Influencers have become an integral part of social media marketing. Brands are looking to partner with influencers to leverage their audience and credibility to promote products. LinkedIn too has many influencers who can be great partners for your brand.
With over 740 million members worldwide, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network. The platform is used extensively for B2B marketing and lead generation. LinkedIn provides brands an opportunity to connect with relevant audiences through content marketing. However, creating great content consistently can be challenging. This is where partnering with LinkedIn influencers can be beneficial.
Who are LinkedIn influencers?
LinkedIn influencers are thought leaders and experts in their respective domains. They create and share high-quality content consistently. LinkedIn hand picks these influencers based on their industry knowledge, content skills, and audience. There are over 1,000 official LinkedIn influencers across industries like marketing, sales, HR, finance, and more.
Some benefits of partnering with LinkedIn influencers are:
Reach targeted audiences
Every influencer has spent years building their niche audience. For example, an influencer in the HR space will have followers interested in HR topics. If your brand has an HR tool, partnering with HR influencers will allow you to get your product/service in front of the right people.
Most LinkedIn influencer audiences range from hundreds of thousands to millions of followers. It would take your brand years to organically build an audience of that size. Leveraging existing influencer followers allows you to tap into a highly-engaged audience very quickly.
Thought leadership content
LinkedIn influencers are domain experts who create in-depth, educational content. They post long-form articles, how-to guides, tips, analysis, and more. Such content establishes them as thought leaders and allows them to build strong personal brands.
As a brand, you may not have the expertise or time to create high-quality thought leadership content consistently. Partnering with influencers gives you access to such content that you can share with your audience. It positions your brand as a thought leader in the space.
Brand awareness
Every piece of content shared by an influencer directly promotes your brand. Their followers associate the influencer with your brand. This builds awareness for your brand’s name, products, messaging, etc. The more influencers you work with, the more people start recognizing your brand organically.
Credibility
Influencers are experts and thought leaders in their space, which gives them tremendous credibility. Their followers trust recommendations and endorsements coming from the influencer. This credibility gets transferred to your brand when an influencer promotes your product.
Users today are skeptical of direct brand marketing messages. But recommendations from influencers they trust feel organic and authentic. This results in higher engagement and conversion rates.
How to partner with LinkedIn influencers?
Here are some tips to partner with LinkedIn influencers and leverage their personal brands:
Identify relevant influencers
Research thoroughly to find influencers in your industry with content themes and audiences relevant to your brand. Shortlist influencers creating content that your target users will find valuable.
Understand their content strategy
Study the shortlisted influencers for a while to understand their content style, topics, cadence, tone, etc. This will help you determine which influencers align best with your brand and goals.
Pitch a mutually beneficial partnership
Approach the influencer with a partnership proposal that benefits both parties. Be clear on what your expectations are from the partnership. At the same time, offer value to the influencer as well, like access to resources, inside information, compensation, etc.
Co-create content
Work with the influencer to co-create content that speaks to their audience but also weaves in your brand strategically. Give them creative freedom to incorporate your brand’s message naturally into their content style.
Amplify their content
Promote the influencer content from your social media channels. This helps increase their reach while also driving relevant traffic to your website.
Track performance
Analyze the engagement on the influencer content like shares, comments, clicks, conversions, etc. This will help you measure the ROI and optimize future partnerships.
Types of partnerships with LinkedIn influencers
Here are some ways you can collaborate with LinkedIn influencers for marketing:
Sponsored content
Pay the influencer to create branded content for you and promote it to their audience. Make sure the sponsored post clearly discloses that it is a paid partnership.
Brand mentions
Influencers can organically mention your brand in their content. For example, they may recommend your product if it is relevant for their audience.
Quotes and interviews
Share your brand’s perspective by providing quotes or participating in interviews for the influencer’s articles.
Co-created content
Collaborate with the influencer to create content like co-authored articles, guides, videos, webinars, etc.
Content amplification
Repurpose and share the influencer’s content through your social media channels to help expand their reach.
Influencer takeovers
Host the influencer on your LinkedIn Showcase pages to create content on your behalf for a short duration.
Contests and giveaways
Partner with influencers for contests and sweepstakes to boost engagement. The influencer can promote the contest to their audience.
Hashtag campaigns
Launch co-branded hashtag challenges and campaigns that the influencers rally their followers around on LinkedIn.
Live events
Invite influencers as speakers, hosts or panelists for your LinkedIn Live videos or other virtual events.
Measuring LinkedIn influencer marketing ROI
It is crucial to track the ROI of your influencer campaigns on LinkedIn to justify the investment and fine-tune your approach. Here are some key metrics to measure:
Content engagement
Evaluate how the influencer’s audience engages with the branded content through likes, comments, shares, clicks, etc. Compare engagement rates to the influencer’s organic content.
Audience reach
Assess the total number of unique users that viewed the content across platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, etc.
Website traffic
Measure how much traffic from LinkedIn is driven to your website through the influencer content. Analyze traffic sources, volumes, and trends over time.
Leads and conversions
Track the number of leads, sign-ups, purchases, app installs, or other goals completed by users who viewed the influencer content.
Content amplification
Evaluate how much the influencer content is further amplified through your own social channels, shares, etc. A high amplification rate signifies good content quality.
Cost per acquisition
Calculate the cost to acquire each lead or customer from the influencer campaign based on investment and conversions.
Brand mentions
Check how frequently your brand is mentioned organically by the influencer after the campaign ends. More brand mentions indicate increased affinity.
Influencer marketing do’s and don’ts
Here are some best practices to adopt when collaborating with LinkedIn influencers:
Do’s
- Vet influencers thoroughly and partner with those who align with your brand.
- Set clear expectations and messaging guidelines upfront.
- Give influencers creative freedom to incorporate your brand strategically.
- Develop long-term partnerships for continuous value.
- Promote influencer content through your own channels.
Don’ts
- Don’t dictate the exact content for influencers to post.
- Don’t expect influencers to openly endorse your product.
- Don’t ask influencers to mislead or spam their audiences.
- Don’t repost influencer content without permission.
- Don’t forget to disclose paid influencer content.
Conclusion
LinkedIn influencer marketing provides brands an opportunity to engage with niche professional audiences. The right influencer partnerships can drive credibility, awareness, and conversions for your brand. Do your homework to identify and vet relevant influencers. Collaborate with them to create branded content strategically aligned with their personal brand. Analyze performance diligently to optimize future influencer marketing campaigns on LinkedIn.
