Today LinkedIn launched a new news aggregation and curation service called LinkedIn Today . Here is a short video from the company explaining what it is. (Check out the news article featured in the video, look familiar?)
Many other websites automatically curate news based on what your friends have liked, shared or voted such as Reddit, Digg, Facebook and tons more. So the story here is not the technology, but the fact that this type of service is now available on LinkedIn, making it extremely relevant for B2B marketers.
What does the launch of LinkedIn Today mean for marketers?
LinkedIn is a huge social network, has a strong following and usage among b2b companies and is the largest business / career focused community in the world. If you sell to other businesses, or even to individual business people, you need to know what you should do to get the most out of LinkedIn Today. Here are some of the key tips for marketers:
- You should be publishing not advertising. LinkedIn today is yet another service that gives inbound marketers an advantage. Rather than buying ads people ignore, you want to be the content that is showing up on the homepage and being promoted by LinkedIn members. The best way to do this is to start a blog and be your own publisher. In fact, I'm hoping that this article gets featured on LinkedIn today because all of you share it on LinkedIn.
- You should be active on LinkedIn. Now that your news and blog posts can spread more virally on LinkedIn, there is even more reason to be active in this business community. If you have more friends and build better relationships with them on LinkedIn, then it is more likely your content will get more shares and be featured on LinkedIn today. One way to be active is to join groups and post messages there, like our Inbound Marketers LinkedIn Group . Other ways include making regular status updates, and answering questions posted on LinkedIn Answers.
- You should have LinkedIn share buttons on all your content. Recently, LinkedIn launched a new sharing button that tracks the number of shares much like the buttons from Twitter and Facebook. (There's one on this article, give it a quick click!) Very soon after this new button launched, we added it as an option to the blogs of all 4,000 HubSpot customers - no software to install, it just shows up. ( Note to customers: There is a checkbox in blog options to turn it on or off, very easy - if you have any trouble, just call support at 888-HubSpot ). If you are not using HubSpot for marketing, you'll have to figure out how to add the new button to your blog, maybe contact a web developer, etc. Either way, you need to do it! Having these buttons on your content makes it much more likely your website visitors will share the content with their networks and your company will get more attention on LinkedIn.
What do you think about LinkedIn today? What other tips would you have for marketers? Leave a comment and let's discuss.
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Healy Jones 4:00 PM on March 10, 2011
Very smart of Linkedin to use the Hubspot news piece in the video, since Hubspot was sure to mention the new Linkedin content network!
Mark Mathson 5:03 PM on March 10, 2011
Great fast response with some actionable marketing takeaways Mike! Couldn't agree more, particularly with point #3.
Tim Wheeler 7:46 PM on March 10, 2011
As a masonry contractor in Seattle I have been using social media to enhance my SEO factor. One of the ways that i do this is by using up to date activates and articles from linkedIn, these can be tweeted, liked, shared, or voted on
on various social media sites. Keep the great information coming.
Thanks Tim Wheeler
Kapil 11:36 PM on March 10, 2011
This really seems to be interesting. LinkedIn has once again proved that it is the best...
Mike Thuerk 8:11 AM on March 11, 2011
Love this. Publishing vs. advertising. Thought leadership and expertise rather than a seller of wares.
Michael Brenner 10:31 AM on March 11, 2011
Publishing vs advertising? Yes. And the implication of this is also that the news is more personal and informal and less corporate and produced. Important points in B2B relationship marketing and selling.
Tina Thelen 9:32 AM on March 12, 2011
Great article! Definitely have to agree that people want to read quality content rather than be constantly bombarded with ads!! Thanks.
KEW 10:27 AM on March 12, 2011
am i the only one who finds linkedin to be a clunky site? it's like facebook's lame little sister. it's not nearly as prevalent or user-friendly, and the only people using it are in the marketing/tech industries or those that are independently tech savvy and want yet another networking site to keep track of.
i suppose it helps for business connections, but for anything else, i don't want to have to access both my linked in and my facebook in a day. don't have the time! just put it all in one place, thanks. the more crap everyone is adding to the social media pile, the less time i have to implement it let alone actually do my job.
JoAnn Corley 2:04 PM on March 12, 2011
Hootsuite also cross posts at your selection...across twitter, facebook, & LinkedIn..and other streaming sources..
chris kulbaba 2:35 PM on March 13, 2011
As a blogger for the job seeker, my view was how to use for personal branding. I am already taking away new insights here from your post, it was very well done and quite informative! Thank you for the great content!
