Four, Be a Part of the Conversation – Social Business Connection – Blog – Social Business Connection – Dell Community.

How to Engage Your Audience on LinkedIn: Step Three, Quality Over Quantity – Social Business Connection – Blog – Social Business Connection – Dell Community

In our previous discussions on LinkedIn engagement, you’ve learned how to introduce your company to new connections and to create a great content mix. The next step in your engagement building strategy is to hone in on the quality of your interactions on LinkedIn.

Understanding the importance of quality is critical on LinkedIn. You will still see the occasional spammer peppering their feed with automated posts, though these seem fewer and farther between than on other social sites, like Twitter.

On LinkedIn, you are networking with other business professionals. It’s far better to make economical use of words and focus on messages that really resonate with your network, rather than to aim for generating as much content as you can.

Paul Gillen, author of The New Influencers and co-author of Social Marketing to the Business Customer, advocates for LinkedIn as a competitive intelligence and prospecting tool.

He recommends using a number of little-known LinkedIn tools to find topics in real-time that other members find most interesting. Gillen explains how to use LinkedIn Signals: “Buried under the news tab is this powerful feature that lets you search status updates of everyone on LinkedIn. Even better is that you can filter searches by industry, company, geography, group membership, proximity to you, and a host of other criteria.”

Check out the status updates of your customers, connections, and influencers in your industry. What are they talking about today? What value can you offer in those conversations?

LinkedIn Today is another of the tools Gillen uses to find quality topics to discuss on his profile and in Groups.  “Think of this as a newspaper curated by your contacts,” he wrote in a recent blog post for The CMO Site. “LinkedIn collects all the links shared by its members, both on the site and via Twitter, and organizes them into a custom news page based upon the topics that it believes interest you. Articles recommended by your primary connections get higher placement, as do those with a large number of recommendations.”

The key to quality content on LinkedIn is in offering unique value to readers. Gillen’s strategy is successful because he takes the time to listen first, using free tools within the platform to learn what it is people want to hear about.

Don’t dilute your insightful, helpful messages with filler content. Regular, timely posts or comments that readers enjoy are worth far more than a stream of links or irrelevant posts with the odd gem thrown in here and there.

There is no one-size-fits-all formula for LinkedIn quality; much of your success will come from trying out different posting frequencies, posting at different times, trying multimedia formats, and measuring your success with your own audience.

Here are a few best practices to get you started:

• Post regularly, but only as often as you need to in order to offer valuable information or insight with each new post.
• Use a variety of post formats, including images, video, links and plain text.
• Tell LinkedIn connections how they can engage with the post. Are you trying to start a conversation? Ask them to leave a comment!
• Think about the language people would use if they were looking for information on the topic of your post, then incorporate those words into your update. This will help you connect with new people through LinkedIn search.

Are you making the distinction between vanity and actionable metrics in your own LinkedIn strategy? Let us know which metrics matter to you and how you use them to drive engagement in the comments!

[Read Original Post Here:] How to Engage Your Audience on LinkedIn: Step Three, Quality Over Quantity – Social Business Connection – Blog – Social Business Connection – Dell Community.

How to Engage Your Audience on LinkedIn: Step Two, Mix Up Your Content

In the first How to Engage Your Audience on LinkedIn post, you learned how to say hello and introduce yourself to new contacts.  This second step will help you engage your LinkedIn audience through a variety of fresh, interesting content.

[Read More] How to Engage Your Audience on LinkedIn: Step Two, Mix Up Your Content – Social Business Connection – Blog – Social Business Connection – Dell Community.

How American Express Grows Its Massive Social Media Presence

Credit card company American Express seemed to come out of nowhere in the past year, offering one social media program after another.

Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+ — it’s got them all covered, and even better, it stands for what its consumers want across all of the social platforms it’s on.

While American Express has seemed to pump a lot of life into its social strategy as of late, it has actually been on the scene since 2009, helping cardholders solve problems one tweet and wall post at a time.

[Read More] How American Express Grows Its Massive Social Media Presence.

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YouTube has altered its suggested videos algorithm to favor videos that are watched for the longest periods of time.

Previously, suggested videos — which appear as related videos on watch pages, or recommended videos elsewhere on youtube.com — were served up based on the number of people who clicked on those videos. Now, YouTube videos that trigger the longest viewing times will be prioritized.

[Read More] YouTube Alters Suggested Videos Algorithm.

How to Increase Facebook Engagement Using Custom Page Tabs

Meaghan Edelstein has gained national media attention through her blog, I Kicked Cancer’s Ass, which she started to document her battle with end stage cancer. She is an attorney, the founder of the non-profit organization Spirit Jump, and works for the Global Strategic Management Institute.

The year 2011 brought exciting changes to social media marketing, especially when it came to Facebook. One such change is the ability to build customized landing tabs using iFrames, social plugins and geotargeting. These custom tabs open a world of opportunity for brands to increase Facebook engagement.

Brands that invest in building the right types of tabs on their Facebook Pages are more likely to increase Likes and achieve real engagement growth. However, simply throwing a tab up will not suffice. There are certain considerations and important steps to take in order to significantly increase engagement through a Facebook tab.

[Read More] How to Increase Facebook Engagement Using Custom Page Tabs.

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Have you ever wondered which LinkedIn Groups would be most valuable to your career? Have you explored new groups and wondered, how active is this group, is this the group for me, or what kind of professionals are in this group?

[Read More]  The LinkedIn Blog » Bringing you insights into LinkedIn Groups with our new statistics dashboard.

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What’s the real cost to a com­pany of keep­ing these social pro­files active? Or more specif­i­cally, what’s the cost of allow­ing them to go dormant? Why you should prevent social media ghost towns…

[Read More] Abandoned Business Social Network Profiles? The Real Cost To Your Company | Social Media Spin.

Six Solid Reasons for Monitoring Your Customers on Social Channels

Social networks are amplifying what customers have to say, and channels like Twitter and Facebook have more and more power to affect how and why people buy. Your customers are sharing and soliciting opinions with trusted peers on all these channels. Even if you are not actively taking part in the conversation, there are good reasons to listen in and monitor what potential and current customers are saying. Here are six reasons to consider:

[Read More] Six Solid Reasons for Monitoring Your Customers on Social Channels.

Enterprise Efficiency – On the Case – Dell World: Q&A With Dell Social Networking Expert

On the Case: Dell World: Q&A With Dell Social Networking Expert

Rishi Dave explains the crucial roles social networking can play in enterprises, and tells us how Dell gave all employees – even engineers – the permission and the ability to talk directly to customers.

[WATCH THE VIDEO HERE]  Enterprise Efficiency – On the Case – Dell World: Q&A With Dell Social Networking Expert.

LinkedIn Lets Companies Post Status Updates [VIDEO]

LinkedIn has long let users follow companies, but Thursday the professional networking service is finally allowing the more than two million businesses with company pages to post status updates to their followers.

Company Status Updates will enable assigned administrators of company pages to post updates, up to 500 characters in length, to the “Overview” tab of their pages.

[Read More]  LinkedIn Lets Companies Post Status Updates [VIDEO].