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Professional services firms such as Deloitte, KPMG and EY have done a good job in building a thought leadership presence on LinkedIn

and to assist clients to take part as a Years ago we dubbed LinkedIn ‘the HR ?
way to build their profiles. Corporate manager’ and ‘recruitment company Professionals value
pages sharing quality content about social network’ as it seemed to only be LinkedIn more than
the company, as well as interesting used by head-hunters. Now we see the the other platforms
articles relating to the industry, get platform has transitioned to do what it
decent interaction,” says Smith. “We try intended, which is be a social network they’ve made it a lot more user friendly.”
adding a call-to-action to most posts. for professionals.” While the free version is for everyone, he
For example, if we post a new product says the real value is in LinkedIn’s paid-
feature we will have a call-to-action He continues: “We recently ran a for premium products and profiles.
which will lead them to a Web link.” survey for South African business
professionals and the majority came Saunders believes LinkedIn remains
However, Saunders notes that it’s back saying they receive the most an important platform, especially in
impossible for a company to simply amount of value out of LinkedIn, versus Africa where finding the right people to
outsource its brand-building on any other social network. We see a lot connect with and do business with can
LinkedIn to a digital agency. In order to of professionals interacting in interest be challenging. However, it is critical that
effectively use the platform, he believes groups and sharing knowledge and South African companies begin to broaden
it’s important to embrace the platform personal experience among each other.” their understanding of the platform.
throughout the company. “LinkedIn is
about business and about sales. So The statistics seem to back this up, Smith agrees. “You never hear of
your [director] of sales needs to adopt says Smith. A 2015 study by specialist companies driving people to follow their
LinkedIn; your head of recruitment agency Internet Marketing Inc in the US LinkedIn page,” he bemoans.
needs to adopt it, your sales managers noted that LinkedIn redirects four times
and marketing chiefs. This is also why as many users to company home pages IMM Journal of
it is hard to find case studies of brands as Facebook and Twitter. The platform Strategic Marketing
immersing themselves in the potential also generates the highest visitor-to-lead Magazine
of the platform.” conversion rate (2,74%), which is about
three times that of Facebook and Twitter. @strategicmarketing-
Smith observes that his agency’s magazine
clients are becoming more interested Saunders adds that he, too, finds
in marketing their services on LinkedIn. the volume of people who are active
“We’ve noticed – particularly this year on LinkedIn is growing. “A lot of that
– that the pages we manage receive a has to do with the recent updates to
much higher interaction than before. the LinkedIn App … they have made
it easier to connect with people and

October 2016 – January 2017 strategicmarketing 51