As a social platform, LinkedIn has made a name for itself as the professional social network, separating itself from the more casual interactions you find on Facebook, TikTok or Instagram, and maintaining its niche by helping users to foster professional connections, support career opportunities, and share industry insights.
But, as the media landscape continues to evolve, and with Meta still considering blocking news content from their platforms in Australia, LinkedIn is leveraging its strength and 1B+ members in over 200 countries and territories around the world to ensure more of the news that matters reaches into industry networks.
The team and I recently engaged with LinkedIn to learn more about how we can curate news and earned media opportunities for clients on their platform. As shown below they do hold a unique and valuable position between the other social networks and premium publishers like Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal.
Image credit: LinkedIn
There are a number of opportunities including breaking news on the platform or posting concurrently with a media release distribution to leverage the world’s largest professional network and reach the right audiences.
They have an in-house editorial team, who at the moment are focused on three key pillars; Tech & innovation, Careers and Finance, but are open to any news they think their audiences might be interested in reading.
A key aspect of this focus is having leaders publish the content with a first-person perspective on their own profile, rather than shared through company pages.
They told us news broken or shared on LinkedIn by CEO’s or executives has a viral action rate (which equals reactions + comments + reshares) almost four times higher than the rate of company pages.
Content shared this way via LinkedIn can also be amplified by their internal teams to ensure stories are getting noticed – whether that is through their LinkedIn news module or as notifications to specific users who might be interested.
At HC we’ll continue to work closely with LinkedIn as they evolve this “News” functionality, and will look at how we can target some of our PR efforts through the platform.
If you’re interested in learning more, or have some news you think might be suited to LinkedIn, drop us a line – [email protected]
Alex Williams