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Should Your Small Business Hire a Marketing Agency or Build a Marketing Team?

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By Tanner Simkins

Which marketing plan works best for the modern entrepreneur: outside or in-house? Here are four important factors to consider.

As your small business grows, at some point you’ll need to take your marketing strategy to the next level. While many leaders of new and small businesses are used to taking on a variety of roles, there will come a time when it makes sense to pass marketing roles on to the experts. Doing so is vital for making sure that your business continues to develop new customers, build its brand, and stay competitive in its industry.

For many leaders the realization that they need to work with marketing professionals leads to questions of whether to turn to a marketing agency or hire an in-house marketing team. There is no right answer to this question, as it depends on the business’s resources and needs. That said, there are a few issues that leaders should consider when determining whether to hire a marketing agency or to develop an in-house team. Here are a few key factors to think about.

Type of expertise

What type of expertise do you want? An in-house marketing professional offers in-depth knowledge of your business. This person (or these people) will know exactly what your team does and exactly what your team is about. Additionally, every moment will be spent on your business, and they’ll be fully invested in your business’s success.

In contrast, when working with a marketing agency, you’ll get access to an entire team of marketing professionals with an array of expertise. While you might not get the same level of knowledge and investment in your business, you will get a team on the cutting-edge of the industry with a variety of applicable skill sets. In addition, you’ll get a fresh perspective and a new look at what your business is doing. Finally, marketing agencies have the benefit of working with a variety of businesses, which means they bring a wealth of industry knowledge to each client.

In-house marketing professionals and marketing agencies both bring unique areas of expertise. When determining what’s best for your business, it’s important to consider the type of expertise your business wants and needs.

Budget

Budget is an important factor to consider as it’s generally more expensive to hire your own marketing professional than it is to work with a marketing agency. When you hire a marketing expert, you need to keep in mind that you’re not only going to have to pay their salary but also all of the additional expenses that come with hiring quality employees including recruitment costs, payroll taxes, pensions, benefits and training.

As a result, while you might think the salary of one employee is equivalent to the retainer for a marketing agency, it’s also important to factor in all of the additional costs. In most cases, the reality is that working with an agency is less expensive than having in-house marketing experts.

Timeline

Timeline is another key factor to consider. In some cases, small businesses find themselves pressured to develop a marketing strategy. This can happen if customer growth plateaus, competitors begin gaining market share, or new products are not taking off as anticipated.

In these situations, businesses need immediate action and should consider a market agency.

Marketing agencies can jump in immediately and quickly develop a marketing strategy. It takes much longer to recruit, hire and train your own marketing professional.

Communication style

Another factor to consider is what sort of communication you’d like to have with your marketing team. Having someone in-house means that you are working side-by-side, have regular communication, and can get ongoing, immediate updates.

You won’t have this sort of access if you work with a marketing agency. Generally, when working with an agency, there are a lot of in-person meetings in the beginning as a strategy is developed. After that, things shift to primarily e-mail and phone communication, and you won’t have the same sort of constant communication and access. For some leaders, this is fine, for others, it’s a major negative for working with an agency. Either way, it’s important to think through this difference and determine what’s best for you and your team.

Working with marketing professionals to develop an effective marketing strategy is an important part of sustaining and growing your business. While marketing is something that most leaders take on in the beginning, it’s a consuming job that at some point will need to be delegated to maximize results and to effectively manage your team’s time.

Marketing is never done, it is a long haul. With that in mind, it’s important to turn to marketing professionals who are fully dedicated to growing businesses. Determining whether to work with an agency or to build your own team can be tricky, but weighing the right factors will enable your business to make the right choice and to move forward with the right team.

Feature Image credit: golero | Getty Images 

By Tanner Simkins

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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The Impact of Lead Generation

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By Conrad Saam

Lead generation service providers are aplenty, but how do they really work and are they right for each lawyer?

Marketing has undergone a radical transformation right under the noses of many lawyers. Lead generation for lawyers is the low (financial) risk marketing channel usually shrouded in some layer of fuzziness—i.e., “how” exactly are these “leads” being “generated” and by “whom”?

Lead Generation Fundamentals

Many law firms have been built on the backs of lead generation services—some with multiple vendors driving a variety of leads. Lead gen companies typically charge lawyers on the pay-per-lead (PPL) model—i.e., law firms pay a set price for each inbound opportunity delivered. Predictably, the pricing is highly variable by practice area, ranging from $20 to north of $700 per inbound opportunity.

One of the reasons law firms like lead generation, especially the pay-per-lead model, is the simplicity in evaluating the cost effectiveness of the vendor. For example, a lawyer can easily think, “If a lead costs $45 and I typically convert 10 percent of my inquiries, then that’s a $450 cost per client while my clients are worth $4,000.” The problem with this overly simplistic approach is twofold: (1) the quality of PPL companies is highly variable; and (2) many lead generation companies cycle the lead to multiple lawyers. This shotgun approach generates a mad rush of phone calls to a prospect who quickly becomes overwhelmed by lawyers and paralegals.

Simply put, turning leads into actual paying clients requires an extremely efficient, responsive, professional intake staff. Applying the typical assumption of a firm’s conversion rate (which is probably overly optimistic already) to lead generation often results in poor cost-per-client numbers (read: poor ROI). Therefore, success in the lead generation market also requires extremely accurate and efficient tracking infrastructure that can track the lead throughout the law firm’s sales cycle.

The Many Players And Models in Legal Lead Generation

There are a variety of lead generation companies—some known brands, some obscure and some operating from the shadows of the legal search engine optimization (SEO) market. Large-branded players in the legal field include Lawyers.com, FindLaw, Nolo and Martindale-Avvo. These cover the gamut of consumer-focused practice areas and rely on SEO-driven traffic to their directory pages. Some, like FindLaw, have extensive content libraries that drive a large volume of inquiries.

While these directory services are used by many, they have drawbacks. One of the nefarious realities of these directories is that many of their leads are driven by a name search for a specific attorney and then resold back to other law firms. For example, a prospective client (PC) may be recommended to Bill Jones. The PC researches Bill Jones through Google, lands on an Avvo listing for Bill Jones and eventually fills out a form that goes to . . . a paying lawyer (or lawyers) other than Bill Jones. These changes can be a detriment to an individual’s marketing efforts as a result.

