B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®

B2B Marketing views, news and interviews.

Master LinkedIn’s New Lead Generation Forms in 10 Easy Steps

Emily Hinderaker
Emily Hinderaker
LinkedIn, Online Advertising

[Editor’s Note: This is the first post from one of the newer members of our team, Emily Hinderaker. Emily joined TopRank Marketing earlier this year as a Marketing Copywriter.]

The one item that marketers crave above everything else is information about their prospects. Often, there is even a dollar amount assigned to gaining access to a name, email or phone number. In a time where this information is highly coveted, what is one thing marketers can do to make it easy for prospects to convert?

The answer, targeted, compelling, one-click conversions.

According to Stephen Slater, Digital Advertising Manager at TopRank Marketing here’s why:


Master LinkedIn’s New Lead Generation Forms in 10 Easy Steps

20 Awesome Healthcare Marketers to Follow on LinkedIn

Marketing is a challenging profession, full stop. But some flavors of marketing are trickier than others. Healthcare marketers have the same obstacles and issues other marketers do, and they have to contend with strict brand guidelines and stricter federal regulations.

It’s like the old saying: “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels.” These healthcare marketers may or may not know how to tango, but their hard work deserves our recognition.

Here are just a few of our favorite healthcare marketers.

Rob Birgfeld, AVP, Chief Digital Marketing Officer, Inova Health System

Rob is a talented marketer who came to the healthcare field four years ago, when he took on the CDMO role for Inova Health System. He’s a jack of all trades: From social media to blogging to product development, Rob keeps Inova’s marketing strategy sound in the short and long term.


20 Awesome Healthcare Marketers to Follow on LinkedIn

The New Face of LinkedIn: What You Need to Know About the Redesign

Joshua Nite
Joshua Nite
LinkedIn, Social Media

 Even the most starched-shirt professional can use a new look every now and then. Skinny and wide neckties go in and out of fashion. Hemlines trend up and down. You can be fashionable and professional at the same time.

All of which to say, LinkedIn has started to roll out a substantial redesign. Not everyone has it yet, but it’s coming soon for everyone, and it’s definitely a bid to keep up with the cutting edge of web design.

The redesign cleans up the interface substantially, fully committing to the card-based look the site has been flirting with for the past two years. Icons are simplified and are a closer match to the mobile experience. And some features that were hard to find before are now front-and-center.


The New Face of LinkedIn: What You Need to Know About the Redesign

Small Business Owners: Use These Tips to Increase Website Traffic from Social Media

For the past decade, many small business marketers have taken an “If you build it, they will come” approach to Facebook. They share engaging content, encourage conversation, and optimize their Facebook page to meet their goals. Unfortunately, too often the expected outcome doesn’t quite match the reality:

Facebook has an average of 1.71 billion active users a month—that’s an audience worth addressing. Yet business owners struggle to convert Facebook users into organic traffic to their websites.

Business app discovery platform GetApp recently surveyed 500 owners of small and medium-sized businesses. Less than 30% of respondents reported that Facebook was moderately to extremely effective at driving organic traffic to their sites. By contrast, 20.1% rated it slightly effective, and over 25% said it was not effective at all.


Small Business Owners: Use These Tips to Increase Website Traffic from Social Media

20 Talented Brand Marketers to Follow on LinkedIn

Marketers are always looking for new ways to inform, engage and inspire action from our target audiences, often looking to both established and well-known brands for motivation and creativity.

Thankfully, behind many of our favorite brands there are bright and talented marketing experts whom we can learn from and be inspired by.

With that said, below are some gifted brand marketers you should be checking out, connecting with or following on LinkedIn.

1. Jason Miller

Group Manager of Global Content and Social Media Marketing, LinkedIn

As the leader of global content and social media marketing for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, Jason Miller is dedicated to helping marketers understand how to take advantage of digital advertising and content marketing opportunities on the professional social network.


20 Talented Brand Marketers to Follow on LinkedIn

6 Ways Marketers Can Optimize Their LinkedIn Profile

optimize-linkedin-profile

With more than 450 million members worldwide, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network–and it’s growing every second. In fact, LinkedIn reports that people are signing up for the platform at a rate of two members per second.

For many of us marketers, LinkedIn’s continued growth is no surprise. Not only is LinkedIn the place to showcase your own talents and experience, but it also holds incredible networking and marketing opportunities for promoting our clients and our own brand or agency to the masses. From bolstering professional credibility to building thought leadership to maintaining client and prospect relationships, LinkedIn is an amazing tool.

But are we all using this wonderful tool to its full potential?


6 Ways Marketers Can Optimize Their LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn Publishing: 3 Tips for Creating Better Content & 6 Marketers Setting a Great Example

 

LinkedIn-Publishing

Let’s face it, our online audiences are being force fed an incredible amount of content on a daily basis. Sadly, it doesn’t matter if they bookmark or subscribe to blogs, find things in search or locate articles in their Twitter or Facebook feeds; it’s overwhelming.

