This blog will explore how to go about creating an online advertising campaign on linkedIn, and the steps you need to take to do so.  What is more, LinkedIn’s weaknesses and strengths will be explored and compared to its competitors. There will also be an insight into the audience linkedIn has, to ascertain whether it is the right social networking platform for you and your ad campaign.

Firstly, why is creating an advertising campaign on social media sites a good move for an organisation?  According to Constantinides, E. (2014), there is an emergence of a new breed of customer as people are becoming more powerful, sophisticated, and harder to influence and retain, social media sites are increasing in importance in advertising for this new breed. Constantinides raises the importance of social media sites as a powerful medium for advertisements to reach consumers, making it a potentially lucrative investment.

It is all well understanding the justification behind using social media sites, but how does one go about creating an advertising campaign on LinkedIn? According to Sibley, A. (2015) there are 8 steps to take when creating an online campaign in linked in:

• Step 1= Go to: https://www.linkedin.com/ads/, select ‘new ad campaign’
• Step 2 =Select the language to write in
• Step 3= Choose the media type, either a basic text ad or video (video has to be 30 seconds or less)
• Step 4= Make your ad, and decide what the landing page will be, there is a choice of landing page either being; an external website, or your linked in page
• Step 5= Choose the target market, the options to narrow the audience are by: Location, company, job title, school, skills, group, gender,age.
• Step 6= Choose payment method, ie pay-per click
• Step 7= Set a daily budget for advertising cost
• Step 8= Decide on linkedin’s lead collection feature, this is where linkedin collects leads on your behalf, it gives the audience viewing the ad to ask for more information or to be contacted from your company.

For a more detailed and visual explanation this video depicts the process:

 

As you can see the process is relatively simple and straight forward.  However before deciding on whether or not to choose LinkedIn it is important to assess whether there are enough users,  if they are the audience you are trying to reach, and to consider whether there are any better alternatives.   According to LinkedIn Newsroom, (2015),  linkedin has:

• Over 347 million members, in over 200 countries and territories
• Professional are signing up at rate of 2 per second
• 39 million are students/ recent graduates

Futhermore according to Digitalinformationworld, (2015):

• 38% of users have an income of $75,000+ (twitter has 19%)
• 22% of users have an income of $50,000-$74,000 (twitter has 15%)
• The main audience are aged between 30-39 years old
• 24% of male internet users (US) have an account on linked in.

The chart below shows the users age range (Messieh, N. 2012):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the previous statistics stated, LinkedIn has an appeal for those who wish to target the ‘professional’ and ‘higher income’  user.  For example 38% of users have an income of $75,000 +, if you are promoting a high end product then there is arguebly a vast audience who  have a vast amount of disposable income.  Conversely if you chose to advertise on Twitter it only has  19% of its users with the same spending power.

There are of course drawbacks, LinkedIn is seen as site for professionals and assumptions can be made that the diversity of its users are limited, whereas Twitter and Facebook users  have a user base which is  vastly diverse (Duggan,M. Et al 2015).

So the question remains, should you chose LinkedIn as the social media website to start an ad-campaign?  Well its apparent that the answer is more complex than a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, various factors come in to play; it depends who your target market is, if its a product or service aimed at the wealthier user then LinkedIn is your site.  It is worth bearing in mind that their  biggest audience of users  are  aged between 35-54, as such it has to reach the appeal of this audience.  If it does not, then the best solution is to opt for a different social media site; Facebook, Twitter, etc, there are plenty of options.

 

 

 

References

Constantinides, E. 2014, “Foundations of Social Media Marketing”, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 148, pp. 40-57.

Digitalinformationworld, (2015). #SocialMedia 2014: User Demographics For Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest – #infographic. [online] Available at: http://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2014/10/social-media-user-demographics-linkedin-tumblr-facebook-and-more-infographic.html [Accessed 25 Mar. 2015].

Duggan, M., Ellison, N., Lampe, C., Lenhart, A. and Madden, M. (2015). Demographics of Key Social Networking Platforms. [online] Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/demographics-of-key-social-networking-platforms-2/ [Accessed 25 Mar. 2015].

LinkedIn Newsroom, (2015). About Us | LinkedIn Newsroom. [online] Available at: https://press.linkedin.com/about-linkedin [Accessed 25 Mar. 2015].

Messieh, N. (2012). 43% of all LinkedIn Users are in the US, IBM Has the Most Followers. [online] The Next Web. Available at: http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2012/02/25/43-of-all-linkedin-users-are-in-the-us-ibm-is-the-company-with-the-most-followers/ [Accessed 25 Mar. 2015].

Sibley, A. (2015). A Simple Guide to Setting Up Your First LinkedIn Ad Campaign. [online] Blog.hubspot.com. Available at: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34069/A-Simple-Guide-to-Setting-Up-Your-First-LinkedIn-Ad-Campaign.aspx [Accessed 25 Mar. 2015].