Some providers have modified their marketing models, while others provide a slightly different approach to marketing for professionals. In 2016, Avvo ran afoul of fee-sharing decisions with its Legal Services—Avvo fixed fees for a consultation for which attorneys paid Avvo a fee. Martindale-Avvo (unlikely brand bedfellows spawned by the acquisition of Avvo by Internet Brands) recently launched pay-per-lead services along with its more traditional advertising blocks. FindLaw’s network, which includes Superlawyers and LawInfo, drives a PPL model driven by basiconline form fills. LegalMatch functions like the eHarmony of legal services, with prospective clients filling out a “case” for lawyers to review and operating on a subscription basis with longer-term commitment requirements.

Innumerable lesser known brands exist in the legal generation business. Unbundled Attorney provides leads for attorneys offering flat-fee services (this makes the all-important ROI calculation even more straightforward). Another brand is 4LegalLeads, which offers a rotation model for its leads—contacting one lawyer after another. This rotation model is a welcome spin on the shotgun approach (blasting a single lead simultaneously to multiple attorneys).

Nonlaw-focused firms have entered the lead generation business as well—most interestingly Thumbtack. This extremely deeply funded tech service provides lead generation for an array of businesses, including law firms. Thumbtack shepherds prospective clients through a series of rudimentary questions in an attempt to prequalify those leads and match them to an attorney. Attorneys provide prospective Thumbtack clients with a quote to review. While lead generation options are abundant, the real issue comes with obtaining results from the lead generation service of choice.

Elusive Economic Success of Lead Generation

In general, the economics of lead generation companies are poor, especially for those who rely heavily on advertising to generate those leads. Consider a simple scenario where a lead gen company drives website traffic through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and then simply resells that traffic to lawyers. Very little additional intrinsic value exists for the consumer to go through that resource to find a lawyer. (Perhaps the consumer can contact more lawyers from one resource or is shepherded through a “qualifying” series of form questions.) In general, the lawyer is much better off attracting that prospective client directly to her own website instead of through the lead generation middleman who is engaged in advertising arbitrage—aka buying PPC traffic, marking it up and repackaging it in a PPL model.

Having said that, lead generation is a frequent supplement to many marketing portfolios. A smattering of my clients rely extensively on lead generation for the majority of their client development efforts. Anecdotally, these firms tend to be aggressively growth minded, volume-based, midsize personal injury firms with exceptionally well-run intake processes and highly accurate reporting infrastructure. Given the cost, success at scale with lead gen simply requires converting a high percentage of prospects into clients and a firm structure that accepts lower margins.

Lead Generation and Local Spam

For years, local search (the map in a Google search with the red pins in it) has been polluted by fake listings. From a Google perspective, fake listings include local law firms pretending to have an office at a location that isn’t really staffed (think a mailbox at a Regus office), out-of-state law firms pretending to be in state, and nonlaw firms masquerading as law firms. The latter category is the foundation of many leads that are resold to law firms. With the right experience and technical know-how, it is possible to set up a fake business and get it to rank on Google local search results. The legal industry has been particularly targeted with these tactics, because the industry is both very lucrative and very competitive. These tactics have been used by foreign actors, enterprising (albeit unethical) individuals and lawyers themselves.

Even more commonplace is a nonlawyer pretending to be a law firm. The giveaway for identifying these listings is the website that looks very much like a law firm’s until you realize there is not a single lawyer listed anywhere on the site. These listings also tend to have no (or very few) Google client reviews. Leads generated through these fake businesses are then sold back to attorneys—sometimes laundered through the more recognized branded lead generation companies.

The “New” 800-Pound Lead Generation Gorilla

Not to be left behind, Google has entered the lead generation game with its new (to legal) Local Service ads (LSA) that operate on a PPL model. LSA popped up in August 2020 and have been slowly rolling out ever since. They are extremely effective—supplanting Google Ads for the prime position at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) and pushing local search and organic search even farther down the page.

The Google LSA aren’t entirely new—they rolled out in 2017 to the home services industry and now cover 48 different types of businesses. Just look for a plumber or roofer in Google, and three ads will appear at the very top of the page with the word “Guaranteed” next to them. Google (wisely) decided not to guarantee legal work, but instead provides a green “Google Screened” checkbox for participating law firms.

To be included within the Google Screened advertisements, law firms need to jump through three hoops. First, Google validates if the attorney is licensed to practice law in the specific state. I had hoped that this would be used to drastically reduce the aforementioned spam on the local search results; however, the data going into the LSA do not impact the other listings on the SERPs (i.e., no green screen check mark next to a local search listing). Second, Google does a background check through a third-party agency called Pinkerton. Third, for states where the state bar requires it, Google confirms insurance coverage. These three elements offer very high value to consumers and are affirmed by the green check mark.

Google has evolved its PPC model into the much simpler PPL model for these LSAs. Further, it has split out legal practice areas into very finite levels of detail to provide an efficient marketplace. For example, there is even a category for red-light traffic tickets. Currently, in typical Google fashion, these ads are being rolled out both geographically and by practice area; so depending on your search, you might not see them yet. But know they are coming.

The firms that are ahead in LSA ads are currently experiencing extremely positive economic returns from their first-mover advantage, with cost-per-client rates hovering around 60 to 80 percent below what a comparable Google Ads campaign would return. This economic windfall will last for a short time. Cost-per-lead numbers for the earliest personal injury ads were pinned at $75, they quickly grew to $150, and now we are seeing numbers in the $250 range.

Lead generation companies are far more sophisticated with better targeting capabilities than previous iterations. For the right type of practice, lead generation could be a worthy financial investment that grows your practice without the lengthy time investment of more traditional forms of new client location and development.

Feature Image Credit: Turning leads into actual paying clients requires an extremely efficient, responsive, professional intake staff. via MikkelWilliam / E+ / Getty Images

By Conrad Saam

Sourced from ABA

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What an Effective Client-Referral Strategy Looks Like

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By Scott Edinger

Summary: Nothing builds new business more reliably than a sustained effort in gaining referrals from existing clients. What’s more, as a marketing approach to fill the “top of the funnel,” it is more likely to succeed than other campaigns and carries virtually no incremental costs. The author offers three ways to accelerate revenue through referrals.

There is no better source of leads and revenue than referrals that come from a company’s clients. New clients that come from referrals advance through the sales process faster, have more forgiving negotiations and healthier margins, and tend towards greater loyalty. Why? Because they are already qualified and you begin with the credibility of a trusted peer.

