In my experience when working with clients and you mention the word “social media marketing“, the Web 2.0 channels they immediately think about are Twitter and Facebook. Why do you need anything else? While LinkedIn is not as popular as the other two, LinkedIn has over 100 million users. That is a big user base that could consist of many potential prospects for your business. Why do you want to ignore this?
If you have existing PPC campaigns setup that are running on Google or any other service, did you know that LinkedIn also provides this service?
It is really no secret that LinkedIn is the most professional social network and their ad targeting methods operates in a way more suited to professionally orientated crowds. Unlike other social media channels, LinkedIn’s targeted ad audience is decided at the campaign level. When creating an ad on LinkedIn, you are able to fill out a number of criteria to assemble the exact targeted market you want to target. This helps in selected the best candidates to advertise to.
Here’s a list of the criteria you can use on your ad
LinkedIn ad criteria
- Geography: Specify which geographic target you want to reach such as South Africa, UK, Canada
- Company: Select specific companies you want to target
- Job title: Select which Job titles you want to target. This is good if you are after the marketing department or targeting specific “CEO’s”
- Group: Only target members that are part of a specific group
- Gender: Select which gender you are targeting
- Age: Select an age group you want to target
Where will the adds be displayed?
The adverts you create can be displayed in a number of locations on LinkedIn. Another great option is that you can set the ad’s to appear on websites that are part of the LinkedIn Audience Network. This works in a similar way as the ad’s appearing on the LinkedIn website, targeting specific members that are the decision makers when they visit other websites that are within the specific audience network.
So when you are considering where to place your social media ad, think about the value of the LinkedIn network where you can target specific people, companies, and decision makers.
