Leverage LinkedIn to build brand awareness and generate new leads

Editor's Notes

1. My name is Yumi Wilson, and I’m a manager on LinkedIn’s Corporate Communications team. In my role as a manager on the Corp Comms teams, I’ve been tasked with teaching corpcomms teams, large and small, how to leverage LinkedIn to tell their companies’ stories. So, my job is to find reach out to Top 500 companies and offer my services as a trainer/Do you want to learn more about the Company Page? Do you want to optimize your execs’ profile? Do you want to better engage your employees or reach out to key influencers in your industry? I can show folks how to do that. But at this point … Yes, I’m making the dreaded cold call … which is why I’m here today! I would love to work with each one of you in this room to turn my cold calls into warm calls. I would love to have you introduce me to your clients as an official member of LinkedIn who can teach corpcomms teams how to get the most out of LInkedIn for their brands, their execs and their employees. And today, very quickly, I want to show you of little what I do when I meet with corpcomms folks, on in some cases, execs who are hoping to beef up their presence on LinkedIn.
2. Anotherkey finding from the researchis that there is a huge difference between the content people expect on the different networks. Personal network users are looking for content and info that gives immediate gratification – info on friends, entertainment, updates on their personal interestsProfessional networks users want content that can help them build for the future – info related to their work and careers and updates from brands they are interested in. When we asked people what type of information they wanted to hear from brands/companies/products, the personal side was about hobbies, entertainment, concert updates, etc. The professional side was about how to improve yourself, how to be better in your career and in your industry, they want brands to talk to them in a relevant way to tap into this type of content.You can build relationships with professionals by sharing insights and listening.
3. HI KARYSSA~ COULD WE HAVE THE NUMBER 60 PERCENT POP FIRST? I want to be able to say: 60 percent. That’s how far the consumer has gone in his or her decision-making process about products and services BEFORE they ever reach out to a company.  Instead of relying on ads or in-store visits to make a purchase, consumers are relying on their trusted connections, friends and trusted thought leaders in their social networks to decide which products and services to use.That's why it's so important for a company to engage with their consumers and potential consumers via social networks. On LinkedIn, we offer entrepreneurs, professionals, companies and brand a unique opportunity to engage with  259 million of the most affluent and educated professionals in the world.  In this Jam Session, I'Ll show you how build, maintain and protect your brand on LinkedIn. We'll talk about how to build your followers on your Company Page, create or join groups to become a thought leader, and optimize your profile to gain All-Star status.Content marketing is growing because buyers are getting savvier and they’re not persuaded by advertising alone. They’re using the web, search, social networks, etc. to educate themselves on potential purchases. They’re 60% through the buyer’s journey before reaching out to brands for help on the options available. And they’re forming perceptions about brands without those brands having an opportunity to share their perspective. Source: Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon, and Nicholas Toman, “The End of Solution Sales,” Harvard Business Review, July-August 2012 (http://hbr.org/2012/07/the-end-of-solution-sales/ar/1).Yumi Wilson is a manager in Corporate Communications at LinkedIn. She is also an associate professor of Journalism, on leave from San Francisco State University. In her role at LinkedIn, Wilson trains journalists how to leverage LinkedIn for research, reporting and sourcing. She also moderates the LinkedIn for Journalists group, which has grown from 16,000 one year ago to nearly 42,000 members. In addition, she has launched a program to train corporate communications teams around the world how to leverage LinkedIn to build, maintain and protect their brand identity. 60% That’s how far the consumer has gone in his or her decision-making process about products and services BEFORE they ever reach out to a company. Instead of relying on ads or in-store visits to make a purchase, consumers are more and more relying on their friends, connections and trusted sources on the web and social networks to decide which products and services to use. We already know how important it is for companies to represent themselves on LinkedIn to help hire the best talent, but what you may not know is that LInkedIn is the best place to communicate with your clients, your customers, your fans and your employees. So, as the frontline of your company, how can the corporate communications team build, maintain and protect their identity on LinkedIn?*(*Buyers are not persuaded by advertising alone. They’re using the web, search, social networks, and more to educate themselves on potential purchases. Research shows consumers are 60% through the buyer’s journey before reaching out to brands for help on available options. TURN THIS INTO A VISUALhttp://www.fastcompany.com/3009543/dialed/a-top-linkedin-exec-on-why-content-marketing-matters-more-than-ever
4. The professional profile of record: enabling our members to connect, find and be found
5. Don’t forget that employees are 70 percent more likely than non-employees to engage with your posts, so why not create a special place for them to stay connected?
6. FAST COMPANYIn the latest of many recent moves to expand its content marketing business, LinkedIn released a new format for branded pages on Tuesday called Showcase Pages.Instead of following all updates from a company--which may include everything from job opportunities to news about charitable initiatives--users can now choose to follow pages focused on a specific product or initiative they are interested in. The idea is similar to Pepsi having both a general brand page on Facebook and a page specific to its Pepsi Max brand, or to Google having Twitter accounts for AdWords, Android, and Google Doodles. “It’s about having the presence, but it’s also about being targeted about who sees the message,” says David Thacker, LinkedIn’s Vice President of Marketing Solutions Products.Brands can make up to 10 Showcase Pages, which are free--but can be promoted to LinkedIn users using the company's advertising products for a fee.**Millions of companies use their LinkedIn Company Pages to share content and opportunities. For our members, the best way to stay up to date with those updates is to follow the companies they’re interested in. However, some companies have a variety of brands and products. How can you tell Cisco you are particularly interested in their Enterprise Network Solutions, Security Products, or in their Internet of Things initiative?Starting today, LinkedIn members will be able to follow the specific brands and products they care most about that have Showcase Pages.http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/11/19/announcing-linkedin-showcase-pages/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Flinkedinblog+%28LinkedIn+Blog%29#!We hope you’ll find these pages useful. To see the kind of content you might get from Showcase Pages, check out Microsoft Office, Adobe Marketing Cloud, and HP Converged Infrastructure. I
7. What’s new is that you can now increase the impact of Display with Sponsored Updates. As with Company Updates, Sponsored Updates originate from your Company Page and can be used to share links, videos, presentations, whitepapers, PDFs, and images. Sponsored Updates extendthe reach of your content to any target audience on LinkedIn – both Followers AND non-Followers.You also gain valuable earned reach when members like, share, or comment on your content, distributing it to their 1st degree connections.