Yet most companies leave securing referrals from existing clients to chance or engage passively, if at all. The companies that successfully harvest this crop do so with intention and a clear strategy to leverage their current client relationships to drive new business. Here is a no-fail approach to accelerating revenue through referrals that I’ve implemented with companies ranging from the Fortune 500 to mid-market businesses, and even other consulting firms.

1. Make referral business a central part of your go-to-market strategy.

The Sales Organization has to execute your strategy. So, in addition to your ideal client profile, competitive advantages, and precision about how your sales experience creates value, your strategy should clarify how you intend to attract new opportunities. Make it clear that proactive pursuit of referrals is a primary driver to increase pipeline growth and accelerate new business. Along with trade shows, advertising campaigns, and content marketing, all of which likely have detailed execution plans, ensure that proactive referrals are included as a priority initiative.

2. Manage the acquisition of referrals as a process.

Many companies have a sales process that helps guide the stages and actions required to advance an opportunity from contact to contract. In order to operationalize referral business, you’ll want to do the same with discreet stages and actions for each stage. A simple process could look like this:

Identification.

The first stage is similar to prospecting in the sales process. It is entirely about determining which existing customers could refer you to another potential customer. While it’s easy to say everyone can provide a referral (and they can), it’s important to determine who is most likely to provide you with quality referrals. What are quality referrals? Those that match your ideal client profile and are at a level they can buy from you. Each of your sellers should have a target list of contacts they can begin reaching out to request referrals.

Request.

This stage consists of conversations with current clients asking them for an introduction to a new potential client. Let them know you have a favour to ask and set aside a time to talk. This will carve out a moment for your request so that it doesn’t get lost amidst other conversation points. Let them know that your best clients usually come from your best clients. I recommend that you make two promises for anyone a client introduces you to. The first is that the conversation will be valuable and provide insight and expertise that will be useful to the referral, whether or not they do business with you. The second is that there will be zero sales pressure to buy anything at all. This demonstrates your commitment to the importance of relationships that are based on value, especially since you are asking someone to share their professional network with you. Your clients may not immediately know who else they can refer you to so expect a few interactions before there is a bona fide connection is made.

Preparation.

Make it easy for your clients to refer you to others by providing them with a sample email to use to make the introduction. Less tends to be more here as the goal here is to ensure your clients have an easy way to make the introduction.

Introduction.

Follow up is key in this stage as it may take a number of conversations or reminders before your client makes the introduction. Until you have been introduced, the follow up is with your client and like managing a sales cycle, there is a balance between professional and persistent and being a nudge. I suggest following up 3–4 times, and if no introduction is made, let it go and come back to it 6–9 months later. Referral business is a long game.

Appreciation.

Once you’ve connected with the new referral, close out this process with a thank you to your client. It can be a simple handwritten note or something more elaborate, but don’t forget this important task. After all, you want to recognize the trust they’ve put in you and encourage them to do it again. Some clients may make many referrals for you over time and you can continue to go back to them. If you’ve concluded the process properly, you lay the foundation to make the request again in the future.

3. Focus sales talent on execution of the process.

When revenue, net income, and business measures dominate discussions, it’s easy to lose sight of other disciplines that create positive results. To create a sustainable stream of referral opportunities, make each stage of the referral process a priority in your sales organization. The skills of consultative selling are directly transferable to executing the referral process. All that’s needed is leadership attention to keep it front and centre. Individual coaching sessions will help to focus your sales team on the process, discuss any challenges sellers are having, and let them know how progress will be measured.

When considering metrics, use the scientific approach posited by Daniel Stufflebeam: measure to improve — not to prove. Too much emphasis on metrics can yield lower quality referrals. If you overdo the drive to achieve a specific number of introductions or a certain level of activity, you’ll probably get it — but it may not have the impact you wish for. Make your metrics a guideline for managing the activity but not an end unto themselves. Use them to coach areas of improvement in using the referral process and as a diagnostic to discover issues your team may be struggling with.

Companies are always looking for approaches to drive the development of new business. Nothing builds new business more reliably than a sustained effort in gaining referrals from existing clients. What’s more, as a marketing approach to fill the “top of the funnel,” it is more likely to succeed than other campaigns and carries virtually no incremental costs. What it does require is a commitment to the strategy of leveraging existing client relationships and developing and managing referral acquisition as a prioritized process.

Feature Image Credit: Ryan Matthew Smith/Stocksy

By Scott Edinger

Scott Edinger, founder of Edinger Consulting, is a co-author of Making Yourself Indispensable and author of The Hidden Leader: Discover and Develop Greatness Within Your Company. Scott’s next book, The Butterfly Effect, is coming out summer of 2021. Follow Scott on Twitter twitter.com/ScottKEdinger or on LinkedIn

Sourced from Harvard Business Review

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6 Common Business Challenges Solved with Creative Social Media Strategy

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There are 3.8 billion active social media users. For context, world population is 7.8 billion. So, when nearly half of the world’s population is using social media, it stands to reason that a social media strategy to engage customers is important, right?

It makes one wonder why so many companies skip over social media strategy and focus on tactics. They use the tips, tricks and hacks they learn via how-to articles or free webinars and then wonder why they aren’t getting the results they expected.

Setting goals greatly increases the chance of achieving them, but so many companies jump into social media without determining what their goals should be.

Others bring their goals to the table with wide-eyed enthusiasm but get attached to problematic tactics. When those don’t work, they give up and say, “Social media doesn’t work for us.”

The challenge of making social media perform doesn’t vanish when you give up.

It’s important to remember that the company is on social media (whether you’re participating or not). Conversations happen concerning the company and a growing number of consumers are joining in that conversation, preferring to communicate via social media.

If you’re not engaging with customers in a meaningful way, your competitor will be.

With a well-defined social media strategy, which includes a plan to distinguish your brand/company, things begin to fall into place more readily.

  • Everyday problems that seemed unfixable suddenly become an afterthought.
  • There’s no wasting of valuable assets on efforts of little value.
  • Worthwhile tactics come into focus and begin to pay off.

A real-time example to illustrate how creative social media strategy clears the path for success.

A large company reached out to Kruse Control for help getting traction with a new product via social media. The company leadership was admittedly in the dark about how social media works but they recognized its importance and wanted expert guidance.

Most leaders have a preliminary plan of how their operations need to shift with the launch of a new product. Where things get murky is how best to present the product into the social space, what metrics to track, and how to budget for it.

With all the players in place, including data, we were able to provide them with a social media strategy that delivered the right message, reached the right people at the right time, and exceeded their goals by 35%.