And it’s not going to slow down. In fact, 76% of marketers recently surveyed shared that they planned to create even more content in the coming year.

Part of the problem is that despite best efforts, content is not always as targeted as it should be. So while readers may stumble into an article thinking it can help solve their problems, they often make it halfway through the content before realizing the material is not for them (hopefully that is not happening in the case of this article).


LinkedIn Publishing: 3 Tips for Creating Better Content & 6 Marketers Setting a Great Example

4 Components of a Killer Content Marketing Tactical Plan on LinkedIn

Ashley Zeckman
Ashley Zeckman
LinkedIn

Alex-Rynne-and-Jason-Miller

“People spend time on other social networks, but they invest time on LinkedIn.”

For the first time in the history of media, users can engage with the world’s professionals in one place. The LinkedIn network provides access to a  quality audience within a professional context.

Furthermore, professionals engage with purpose and content on LinkedIn including:

  • 9 billion impressions per week
  • 15x content than job postings in the feed
  • 57% of visits coming from mobile

There is no doubt that many opportunities exist within the platform but many marketers are still trying to find a way to utilize LinkedIn to create and amplify great content. Below are 4 content marketing opportunities shared by LinkedIn’s Jason Miller and Alex Rynne that will help you build your LinkedIn Tactical Plan.


4 Components of a Killer Content Marketing Tactical Plan on LinkedIn

How to Use LinkedIn Sponsored Updates to Jumpstart Content Promotion in 2016

Ashley Zeckman
Ashley Zeckman
LinkedIn, Online Marketing

linkedin

2015 was the year that content marketing exploded. Brands have become publishers and are all competing in the same arena to provide a quantity of quality content for their audience. In the coming year, content capabilities and demands will only increase.

It’s time that marketers think beyond creation, and take advantage of the tools available for content amplification, promotion and measurement. With over 4million business pages housed on their platform, there is no denying that LinkedIn is a powerhouse for amplifying and boosting great content.

Today, LinkedIn released their newest guide to LinkedIn Sponsored Posts. This guide was composed by scouring LinkedIn to find the best examples of business sponsored content. In order to  take the leap into investing in sponsoring content, you first have to make sure that you have something worth promoting. Below are a handful of examples of businesses using great content on LinkedIn to capture the attention of their audience.


How to Use LinkedIn Sponsored Updates to Jumpstart Content Promotion in 2016

9 Step Social Media Audit for Improving LinkedIn Business Page Results

Emily Bacheller
Emily Bacheller
LinkedIn, Online Marketing

LinkedIn Company Page

It’s undeniable that LinkedIn is leading the pack for professional social networks. In fact, more than half of all of the business in the world have created a business page on LinkedIn. With over 4 million business pages on LinkedIn, the competition for the attention of potential clients and job seekers is at an all-time high.

One way to take a critical look at your LinkedIn business page is to conduct a social media audit and identify areas for improvement. Understanding the elements that will help you build trust with your audience and provide a seamless brand experience for visitors navigating between your website and LinkedIn business page are incredibly important in creating a cohesive strategy.


9 Step Social Media Audit for Improving LinkedIn Business Page Results

Best Practices for Incorporating Sponsored Posts & Ads In Your LinkedIn Marketing Strategy

POT-OF-GOLD

For many B2B marketers, LinkedIn can prove to be a figurative and literal pot of gold. While there’s no majestic rainbow to show you the way, I can show you how to incorporate social media advertising as part of your LinkedIn Marketing strategy.

A few years ago, HubSpot surveyed B2B organizations and found that 65% of them reported that they have acquired a customer by using LinkedIn and its paid advertising features.

Many organizations have found LinkedIn users to be incredibly receptive to seeing ads and sponsored updates within their feeds. Because LinkedIn is professionally focused by nature, users expect to be having conversations about business.

The best practices below provide some helpful insights into LinkedIn paid advertising basics and can help drive the performance of your campaigns.


Best Practices for Incorporating Sponsored Posts & Ads In Your LinkedIn Marketing Strategy

How Content Marketers Can Tell Better, More Strategic Stories

Storytelling around a campfire

As a marketer, are you a good storyteller? Do you have a content marketing strategy that guides your storytelling?

Maybe you already know how to build a content marketing strategy, but you’re curious to know how to improve it.

Jason Miller, senior manager of content marketing for LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, is a natural storyteller – and he has awesome storytelling tips for marketers. (Disclosure: LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client)

In his session at Social Media Marketing World 2015 in San Diego, Jason kept the audience captive, sharing what seemed like a million excellent insights on storytelling to inspire and motivate marketers.

In addition, he gave key insights on how to better use LinkedIn (his area of expertise) for more effective content publishing and promotion.

Tell stories in your voice.


How Content Marketers Can Tell Better, More Strategic Stories