WPR

The Four LinkedIn Updates You Need to Know About

By Alex Dixon on 10th February 2021

Having already introduced Polls, Stories and Events to the platform in 2020, LinkedIn isn’t stopping there.

While national lockdowns will have largely contributed to the platform’s recent growth, it’s the release of exciting new capabilities that keeps users coming back for more. Indeed, the latest quarterly financial statement from parent company Microsoft references session increases of 30% and conversation increases of 48%.

With a more engaged user base comes the need to bring out yet more additions to the platform, and with its latest suite of updates, LinkedIn does not disappoint.

The new features are hot off the press and therefore limited in detail, but we’ll be rolling them out across our clients as and when they become available. We look forward to seeing the impact they make.

Here they are:

1. We Have Three New Ad Formats

  • Event ads: LinkedIn Events act as a space for brands to increase attendance via data capture to their virtual events – be they webinars, online ‘stands’ or virtual tours. In quarter one, we’ll see a dedicated ad with the objective of driving sign-ups to those Events, increasing reach and attendee numbers.
  • Stories ads: Another update for quarter one, LinkedIn has positioned Stories ads as an immersive viewing experience, designed for awareness and engagements. Stories are a more playful creative concept on the channel, so we’ll be interested to see the kind of response they generate.
  • Document ads: While normally LinkedIn is simply playing catch-up with the likes of Facebook and Twitter, this update isn’t available on any other social platform. In the pipeline for a quarter two release, LinkedIn hasn’t revealed much information about document ads, but we expect a data capture form will appear in exchange for an easily downloadable file. As frequent writers of long and short-form copy for our clients, we look forward to trying this out on reports, case studies and more.

2. We Have New Functionalities to Enhance the Impact of Ads

  • Event retargeting: We can now retarget those who RSVP to a LinkedIn Event. Because they’ve already taken an affirmative action, we can class them as a warmer lead and therefore target them with more commercial content.
  • A/B testing: While at WPR we experiment with manual split tests for clients, in quarter one LinkedIn’s algorithm will use statistically significant data to provide us with a ‘winner’ based on one variable. We’ll therefore receive a better idea of whether short copy is preferable to long copy, people imagery to product imagery and so on.
  • Events data: According to LinkedIn, in quarter one we’ll receive more “firmographic” information about those who sent an RSVP’d to LinkedIn Events, so will get a feel for the most interested industries etc. We’ll also see more data around attendance and engagement in Events.
  • A/B testing: While at WPR we experiment with manual split tests for clients, in quarter one LinkedIn’s algorithm will use statistically significant data to provide us with a ‘winner’ based on one variable. We’ll therefore receive a better idea of whether short copy is preferable to long copy, people imagery to product imagery and so on.
  • Company engagement data: In quarter one, we’ll be able to effectively track our clients’ target companies and ascertain their interaction levels with clients both on and offline. This will offer invaluable insight into how key brands are responding to company messaging.
  • Employee sharing data: We’re set to receive dashboards offering analytics around workforce interaction with company posts and the impact this has on overall page metrics. LinkedIn has been telling us for years that the real estate of a business on LinkedIn lies with its people, so it’s no surprise to see it enhance the level of data related to this. We look forward to this update in quarter one.
  • Greater audience insight: With a more ambiguous release date of “2021”, this update means we’ll receive more information on our clients’ audiences, such as professional attributes, interests and content they care about most. This will help us to align our posts with their needs – and ultimately ensure greater levels of traction.

3. Product Pages ARE ON THE WAY

  • LinkedIn has introduced specific pages for products, with the greatest benefit being that users can leave reviews. Considerations must be made around how much value this can add, given the resource needed to populate it, and the possibility of diluting the impact of the company page. For certain businesses that thrive on reviews, however, this could an prove invaluable tool.

4. LinkedIn Live is Happening

  • LinkedIn Live will be a service that mimics Facebook, allowing live streaming with users able to comment and ask questions in real time. In this world of virtual communication, this functionality will be a timely and useful resource. LinkedIn Live is available on a beta basis and requires users to apply to use it on their page. Access is dependent on the number of followers so it will be an exclusive service.

If you’d like to know how WPR can help you maximise LinkedIn, email Alex at alex@wpragency.co.uk or reach out on LinkedIn.