Jena 3:02 PM on March 17, 2011
so, basically that means the annoying ads have a a chance to actually not be annoying???? I'm always supporting that. great move too for making tracking popularity much easier! cant wait to start really utilizing this new feature
Rebekah Paul 4:08 PM on March 17, 2011
LinkedIn, while a great tool, overstepped the line recently when they downgraded the utility of a $50/mo subscription as well as the $0/mo usrs. They then moved the features of a $50/mo to a $100/mo subscription, including ability to communicate with group members for free (i.e. not counting to the paltry 10 InMails you received with a $50/mo subscription). It makes the $50/mo subscription basically worthless and they refuse to respond to user complaints. I myself have reached out to 3 of their sr. product dev team, their CS email, their FB and Twitter pages and NO RESPONSE.
Michael Hartzell 5:31 PM on March 17, 2011
Mike,
The real value with your post may not be in the announcement of the new tool. The real value is in the 3 points you made afterwards.
Be a publisher, be active, make it easy to share with a click.
An entrepreneur who will have the new tool and not the principles, there is less chance of success. Can success be achieved with the 3 principles and yet without the specific tool? I believe the answer is "yes". The new tool may make life a bit easier though.
Thanks for sharing but more importantly, thanks for the reminder about the new culture which emphasizes the Inbound Marketing process.
Bernie Borges 6:13 PM on March 17, 2011
LinkedIn Today is very useful for content aggregation and ease of reading content that interests me. But, the average business is not going to have their content show up in LI Today. LI provides a list of content sources from which to choose for curation. My blog is not on the list. ;) That said, I'm in total agreement with your 3 main recommendations. I'm a big fan of LinkedIn.
Sid Smith 6:23 PM on March 17, 2011
I agree with Bernie. The average business won't show up in LinkedIn Today, but so far I've found it to be a useful way to share what I like with my LI buddies. It's a nice way to stay informed and engaged on LI, even if it's not a direct benefit to most businesses.
Lindsay Hopkins 5:46 AM on March 18, 2011
I think it's important to change our tonality with each social media platform. For example when using twitter using Twitter it's OK to be informal, chatty, provocative or even controversial. I would recommend that the tone to use on LinkedIn remains engaging and communicative but on a much more professional level.
Mike Volpe 9:54 AM on March 18, 2011
@Bernie and @Sid -
You are correct that the main area only shows content from a small number of approved websites. However there is a section of the page called "From Your Connections" on the topic pages that shows content from your network, and that is open to all publishers / blogs / websites.
Bernie Borges 10:24 AM on March 18, 2011
Mike,
I have searched and searched and do not see "From Your Connections" on LinkedIn Today. If you say it's there, I certainly believe you. But, it should be easy to see it. I shouldn't have to work hard to find it.
Sid Smith 10:31 AM on March 18, 2011
Mike,
I see "Connections" on the LinkedIn iPhone app, but nothing on the web page. Also, how does one get a blog post into the feed for "Connections"?
Mike Volpe 10:34 AM on March 18, 2011
@Bernie - I made a video that shows the "From Your Connections" section here: http://screencast.com/t/IA3h7NYddgs
Lauren 1:58 PM on March 18, 2011
Love it! Can't wait to take advantage of the new technology for our online publishing firm. I hope they develop a way to integrate LinkedIn Today with LinkedIn Groups: http://community.advanceweb.com/blogs/cp_1/archive/2011/03/18/linkedin-for-business-development.aspx
Nick Ellery 7:37 PM on March 20, 2011
I wouldn't be so quick to follow tip #1 and completely disregard advertising on LinkedIn - the data collected through LinkedIn's user profiles is much deeper than just about any other website I've seen. Think about it - whilst most users share very little data with, say, Facebook, there is something about LinkedIn that makes it feel more appropriate to have a robust, complete profile that has alot of personal information. This depth of user data allows advertisers to run highly targeted advertising campaigns, so if advertisers are doing their job correctly, users shouldn't get any 'annoying' display ads and they should be seeing highly relevant advertising.
Advertising on LinkedIn is still fairly immature, but as a B2B marketer, I think LinkedIn (due to it's collection of user data) can help you achieve highly targeted display advertising with strong click through more than any other web service out there at the moment.
To sum up - Wouldn’t it be better to maybe have some content in LinkedIn today, augmented by a few display ads shown to a highly targeted audience?
drago kajtuzovic 8:17 PM on March 21, 2011
very interesting article. very interesting comments. people is interested in quality content