As social media becomes even more complicated, and as skeptical consumers have growing disinterest in run-of-the-mill brands and offers, the need for social media strategy gets more intense.

If you don’t have the expertise in-house to determine actionable goals and integrate a social media strategy that works for you, contact a qualified expert to help remove the guesswork and establish the best course of action…

Creative Social Media Strategy…For The Win!

Here are 6 common business challenges that can be solved with a data-driven, creative social media strategy.

1. Challenge: Weak Brand Awareness

Social media is ideal for reaching a broader audience, however, why you post is central to success. Every post creates an impression in users’ minds.

Social media strategy to solve this challenge: Steps must be taken to identify what makes the company and its products valuable. Identify internally why people choose you rather than your competitor, then craft content to support that differentiation.

Refrain from promotional sales content when the challenge is strengthening brand awareness. Approach as though you’re meeting users in person for the first time. No one likes to be greeted with a sales pitch so focus on more meaningful content that personifies why customers choose you.

2. Challenge: Slow Sales

Social advertising is one of the most powerful tools to increase sales. By publishing engaging content you lay the groundwork for further engagement. The next natural step is to target would-be buyers with offers.

Social media strategy to solve this challenge: Facebook’s ads platform is highly adept at identifying and reaching your ideal customers. A successful Facebook Ads strategy has the following components:

  • Define your target audience.
  • Choose the right ad placement – Awareness, consideration, conversions.
  • Strategic ad design is crucial – ads must attract attention and compel buyers to click.
  • Use landing pages with lead forms to track conversions.
  • Test and track your campaigns.

3. Challenge: Declining Customer Retention

It costs 5 to 8 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. Social media is excellent for staying in touch with current customers…and it’s fairly cost effective!

Social media strategy to solve this challenge: Treat your social channels as communities where like-minded people come to hang out. Appoint a “community manager” or who engages and supports your community by listening and being responsive to questions, needs and concerns.

A good social media relationship with customers improves perceptions and fosters offline relationships.

4. Challenge: Poor Online Reputation

Reviews are insanely influential.

  • 90% of consumers read online reviews.
  • 88% trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
  • 86% will hesitate to purchase from a business that has negative reviews.
  • Customers are likely to spend 31% more with a business that has positive reviews.
  • 92% will use a local business if it has at least a 4-star rating.

Don’t give online ratings sites the power to control your business. If what’s being said about you doesn’t mirror the true customer experience delivered, take action now to turn things around.

Social media strategy to solve this challenge: Remove the obstacles that stymie reviews.

Create a review funnel. Systematically drive customers to one conversion funnel that routes them to the review sites you care about.

  • Automatically ask, remind and guide happy customers through the funnel.
  • Recover unhappy customers before they vent online.

5. Challenge: Declining or Nonexistent Connection with Customers

We’ve been witnessing a massive shift in what it means to be effective on social media. The pandemic has shaken things up, further driving the wedge between companies and their customers. It’s time to think differently.

The big challenge that companies face is connecting with customers on an individual and personal level. Connecting with customers in meaningful ways humanizes your brand and builds genuine relationships.

Social media strategy to solve this challenge: Monitor all social media channels and respond authentically (aka: like a human!). Ask questions, provide insights, or offer help with problems.

Note: In the road to the car sale, this strategy is crucial because more and more customers are preferring some or all of the transaction be conducted digitally.

6. Challenge: Low Search Visibility

Nearly every buyer starts her or his purchase journey online. Your website is the virtual storefront of your business and not being found in search means fewer customers and decreased revenue.

On Google and Bing, and now Facebook, it’s super important to be visible when people are searching for what you sell.

Social media strategy to solve this challenge: To improve search visibility on Google and Bing, focus tactics on publishing links to content that go directly to your website. Although social media is not a ranking factor, it has a link to search engine optimization. These “social signals” will increase a site’s authority, thereby indirectly improving search rankings.

To improve search visibility on Facebook, promote those links with Facebook ads. A well-researched, data driven Facebook Ads strategy is an integral part of your over all social media strategy.

A Facebook page with high engagement shows up in search more prominently and positions your company as a trusted resource.

Take action, improve business with social media strategy.

Today’s challenges must be met with today’s solutions.

Companies must develop a strong foundational social media strategy to meet customers where they are and help them buy.

If you would like advice or help with creating your company’s social media strategy, please reach out to me here. I’ll get back to you within 24 hours.

By

Sourced from Kruse Control Inc.

 

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B2B Influencer Marketing Strategy: 5 Questions to Ask First

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By Lee Odden

It’s no mystery that we’re big fans of influencer marketing where B2B brands engage with industry experts and key opinion leaders to drive conversations, consideration and conversions.

Marketing leaders at B2B companies large and small are realizing how much influence can play a role in virtually every customer communication. As 2021 picks up steam, the practice of influencer marketing presents unique opportunities to optimize digitally transformed B2B marketing.

That said, while the role of influence can be universally present in content and communications, the approach that will work for any given B2B brand is by no means cookie cutter. Influencer engagement is not simply an advertising buy or some kind of programmatic marketing tactic. It’s simultaneously dynamic and open to certain kinds of optimization and scale through process, operations and expertise.

Before embarking on a pilot, campaigns or an evolved always-on influencer program, it’s important for B2B marketers to answer a few key questions to make sure the rationale is sound, the approach has merit and the expectations line up with resources and goals.

At TopRank Marketing we’ve helped numerous B2B brands run their very first influencer marketing pilot projects and campaigns. Our work with B2B brands like LinkedIn, SAP and Dell over the past 9 years has taught us that there are many key questions to be answered in order to ensure

  • Influencer marketing makes sense for a particular B2B brand
  • That a specific approach matches goals, resources and expectations
  • The tactics of identifying and engaging influencers are appropriate to content formats, channels and audience
  • The program reaches expected KPIs and drives value both for the business and influencers
  • Early efforts set the stage for future success

To help B2B brands thinking about launching an influencer marketing initiative, here are 5 of the most important questions to answer:

1. What is a B2B influencer for our brand? Our customers?

Success with B2B influence means avoiding falling into the popularity trap and thinking that all influencers must have a massive following.

An influencer in the B2B world is someone that has domain expertise, is recognized by peers for that expertise, creates content or communicates about that expertise, and has attracted the attention and trust of a network.

B2B influencers are also often called subject matter experts, key opinion leaders, or simply experts about a certain topic. This differs than in B2C where popularity and being able to publish influencer-created content on their own channels to a large audience reigns supreme. B2C influencers are most often very self aware of their actual or aspirational influence and bring content creation, personality, persuasion and publishing skills to the situation.

