Have you heard about LinkedIn Elevate? It’s a great way of joining the dots on LinkedIn and harnessing the power of networking. It also neatly deals with previous shortcomings of this particular platform in that it no longer has to just be about individuals who happen to work for a particular company – LinkedIn Elevate means that member activity can better promote their LinkedIn company page as well as giving their individual profile greater exposure.
So it’s all about bringing together two strings of activity. LinkedIn members share articles, presentations and other content to strengthen their professional status and widen their networks. Businesses set up LinkedIn company pages to market their services and/or products and attract talent. When a company empowers its employees to share company content exciting things can start to happen. If an individual LinkedIn member shares company content, the likelihood is that their profile will be viewed more than usual and new connections will be made. Alongside this, the company will also benefit from increased company page views and at least one new follower. If that company is recruiting and has advertised vacancies, the amount of job views will also increase – as will the chances of finding the perfect recruit.
Because LinkedIn’s roots are very much in individual membership, employees generally have more extensive networks than companies, and research shows that employee social activity is responsible for approximately 20% of engagement with content. LinkedIn Elevate makes curating and sharing content easy. Importantly, it also enables companies to measure the impact of social activity.
So how does LinkedIn Elevate actually work?
Drawing on LinkedIn Pulse and Newsle, your employees are armed with relevant content to share. LinkedIn Elevate apps for all devices make it easy to share content on LinkedIn and Twitter, and sharing can also be scheduled.
The analytics behind LinkedIn allow employees to see how many times content they’ve shared has been viewed, liked, commented on and shared to other members’ networks. They can also find out who has viewed their profile and requested to connect after seeing the shared content. And the company has access to analytics that is equally rich, including job views and new followers to the company page.
A pilot version of LinkedIn Elevate has already clearly demonstrated its value and it’s set to be rolled out more widely in the near future – I think it sounds like a fantastic development. Interested? Register for more information!
Adobe, Quintiles, Unilever and several other companies piloted LinkedIn Elevate in Q1. Employees who participated in the pilot shared six times more often than in the months leading up to the pilot. As a result, Quintiles employees who participated in the pilot received four times more profile views and made two times more connections, and Unilever employees drove four times more Company Page views, two times more Company Page followers, and six times more job views.
Cory Edwards, head of Adobe’s Social Business Center of Excellence, led Adobe’s pilot of LinkedIn Elevate. Here’s what he had to say:
“This product helps our employees start social conversations about Adobe and the industries we serve. Adobe employees who participated in the LinkedIn Elevate pilot drove 80 percent more Adobe job views than they did previously and in February alone, each participant drove three to four new trial downloads for Adobe solutions. Our employees want to be active on social media, and LinkedIn Elevate offers an easy platform to provide them with insightful content that they will want to share.”
LinkedIn Elevate is available today by invitation only, and will be generally available by Q3. Click here to learn more about LinkedIn Elevate and how you can empower your employees to be social professionals.