LinkedIn has emerged as a primary platform for B2B marketers, with 94% now using the employment-oriented site to publish content and 79% of executives claiming that it trumps Facebook, YouTube and Twitter as the best place to drive lead generation.
Target audiences are also very receptive to blogs, whitepapers and articles being distributed on LinkedIn. It is stated that 9 in 10 key decision makers regard it is their first port of call when attempting to find high-quality content that can address professional pain points.
The benefits of leveraging LinkedIn are obvious, then, but did you know that it also offers a goldmine of data, metrics and insights that can supercharge your strategies and campaigns yet further?
If you have thought about digging into LinkedIn analytics but are not sure where to start, or find the mass of data overwhelming, there are several core areas you can focus on initially to get the ball rolling.
Company updates
The first of these areas is ‘company updates’, which covers a wide range of posts such as news about products or services, company milestones, blogs or breaking stories about your business.
The company updates section within LinkedIn provides you with a wealth of data that can help you determine how well these posts are resonating with your audiences. Whether you have been publishing a series of text-based posts or videos in recent weeks, this section will give you the lowdown on how everything is going.
A few metrics are of value in this section. The ‘impressions’ tally will tell you how many times a post has been viewed by users on the platform, while ‘clicks’ will total the amount of clicks that your company name, logo and content have garnered.
The ‘engagement’ report is also worth a glance as it will break down interactions into different types, such as reactions, shares and comments.
You also get a handy ‘uniques’ figure in company updates to keep track of the unique users who have consumed your content. For example, a B2B buyer who has read four of your blogs would count as four impressions but only a single unique view.
All of this data should give you a clearer idea about what types of updates are hitting the right notes. If you see posts that are driving a glut of positive reactions, then you could use these as a base for content creation moving forward. Is there anything in these posts that you can replicate and build on to offer value to B2B customers?
LinkedIn’s algorithm is a bit different from other social media platforms, being more weighted to question-and-answer posts and industry insights and advice. Visual content such as infographics can also lead to higher rates of engagement.
However, the most important aspect is analysing what you have done already and being sure what is working and what is not.
Followers
The second area to focus on is ‘followers’, which again has a specific section within LinkedIn analytics. The data here is very useful as you will be able to view a snapshot of audience demographics and how many people are following you. Strong numbers for the latter suggests that you are serving content in the right place, at the right time.
LinkedIn also has some unique demographic-related data that you might not find elsewhere. For example, the ‘seniority’ column will tell you whether you are engaging with high-level executives or employees lower down in command. If you want to build brand authority with your content, having more C-suite executives reading your content is better.
The follower demographics also list data related to ‘industry’, ‘company size’, ‘function’ and ‘employee vs non-employee’. The last one is important on LinkedIn as many of your own employees will be following your company. An ideal scenario will see this number more heavily weighted to non-employee followers.
The general LinkedIn analytics dashboard will also track your follower counts over a certain period so that you know whether the growth of your potential client or customer base is stronger or weaker than a previous month or year.
All of this follower data can be used to inform your content marketing decisions. Keep an eye out for spikes and troughs especially as this could help you to pinpoint something that has gone wrong recently or hone in on articles or blogs that are really delivering results.
Visitors
The third and final analytics area that you should run the rule over is ‘visitors’, which is a smaller number of metrics aligned with the performance of your company page. Content that you have posted does not factor in here.
When navigating to the visitor section, you will be able to see ‘page views’, ‘unique views’ and ‘visitor demographics’. The page view figure is straightforward, counting all of the times that your page has been viewed, with handy toggles for specific date ranges. Career page views also show up here if you have one.
‘Unique views’, like before, limits the viewers to each unique, individual view. This means that someone who may navigate back and forth to your company page quite regularly over a few days will only count as one unique view.
Finally, ‘visitor demographics’ offers a breakdown of the people who are visiting your page. This should be a similar ballpark to your follower demographics. If this is not the case, then the content you are posting may not dovetail well with the information you have on your page. Consider being more consistent in your messaging if this is the case.
While the visitor section may not be as laden with compelling insights as the other two sections, it does bring the importance of your LinkedIn profile into sharp focus. You should complete every entry where possible as the company page is a window into your business. This profile can also be surfaced in Google’s organic search results over time.
Key takeaway
Research shows that the LinkedIn feed generates 9 billion content impressions every single week. B2B audiences are using the platform for all aspects of content consumption, so upping your data and analytics games will help you to better gauge your performance and serve the posts that your audience needs to get ahead.
Source:
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/linkedin-analytics/