For B2B influencers, the idea of being an “influencer” may not be a priority, so B2B brands need to find ways to activate and engage them in ways that might be new to the influencer. Fortunately, there are best practices around how to nurture both external and internal subject matter experts to collaborate with marketing in ways that can drive authentic conversations amongst a desirable audience.

There are several key characteristics to look for in a B2B influencer: Proficiency, Popularity, Personality, Publisher, Promoter.  For a deeper dive into what top B2B influencers look and sound like, check out Season 3 of Break Free B2B in progress.

Understanding that everyone has some degree of influence is as important for a new influencer marketing effort as is understanding that B2B brands need to be clear about what topics they want to be influential about. Finding B2B influencers for a specific brand means identifying the topics that matter to customers in the context of the B2B brand’s marketing narrative. Topics of importance to customers relative to the B2B brand’s key messages, products and solutions helps us understand whether a particular influencer has the attention and ability to influence their network. We do that by using software that helps evaluate a given influencer’s audience for topical relevance, resonance and reach.

There are different types of influencers to engage according to the type of influencer marketing project being implemented. Some programs might call for celebrity level “brandividuals“, others might focus more on those with industry analyst level expertise, or niche influencers that have deep product expertise and specific media creation skills that align with the content preferences of a B2B brand’s audience. At the same time, some influencers might already be fans of your B2B brand and others might be strong advocates of ideas that align with your brand but not be advocates yet.

The opportunity in identifying what a B2B influencer looks like for your brand starts with understanding the topics of influence that matter to your customers and that are most relevant to your solutions. That topic understanding can be extended to the creation of an ideal influencer profile and the matching of influencer types to the expectations and experiences created for customers.

To answer, “Where can I find B2B influencers?” marketers need to look beyond their own opinions and experiences and towards data. Influencers that create evidence of their expertise through digital content can be identified with influencer marketing software or social media software. However, keep in mind that many B2B influencers do not focus solely on social media to proclaim their expertise and more in-depth research into industry associations, special interest groups, events, publications, email newsletters and emerging formats like Clubhouse should be conducted.

2. What can we expect to achieve working with influencers?

Virtually all B2B brand communications with customers is a consideration for including 3rd party expertise for credibility and help with distribution.

Fundamentally, influencers can create value for B2B brands in a few different ways:

  • Add credibility to brand content
  • Help brand content reach new audiences through promotion
  • Provide B2B brands with advisory services
  • Perform as a brand advocate through ongoing content engagement
  • Help create content for thought leadership and demand gen purposes
  • Add signals of credibility to content for SEO
  • Facilitate content distribution and brand social network growth
  • Provide expertise for earned media, events and marketing content

In our research as reported in the State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report, we found that the measurable benefits for B2B brands to work with influencers included:

benefits working with B2B influencers

What’s important for B2B marketers to understand when it comes to what’s possible with influencers is that we’re talking about partnering with people, not simply using them to some brand end. Rather than thinking of influencers only as a means to an end or a tool for content creation and distribution, it is more valuable for all when B2B brands think of influencers as partners they can work with to achieve mutual goals. That partnership can turn to authentic and enthusiastic brand advocacy more quickly than a transactional approach.

For more specific ideas, check out this list of 25 B2B influencer marketing campaign and engagement ideas.

3. What are some good influencer engagement models?

Many early stage influencer programs start with micro-activations as part of a nurturing effort to develop relationships between brand and influencer. In many cases, an agency is tasked with creating these connections because they have unique expertise at influencer outreach and/or may already have the desired influencers in the agency network.

The right engagement model really depends on the approach.

For a pilot influencer content marketing campaign designed to create a business case for potential expansion of an influencer marketing program that has some lead time, it might be best to develop quick rapport with influencers by recognizing their expertise publicly. Then follow up and invite them to collaborate on small asks with great exposure. Through these early micro-activations, the right influencers can be sorted for a larger contribution to the pilot content project. See this case study on how LinkedIn has taken a relationship building approach to their always-on influence program working with sales and marketing influencers.

Alternatively, if there is not much lead time for organic relationship building with a pilot, then professional influencers can be engaged for their services to contribute to the pilot. The cost and perceived authenticity of content disclaimed as sponsored may be worth it to get a pilot out quickly. Or some combination of organic relationship building and paid influencer engagement might be most appropriate.

Understanding the right engagement model can be helped in part by reviewing solid B2B influencer marketing examples and case studies to understand what goes into successful B2B influencer marketing campaigns.

Also, it’s important to understand that working with influencers for an industrial or manufacturing business might be a bit different than how influencer marketing for tech companies might work. The topics of interest to customers and of most relevance to influencers and the brand will help identify the right influencer program approach, influencer identification and engagement.

Many pilots lead to sequences of campaigns which may engage the same influencers or different influencers each time. Lack of engagement in between campaigns will make securing influencers more difficult. B2B brands that are more mature in their influencer marketing efforts engage in always-on influencer programs. In fact, the State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report found that 12X more B2B marketers using an always-on approach were very successful with their influencer marketing compared to those marketers that implementing periodic campaigns.

Working with a small group of influencers can be a great place to start, but that small group should be backed by a much larger list of researched candidate influencers. As relationships develop through the course of different collaborations, B2B marketers will refine and find the right influencers. A VIP group of influencers might be created as Adobe has with its 60+ Adobe Insiders being activated at individual, small group or large group levels depending on the situation.

4. How does “dark influence” fit in our mix?

Understanding the channels where customers are spending time discovering, consuming and engaging with content is central to identifying sources of influence. But not all B2B influencers are social media rockstars. To understand where and how the right experts are influential to the customers of a B2B brand, thoughtful research must be conducted to identify customer preferences for content and people that they trust, subscribe to and are influenced by.

In some cases, the social media connection to B2B influence is indirect. While many business people are doing business during their 9-5, increasing numbers of business people are following industry experts on social channels. They access those channels before and after work as well as periodically during the day.

For those influencers and customers that are not engaging via social media, content discovery, consumption and engagement preferences research will reveal the email newsletters, publications, associations, events, groups and even search terms they use to connect. These non-social media channels are opportunities for influence as well. B2B marketers need to do the research to map these sources of engagement and identify influencers that might be good partners for those channels.

