I have been writing my Duolook Media blog in English for almost 2 years and in Polish on duolook.pl for 10 years. During this time my goal has been, among other things, to present the opportunities offered by social media in travel, the MICE industry, and personal branding.
In my previous articles, you could read about Twitter, a new trend in social audio (Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces), or promotional activities of brands and MICE destinations. I am glad that I managed to convince some readers to start using Twitter and optimise their activities in this sphere of marketing communication.
Why LinkedIn is so important?
This social media list for #eventprofs would not be complete if I did not dedicate an article to LinkedIn. In my humble opinion, LinkedIn is the most important social media communication platform for representatives of the meetings and events industry. It is important for both brands and professionals. Just like on Facebook, you can have both private and brand profiles (LinkedIn company page).
Read the article and meet the top 30 LinkedIn influencers of the meetings industry
I share some tips on how event professionals and MICE destinations representatives can benefit from LinkedIn. I also mention tools you can use, such as StreamYard and SHIELD. I hope I don’t have to convince you to keep LinkedIn active and I would like to focus on the most relevant and new opportunities for users to use this platform. This article is for beginners on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. Are these free the most important social media platforms for the MICE industry (today)?
How to use LinkedIn effectively
LinkedIn is not just about sharing short texts and links in posts. It is also an opportunity to enrich the content of the post by adding:
- photos (preferably one or five)
- videos
- documents
- carousels
LinkedIn also allows you to publish longer forms in the form of articles, more recently also on brand pages.
The basis is to optimise your personal profile or brand page. According to LinkedIn, properly configured profiles can see a 30% increase in weekly page views.
Don`t miss important posts
With so much content shared on LinkedIn, it can often be difficult to constantly engage your audience and keep an eye on other users’ activities. If you don’t want to miss posts by the people you are most interested in, I recommend using a bell (similar to Youtube). This feature allows you to receive notifications every time someone posts an update. If such a post appears then I encourage you to interact with an author or a brand, especially by commenting. Join the conversation, add value to this post and engage with other MICE professionals.
Read also on my blog:
- The Top 100 Most Influential People in the Event Industry by Eventex
- How have I become Think MICE magazine journalist – let`s get to know each other
- Influencers in the MICE industry
Create a newsletter
This is from an observer’s point of view and from a content creator’s point of view I can recommend creating newsletters on LinkedIn. With a newsletter, you can now publish recurring articles on topics that matter most to your brand or your personal account’s followers. Importantly, subscribers will not only receive a notification each time you publish a newsletter. Additionally, LinkedIn will also send one-time notification to all your followers when you start using the newsletter feature.
This can help you instantly become popular and gain a large number of newsletter subscribers. Find out more on How to create a newsletter on LinkedIn.
Videos on LinkedIn
I will stop for a moment at videos. Very attractive and increasingly popular is LinkedIn Live Video, which allows you to stream live video content on your personal profile, brand page or event. According to LinkedIn:
live streamed videos have 7 times more reactions than traditionally published videos and get 24 times more comments on average
An important note here – to be able to do this you need to meet certain LinkedIn criteria and submit an online request for this feature. Creators must also use a compatible third-party streaming tool. I recommend Streamyard for more control over the broadcast, the ability to stream at the same time to other platforms (Facebook, Youtube, Twitter) and to introduce more interaction with viewers. Visit Streamyard website.
Polls
Another useful feature on LinkedIn are polls. This is a great way to get information and also initiate new conversations and discussions with your community. According to the latest news, polls will become less important for the LinkedIn algorithm, so use this feature wisely.
How to measure your activities on LinkedIn
LinkedIn offers internal analytical tools that allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of your activities and optimise your profile.
Check your SSI
In addition to the standard statistics on your private profile, I recommend checking your LinkedIn SSI (Social Selling Index), among other things. LinkedIn evaluates your activity on the platform in four areas (building a professional image, acquiring the right contacts, engagement, and building relationships on LinkedIn), awarding a score of 0 to 25 points in each. You can check your SSI and find out how to improve your Social Selling Index on LinkedIn.
Use Shield
Shield, on the other hand, is an external tool for useful analysis of your private LinkedIn profile (paid, 10 days free use). LinkedIn gives a useful analysis of the effectiveness of the content published on their platform. I have to say that Shield goes beyond what I get on LinkedIn as it provides helpful visualisations, data sorting capabilities, and comparisons over different time periods.
Source: Samuel Cheong shieldapp.ai website
You can choose from three pricing options: starter, creator and influencer. Visit Shield LinkedIn analytics website.
What is next?
I would recommend getting familiar with LinkedIn’s new features, testing them out, and seeing which forms of communication will be most useful to you and your followers of the private profile and company pages you manage on LinkedIn.
Remember, LinkedIn is constantly changing, so it’s worth following the latest news about this communication platform. Algorithms that favour certain types of content change the rules of operation and may promote new activities. Good luck!
