LinkedIn has added two new tools designed to optimize and measure content marketing efforts on the social networking platform. The two new features?Content Marketing Score and Trending Content?will provide marketers with an overall score of how well their content stacks up against similar content and will help marketers identify what types of content their target audiences are interested in.
While it is fairly easy to quantify individual marketing and advertising efforts with individual metrics, many content marketers do not know how to measure the success of their overall campaign or content marketing strategy. These new tools will not only provide a solid score each month, but can also help marketers improve their content marketing efforts on LinkedIn and beyond.
The addition of a Content Marketing Score highlights the focus and importance of good content on LinkedIn. The score will measure member engagement with Sponsored Updates, Company Pages, LinkedIn Groups, employee updates and influencer posts. Companies will be able to track their scores over time. The score takes into account reach, frequency and engagement of your content.
The Content Marketing Score can be compared to similar companies, with the ability to see how yours stacks up against competitors in your region, those who are of similar size, or those within your specific industry. You can also filter by seniority and job function. The rankings are anonymous, but will help provide some insight as to how your company compares.
Companies will have the ability to track their scores over time on a monthly basis, and can use the data to improve their content marketing strategy on LinkedIn. LinkedIn will also offer recommendations on improving your score.
The addition of Trending Content goes hand-in-hand with the Content Marketing Score, and allows content marketers to make informed decisions about the type of content they are creating and sharing on LinkedIn. Trending Content will identify a list of trending topics that a specific audience is interested in and already consuming.
The insights from Trending Content can be used to improve content marketing efforts on LinkedIn, and to improve Content Marketing Scores. By having a sense of what content is performing the best, the idea is that content marketers will be able to replicate the success of strong content with their own original content, targeted specifically for a particular audience.
The new LinkedIn tools will be valuable to companies wishing to quantify their marketing efforts and dollars spent on LinkedIn. By providing an overall score linked to reach and frequency, LinkedIn is encouraging more content, better content, and sponsored content. By allowing companies to see how others are performing, they are providing an added incentive for companies to use LinkedIn and to engage with potential customers.
The data provided by LinkedIn can be applied to other social media and online content marketing efforts. Trending Topics can identify topics your target audiences are interested in, and can help provide inspiration for new topics when the well runs dry.
Information for both Content Marketing Score and Trending Content is available upon request, and currently only to those with a LinkedIn account representative.