Another consideration is the role that LinkedIn plays in terms of influencer performance tracking. Since the vast majority of LinkedIn is not public nor do they provide easy access via API, the social data cannot be crawled in the way that Twitter, some Facebook content and other social networks are. Influencer engagement on LinkedIn may require use of tools made available from LinkedIn like Sales Navigator. Here are some ideas on how to engage influencers on the LinkedIn platform.

Working within the world of dark social for influencer marketing means connecting with influencers that use these channels and engaging them on collaborations where they exert influence.

5. What are the most important operational considerations for a B2B influencer marketing program?

For large enterprise organizations, there is often a debate about how much influencer marketing should be centralized in the organization vs. with business units, divisions and regions. When influencer marketing is new to an organization, there is centralization and programs are dictated as such. Some influencers may be universally relevant across and organization but within each market where a B2B brand operates, there will likely be more niche influencers specific to those markets.

How an influencer marketing program is defined will often include both the universal truths that are relevant for the brand overall and specific programs with unique goals, topics and measures of success.

Some of the most important operational considerations for an influencer marketing program include:

  • What department owns influencer marketing?
  • What processes will be used to to perform the functions of influencer marketing to ensure consistency and quality?
  • What software will be used to identify, engage, communicate with and measure influencers?
  • What budgets, staffing and external resources will be needed short and long term?

Beyond measures of success, software and ownership with the B2B brand of an influencer program is how to work with a specialist B2B influencer marketing agency to help develop strategy and planning, influencer identification and recruitment, collaboration and creation of influencer / brand content assets. In the State of B2B Influencer Marketing Report that surveyed hundreds of B2B marketers, the top tasks handled by agencies included:

  • Identifying influencers 79%
  • Managing influencer relationships 76%
  • Developing the strategy 71%
  • Measuring effectiveness 66%
  • Integrating with other marketing efforts 63%
  • Implementing campaigns 60%
  • Managing influencer marketing technology 44%

While there are many B2B marketing resources out there to help brands with everything from research and strategy to planning, implementation and measurement, there are simply not that many B2B influencer marketing agencies that have:

  • Established influencer marketing strategy frameworks based on years of experience
  • Extensive relationships with a network of B2B influencers in various verticals
  • Tried and true tactics for accelerating B2B brand and influencer relationships
  • Content creation and repurposing capabilities that are unique to influencer collaborations
  • Influencer marketing measurement and reporting expertise
  • Savvy on how to maintain ongoing influencer relationships in between campaigns

The good news is that the number of B2B influencer marketing agencies with legitimate skills and experience is growing as awareness grows around the role of influence across the entire customer lifecycle for business customers.

There are certainly more questions than these to be considered as well as variations on the questions that have been listed in order for B2B marketers to gain confidence that their particular approach to an influencer marketing effort creates the expected value for all involved. In many cases, marketing missteps can be avoided by ensuring the fundamentals are solid and that’s what this list of questions is meant to do – cover the bases that are essential for a thoughtful, meaningful and productive influencer marketing effort.

Influencer marketing is a relationship focused business and that means it’s dynamic and there are no silver bullet answers.

Remember, influencer marketing is a relationship focused business and that means it’s dynamic and there are no silver bullet answers. B2B brands that stumble blindly into an influencer engagement effort may experience disappointing results without the “been there, done that” and “we do this every. single. day.” type of expertise that is rare, but available through specialist agencies and consultants.

By Lee Odden

@LeeOdden is the CEO of TopRank Marketing and editor of TopRank’s B2B Marketing Blog. Cited for his expertise by The Economist, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, he’s the author of the book Optimize and presents internationally on B2B marketing topics including content, search, social media and influencer marketing. When not at conferences, consulting, or working with his talented team, he’s likely running, traveling or cooking up something new.

Sourced from TopRank Marketing

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Seven Elements Of A World-Class Personal Brand

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By Jane Anderson

It’s easy to be distracted by all the things that are expected of a business owner or expert when they are building their personal brand. And doing those things is important. That’s why podcasts are on the rise. Blog creation is growing, with over 70 million new posts appearing each month on WordPress alone. And online courses are thriving, with the global online learning market projected to be $325 billion by 2025.

But now, those people who have begun their personal brands, created content, and built engagement and impact are wondering how to take this to the next level. They want to know the next steps to elevate their brand to a world-class personal brand.

Seven Elements Of A World-Class Personal Brand

To become a world-class personal brand, you need to focus your attention on the most important elements.

1. Brand Identity

To become a world-class brand, you must have world-class branding. This means branding that is customized to who you are and what you want to be known for. Of course, this includes logos and a style guide, but it’s also about all the other parts that define the brand’s value across the website and other platforms. This includes your LinkedIn profile, YouTube channels, social media, business cards, photography, signature blocks, podcasts, webcasts and thought leadership.

2. Marketing

World-class brands have a cadence in their communications with their customers and clients. They offer value and tailor their marketing to give their potential leads what they want and need when they want and need it. And they ensure this works across their marketing avenues with search engine optimization, social media, white papers, content and books.

3. Sales

World-class brands also have proposal and sales documents. The best of these — and the most forward-thinking — are digital versions that include video elements to capture interest and share what is possible.

They also have customer management systems to enable them to move their potential leads down the sales funnel. Interestingly, they tend to sell at a premium price point because they are industry leaders.

4. Delivery

The delivery of your services and intellectual property is vital. World-class brands have a superior delivery system. This includes slide decks, virtual experiences and project management delivery systems such as Asana or Monday. Storytelling allows the brand the opportunity to deliver its own message in its own voice. Each of these things makes delivery seamless and effortless for the recipient and, therefore, world-class.

5. Personal Presence

World-class personally branded businesses have leaders with world-class presence. This comes down to things like their appearance, of course, though it’s also more than that.

World-class leaders do have a way of dressing and composing themselves, but it’s not necessarily a three-piece suit. Consider Steve Jobs, who wore a sort of uniform, with his black turtleneck, jeans and sneakers, throughout his tenure at Apple. This gave him presence.

Personal presence goes beyond how you look and dress, however. It’s also that thing that shows the world that you are the leader in the room. Often called gravitas, but so much more than that, it’s what draws people to you.

6. Mindset

Personally branded businesses that are world-class have a leader with a strong mindset. They have their own sense of optimism, enthusiasm and grit that comes from inside themselves, not from external factors that may change day to day. These types of people get a lot done. They know how to move through their work efficiently and productively and they know when it’s better to delegate.

