LinkedIn sponsored updatesLinkedIn recently announced the introduction of Sponsored Updates. These paid posts enable any company or organization, over 3 million of which have accounts on LinkedIn, to promote their updates to a much larger audience than just their list of connections. Sponsored Updates will be targeted toward different segments of LinkedIn’s audience based on analysis of the data provided in their profiles.

Why Sponsored Updates Are Better

Sponsored Updates are more beneficial than LinkedIn’s current advertising system because the posts are integrated into your news feed rather than appearing in a sidebar. This makes it more likely that users will read and potentially interact with your promoted posts. These promoted posts are priced either by impressions or number of clicks (CPM or CPC). While Sponsored Updates were initially launched with availability for companies that have an account representative, this will be expanded very soon to anyone who has a Company Page.
Many popular companies notably began using Sponsored Updates from the beginning, including Mercedes-Benz, General Electric, Allstate, and the Wall Street Journal. Designed for optimum customer interaction, Sponsored Updates can be liked, shared, and commented on. In addition, the posts are available in 20 languages, and real-time analytics allow those using Sponsored Updates to change them as users interact.

What This Means For Your Company

The launch of Sponsored Updates on LinkedIn is a huge benefit to any company using the social media network. While Facebook and Twitter are more for social use, on LinkedIn, connection is geared primarily toward business relationships. Using promoted posts on LinkedIn is particularly advantageous because users will already be looking for what your company has to offer, and are more likely to be open to interacting than Facebook or Twitter users.
The data from case studies on LinkedIn is proving that Sponsored Updates are working. Those exposed to promoted updates from Adobe were 50% and 79% more likely to agree with various positive statements about the company than those who did not see the promoted updates. This falls in line with other data showing that content marketing increases company authority, sales, and number of followers on various social media networks. Because Sponsored Updates are available to any company on LinkedIn, they are a simple way of expanding your LinkedIn presence, and reaping all the benefits that go with that expansion.
Will your company take advantage of Sponsored Updates?