Be visible on LinkedIn. An unavoidable problem, especially for B2B actors who find in the professional social network the essential sounding board for their communication, but above all the opportunity to generate business opportunities. To achieve this, several levers can be operated. Content publishing, advocacy strategy, paid media… The experts at Aressy and Epoka offer you an overview of best practices!
Embedded at the heart of the LinkedIn algorithm
“When you publish content on LinkedIn, the algorithm uses three steps to process it and distribute it to the most appropriate audience,” explains Elodie Drappier, social media and digital project manager at Epoka. First, a score allows the algorithm to evaluate your content based on various criteria to place it in either the “high value” or “low value” category. It can also be classified into a third category to avoid: spam. In any case, the position of a group examination with a duration of approx. 60 to 90 minutes will be offered. Depending on the number of interactions generated, the average reading time of the post or the number of clicks it generates, the target group is then expanded. “The way the algorithm works is based on the relevance and proximity of your content to your audience as a broadcaster.” Your challenge?
Make sure your content is in the High Value category from the start. To do this, certain conditions must be met. “Content must be readable, which requires short sentences, loose formatting, limited use of emoji, and most importantly, no outbound links,” Elodie Drappier points out. The algorithm evaluates all content that is likely to trigger engagement. Carousels, posts with multiple slides, are therefore properly classified as high quality. Finally, care must be taken to include 3 and 5 hashtags that are as relevant as possible.
Mistakes not to make…
The less engagement a piece of content generates, the lower its value. Avoid too long posts (no more than 1200 and 1600 characters on average), too dense posts as it makes reading difficult, slow down the algorithm to allow for quick identification! “The more a post contains external links, the more hashtags it has, and the closer the grammar, the more likely it is to end up in the spam category.” In this case, there is no hope: your content’s visibility will be near Be zero,” specifies Elodie Drappier, reminding us of the importance of not posting more than two pieces of content a day. Finally, LinkedIn’s algorithm ranks content according to its format. “The formats most appreciated right now are PDF, polls, carousels or text and photos,” notes Elodie Drappier. Conversely, we find that the platform gives less value to videos, newsletters or even articles.”
Go all out for advocacy
“The ability to spark conversation is a key theme these days,” says Marie Faella, social media director at Epoka. In addition to a good command of the LinkedIn algorithm, the ability to generate interactions and conversations is clearly appreciated. In this context, the practice of advocacy is of central importance. The challenge: Activate employees and partners to make them ambassadors for your company. “Our latest business creation study shows that association partners have a very high level of trust when talking about a business. When these profiles interact with each other, the content is then clearly rated by LinkedIn,” emphasizes Marie Faella. Advocacy is a powerful lever… if the right profiles are activated. “Business leaders are prime interlocutors because they are authoritative and enable visibility and creativity to be gained. Beyond their often large network, their statements strengthen the employees’ pride in belonging to the company. Functional experts are also profiles to be activated, because they help to testify to the know-how of the company, they bring creativity, virality and commitment at the same time.” Employees, business profiles (which can thus cultivate relationships) or even partners are all contributors who can attest to a company’s values, expertise and seriousness.
Paid media: immediate boarding…
Paid media strategies on LinkedIn aim to promote your brand, product or service through paid advertising on the platform. These strategies involve using different formats offered by LinkedIn… A variety that requires compromises. “There are a lot of numbers in social trading. Most important are costs and tariffs,” says Mohamad Komayha, social media trader for Epoka and paid media logic specialist. With a paid media strategy, we strive to keep costs below the market average. Each year, LinkedIn publishes a benchmark that serves as a reference for each target country or sector. This benchmark makes it possible to identify strategies and levers to optimize Costs per Click (CPC), Engagement (CTR) and especially Lead (CPL). “The most important thing is your ability to generate leads for an optimal budget.” LinkedIn regularly introduces new formats for paid media. Since the beginning of the year, LinkedIn ads can be placed on partner sites of the platform. “This is an opportunity to expand audiences in luxury, sports or informational media and to reach audiences that are not always active on LinkedIn,” comments Mohamad Komayha. The promise: to combine the intricacies of LinkedIn targeting by reaching audiences on other websites. While the GDPR condemned MessagingAds, LinkedIn introduced new formats that allow the user to give their consent to receive advertising messages. “ConversationAds offer various calls-to-action (calls, form downloads, access to a website.” In addition, LinkedIn also offers DocumentAds, which allow you to download documents in the ad. “This allows a user, for example, 2 or 3 slides of a presentation before deciding whether to download it in its entirety or not,” specifies the social trader, who admits a fondness for GIFs that can now be used as advertising.
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