7. Support

Mindset leads directly to support. World-class brands have a strong team around them, and their leaders trust them to contribute to the brand, despite the personal nature of it. Both their network and their inner circle have been carefully crafted to align with the brand values and build on that day by day. And they support their own teams with the implementation of efficient and workable technology.

To truly become a world-class brand, you need to think of it as a five-star hotel. I had always wanted to visit the Encore at Wynn Las Vegas. It’s award-winning and widely touted as one of the best hotels in the United States. In 2012, I was able to do just that, and I was impressed with the proactive and helpful staff, the attention to detail, and the experience of great service. And this is exactly what you need to be in order to elevate your personal brand to world-class status.

Each of the elements — brand identity, marketing, sales, delivery, personal presence, mindset and support — is vital to elevating your personal brand. But in each case, you also need to make sure that you’re implementing those elements to a world-class standard with attention to detail, proactivity and extraordinary service.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Jane Anderson

Jane Anderson works with Thought Leaders and Industry Experts to help them build their Personal Brand, Content Creation and Tribe Building. Read Jane Anderson’s full executive profile here

Sourced from Forbes

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‘The transformation of banks into lifestyle brands is the transformation of the card into a lifestyle product’: Challenger banks turn to custom packaging as next step in customer journey

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By Rivka Abramson

  • With so many challenger banks popping up, digital banking solutions are struggling to stand out.
  • How challenger banks package their cards could be key to staying memorable and top of wallet.

As of December 2020, there were 256 active challenger banks worldwide according to data by Exton Consulting.

With so many digital banking solutions, standing out is challenging.

As a solution, many challenger banks are putting extra focus on how they package their cards.

Packaging, it seems, helps challenger banks express their brand’s tone and personality, make users feel special, and turn card activation into a shareable event instead of a mundane chore.

Dane Whitehurst is the creative director at Burgopak. Burgopak is a packaging company that in the past decade has worked closely with challenger banks in finding the best way to uniquely differentiate and present their products. For him, old-fashioned cardboard packaging causes customers to classify their new cards as boring rather than brag-worthy.

A plain envelope doesn’t highlight its content as something desirable. Instead, what’s inside becomes just another item in your home, like a toothbrush or socks — something you use daily, but not something you’d boast about on Instagram.

A unique unpackaging experience, though, can make the user feel like they’re now a part of something special.

“Part of the transformation of banks into lifestyle brands is the transformation of the card into a lifestyle product,” said Whitehurst. “Bank cards are moving from being this thing that’s hidden away in your wallet to being this hugely desirable celebrated object. it’s not something you hide away anymore. It’s something that gets waved around and photographed in countless locations.”

Packaging can also help challenger banks present the use of their banking products as a trendy experience, rather than just another way to pay for stuff.

“I think a big part of the reason behind why these companies became hugely successful is because there were some very clever people in marketing who fundamentally rewrote what a bank is and how it behaves,” said Whitehurst. “They moved perceptions away from these large corporate institutions to something young, exciting and vibrant. And they’re connected much more closely with people’s lives this way. Banks feel much more like lifestyle brands today than they probably ever did.”

Then there’s the fact that through the packaging, challenger banks have been able to express their brand identities and personalities, differentiating themselves not only from incumbent banks but also from other challenger banks.

“It can embed the spirit of brands in a different way through cheeky little tones and things like that,” said Whitehurst.

The real takeaway though is that activating a new card holds the risk of being a pretty dull, forgettable event. And since card activation is often the first physical contact the user has with a chosen challenger bank, it’s important that it becomes memorable.

“If you reward customers, and they feel very good when they receive this thing that welcomes them into the club, there will be emotional investment immediately,” said Whitehurst. “But if you bury the card in an instruction manual, or in a written piece of text, it gets lost, it looks boring, and people often don’t pay much attention to it.”

Not to mention that in the age of social media, once an event becomes worth remembering, it becomes worth sharing. And that can help the challenger bank catch more people’s attention.

“Packaging is even more powerful as a shareable asset through social media. It seems to have become this personal billboard for influencers,” said Whitehurst. “If you Google ‘unboxing videos’ right now, you’ll get over 100 million hits, which is crazy. But it shows that people care about this stuff. They care about how the products are packaged, and how they received their needs, and the experience of receiving them.”

Ultimately, packaging seems to have helped challenger banks present their products not only as something you have to have, but as something you want to have.

As contactless pay continues to rise though, the question is whether the experience we get from opening a cool package can be translated to a digital setting.

“Digital absolutely is where everything’s going. It’s convenient and some of the experience is very useful. But I think you lose some of the feeling that you get with real physical stuff,” said Whitehurst. “I think there’s huge value in brands crafting products and packaging. You can build a really strong brand experience around that, which you can never quite simulate digitally.”

By Rivka Abramson

Sourced from TEARSHEET

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Founder of Beast Media, Jourdain Bell, Discusses the Power of Developing Your Story and Building Your Presence Online

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Not everyone knows how to leverage it to build their personal brand and become an authority figure in their industry.

In today’s world everyone is trying to build a personal brand online; however, not everyone succeeds at building their tribe. Those who succeed tend to have a great reputation and are known as an authority figure in their industry. Everyone has a story, but not everyone knows how to leverage it to build their personal brand and become an authority figure in their industry.

Jourdain Bell, co-founder of Beast Media, is helping solve this issue for professional athletes, entrepreneurs, founders and influencers by helping them become authority figures through personal branding and PR. Aside from building brands, Jourdain also works for one of the most active Venture Capital Firms in the world, Alumni Venture Group.

Public Relations is one of the most effective ways to get your story out there and create a solid online reputation. It’s all about getting the right messages to the right platforms with the right audience. Anyone who wants to build their brand needs to develop their story and get it in the media. Jourdain Co-founded Beast Media after working at another Start-Up that focused on building audiences for individuals online. Those who had an online presence and mentions in the media always performed the best when it came to growth and sales. Jourdain says that due to having press, it automatically made people an authority figure in their space.

Developing Your Story

A great story is what builds trust between you and your audience. It builds a connection without ever having to meet someone in person. Your story is not a place for you to make a pitch or try and sell something. This is your chance to truly captivate people and bring your tribe together. There are always 4 tips Jourdain likes to use when creating a story:

  1.  Figure out what your mission is and what lead you to it
  2.  Figure out how to make it emotional
  3. Use case studies/examples in your story
  4.  Invest in a copywriter

Once you have these four things you can start making a list of all the places your audience “hangs out”. From there, you can start to pitch yourself to writers, editors, contributors of platforms and publications that cover unique stories similar to yours. All you need is one person to say yes and then it becomes a snowball effect. It’s a lot easier to get on publications once you have been featured somewhere before.

