Are you tired of seeing sponsored ads in your news feeds? You aren’t the only one.
Social media users get so used to seeing paid ads pop up in their news feeds, they often ignore them. As a user, it’s understandable. As a marketer, it’s disappointing. Paid social media advertising is expensive, so how can you make your campaigns stand out?
If your goal is to capture the attention of new prospects and stand apart from other institutions, I highly recommend giving LinkedIn a shot. LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions platform is quite polished and perfect for a professional, adult audience. The more you use LinkedIn to connect with prospects, the more comfortable you’ll be on it.
Below are a few tips for making LinkedIn the valuable tool it was designed to be.
Full Suite of Marketing Products
LinkedIn has a full suite of marketing products that include:
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Sponsored content
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Sponsored InMail
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Text ads
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Matched audiences
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Website retargeting
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Contact targeting
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Account targeting
If you start exploring all of your options, you’ll find that they are endless! Take advantage of these opportunities and find the marketing tools that support your campaigns. Not all of them will be relevant to you, but many will, especially with such a diverse audience. Between students, parents, alumni and others, you need a well-rounded marketing platform to engage with them all.
Reliable News Updates
Want to keep your audience up to date on the latest news from your school? Share information about your institution, such as upcoming events, big games, theater productions, awards and recognitions, etc. directly on LinkedIn. This gives your audience an idea of how you represent your culture, values and community.
Plus, LinkedIn delivers searchable data about its members who attended a particular school. Let’s say that a student is interested in your engineering program. In their search, they could look at data from alumni. Are some alums working for big firms like Apple and Google? If so, this is a strong indication that your program produces results.
Professional-Focused Targeting
LinkedIn is the largest professional network in the world. It helps people connect with each other based on job title, industry, seniority level, etc. By using these targeting options, you can send program-specific messages to your audience. Even better, you can market to decision makers such as influencers and executives. Whether it’s a promotional opportunity or community involvement, LinkedIn provides a direct route to key individuals.
Multiple Creative Offerings
If you’re going to spend a lot of money on your campaigns, you might as well make them perfect, right? LinkedIn agrees, which is why the platform offers multiple ways to tweak your ads and test the results. Whether it be headlines, calls to action, imagery or text, LinkedIn makes it easy test, refine and optimize campaigns for the best results.
In the end, LinkedIn is a valuable tool for your institution. To be successful, you must know how to utilize the full suite of marketing products. The best way to get there – practice!