Well established PR companies can be expensive but if you’re on a budget and know how to create a story you should be able to successfully tell your story in different publications. To learn more about master storytelling we also recommend that you check out this article on Becoming a Master Storyteller With Rob Dyrdek and Lewis Howes

To learn more or connect with Jourdain you can find him on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Linkedin.

Jourdain also writes about Start-Ups, VC, Tech, Founders, and Entrepreneurs. His work can be found in The Hustlers Digest, Kivo Daily, Future Sharks, Thrive Global, Awaken The Greatness Within, On Mogul and Disrupt Magazine.

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13 Crucial Roles You Should Consider Hiring First When Building a Marketing Department

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By The Young Entrepreneur Council

Marketing is a crucial element of any successful business, and even small business startups will need to begin building their marketing department as soon as possible. However, some marketing roles are more critical to your business’s success than others. To help you determine which role you need to hire for first, 13 experts from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) answer the following question:

“When building a marketing division for your company, what’s one important role/position you should hire first, and why?”

Consider their suggestions to help determine the right first marketing hire for your company.

1. Data Analyst

“The first important position that I would hire for my marketing team is a data analyst. This position is like the core of the marketing department and can help us gather insights into the current marketing scenario. Knowing this will help us understand what’s happening in the marketing world and come up with a more powerful strategy to combat our competitors.” ~ Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster

2. SEO Analyst

“For my marketing team, I would definitely hire an SEO analyst first. This is one important position that can work closely with the rest of the team to get our business to the top search results of Google and bring in more traffic to our websites.” ~ Josh Kohlbach, Wholesale Suite

3. Graphic Designer

“All roles within marketing represent an important element to starting the process effectively. However, a graphic designer would be my first choice, because that is who will give shape to the main ideas that you have for the development of a brand. Later, hire a person who will be in charge of the content. These are two basic aspects of marketing and they must be perfectly combined to achieve success.” ~ Kevin Leyes, Leyes Media & VVS, by Leyes Empire

4. Product Manager

“A product manager is a useful position to hire first for your marketing department. A product manager is in charge of product strategy, including vision and development. They work with other departments to ensure that the products your brand creates have market demand and will do well with customers.” ~ Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms

5. Branding Expert

“I think that one of the first people to hire for a marketing department is someone with solid branding experience. A person who understands how branding works can take your goals and clearly but broadly inform the direction your brand takes. Then, when you hire content writers, social media specialists and others, they’ll have guidelines that direct their work and also keep them consistent.” ~ Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

6. Creative Lead

“I suggest hiring a creative lead to help you chart the direction of your marketing. This role is essential to fill first because you might not need as many people in your marketing division as you thought. A creative lead can help you figure out how many people you’ll need to turn your marketing plan into a reality, which makes filling other positions easier.” ~ Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights

7. Editorial Director

“It’s important to have an editorial director on board as the head of content. An editorial director ensures that your brand has a content plan that will boost traffic, grow your email list and produce sales, among other things. Hiring them first allows your company to start from the top and work its way down.” ~ Jared Atchison, WPForms

8. Content Marketing Expert

“If you are running a bootstrapped startup, your first marketing hire should be a content marketing and organic promotions expert. You want someone who is an amazing storyteller. You want someone great at earning free press. If, on the other hand, you have a bigger budget and ambitious goals to match, you want to hire someone who has proven they can build, manage and lead a team.” ~ Ben Landers, Blue Corona

9. Demand Generation Marketer

“The first marketing hire any business should make is a demand generation marketer. Demand gen marketers understand that marketing needs to carry a bag and deliver revenue to the bottom line. The first marketing hire sets the tone between the marketing and sales teams, and a demand gen professional will set the role of marketing appropriately — to drive leads that convert to the bottom line.” ~ Kara Brown, LeadCoverage

10. Marketing Generalist

“Your first marketing hire should be a marketing generalist, someone who knows their way around all the marketing channels. They don’t need to be an expert in a specific channel, but someone who can at least operate in those channels. As you continue to grow, then you can hire specialists who can optimize those specific channels.” ~ Jared Brown, Hubstaff Tasks

11. Marketing Strategist

“One important role or position to hire first when building a marketing division is a marketing strategist. It’s important to have a very clear target audience for your business, channels of communication that will be used and key messages. From then on, you can build a team around the marketing strategist so you can build what you and your team have planned.” ~ Alfredo Atanacio, Uassist.ME

12. Marketer With Sales Experience

“Hire a marketer who knows how to sell and can think backward from the close. Effective marketing is about understanding and reverse-engineering the customer journey toward your product or service, and then generating awareness and opportunity pathways to that end. Any cornerstone marketing position must balance and build both brand growth and sales activation initiatives.” ~ Magnus Simonarson, Consultwebs

13. Marketing Director With Management Experience

“I would look to hire a marketing director with previous experience managing a team. Make sure they have hands-on experience with the areas you want them to focus on. For example, if you are going to focus on paid media to grow, then hire someone with previous experience managing large budgets on Google Ads and Facebook Ads. Then task this person with hiring the team, with your input and involvement.” ~ David Boehl, GoLastMinute

By The Young Entrepreneur Council

Sourced from Small Business Trends

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LinkedIn Adds New Tools for Company Pages, Including Content Recommendation and Lead Gathering Options

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LinkedIn is adding some new tools for brands to help boost their organic promotion efforts on the platform, while also facilitating more connection with colleagues within the LinkedIn experience.

As you can see in the video, the first addition is a new ‘My Company’ tab on LinkedIn company pages, which will include ‘Recommend’ and ‘Content Suggestions’ listings, enabling businesses to facilitate direct sharing of relevant posts, and increase internal engagement with such among employees.

As explained by LinkedIn:

“Page admins can now curate organic content through a new “Recommend” tool and suggest trending articles for employees to reshare through “Content Suggestions”. We’ve also added a new Analytics feature that allows you to measure the reach and impact of your employee advocacy program.”

These tools were originally a part of LinkedIn’s Elevate employee advocacy program, which LinkedIn has been gradually expanding into its other offerings. In 2019, LinkedIn integrated Elevate functionality into Sales Navigator, enabling Sales Navigator users to get alerts from Elevate within their Navigator dashboard, then last January, LinkedIn announced its plans to bring more of Elevate’s employee advocacy platform into its regular company pages experience.

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Sourced from Social Media Today

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