New Features to Boost Your B2B Brand’s LinkedIn Presence

LinkedIn continues to invest its resources in developing the platform as the go to resource for B2B marketers. With most citing it as their most effective platform to drive growth, the strategy is working. 

As 2022 wraps up, we want to draw your attention to several new features LinkedIn has rolled out.

With a focus on B2B content marketing, they offer greater insight into your B2B marketing performance and your overall marketing strategy.

Upgraded LinkedIn Creator Analytics 

LinkedIn has improved several components of its creator analytics to give brands more actionable data.

Growth Over Time Analysis 

The Audience tab features a new component: follower growth. This shows you a chart of your follower numbers over time, helping you to determine what drives follower growth.

Perhaps you notice a spike of new followers every time you post about a certain topic. Or perhaps a surge in growth coincides with your influencer campaigns or online events. Being able to read the trends easily can help guide your content marketing priorities. 

Top Performing Posts 

This data shows what types of content marketing are popular with your existing audience. See which content marketing efforts are working, and let that guide your future content plans. When you can see what your audience considers high-quality content, you can give them more of what they want.

You can see your top-performing posts, sorted by either impressions or interactions, for a selected date range.  

Demographic Tools 

There is also a new section in the Audience tab called Demographics.

With more detailed information about the make up of your audience, you can focus on distributing more valuable, relevant content. If your followers are younger and less experienced, they won't be interested in content designed for senior executives.  

This data will also show if there's a misalignment between your target audience and your followers. If that's the case, you can shift your content strategy. A high follower count means nothing if they are not your potential customers. Your priority has to be producing consistent content to attract those who are in the market for your products and services.

Upgraded Competitor Analytics 

The LinkedIn Pages Competitor Analytics has long been a valuable resource. The dashboard is now available on mobile and has new features to help you stand out. 

Benchmark your data against your competition with insights into their follower growth, engagement rates, and even post topics. When trying something new, don't just compare it to what you used to do. Compare it to a similar post from a similar brand and learn from your competitors. 

This dashboard will show you the trends that can drive profitable customer actions. If other businesses are discussing particular topics or promotions, you can make sure you're part of the conversation. 

New Accessibility Features 

In efforts towards greater inclusion, LinkedIn has added a suite of new features for those with accessibility needs. 

Video Captions

Videos uploaded to LinkedIn, both for ads and organic content, will have automatically generated captions. Videos are a highly engaging tool for LinkedIn marketing and this upgrade will further broaden their appeal. 

This system is not new. You’ve seen automatic captioning on platforms where video is the predominant medium, including YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. 

Captions are created during the upload process using AI technology. If you’re familiar with this tech on other platforms, you'll know it’s not perfect.

While this feature primarily assists those who are deaf or hard of hearing, it also has other benefits. For example, it makes videos watchable in moments where the user's sound needs to be off. 

However, there's no benefit in captions that don't make sense. Digital marketers are encouraged to review the captions on every piece of content for accuracy before clicking “Publish.”

Profiles and Listings

The accessibility features also include updates to how job listings are posted and what you can share on your personal profile. 

Job titles related to accessibility have been added to the platform. These include options like “accessibility designer” or “accessibility engineer.” LinkedIn cites a 171% increase in job postings related to accessibility since September 2019. 

LinkedIn has also added “Dyslexic Thinking” as a recognised skill that can be added to profiles. Dyslexic thinking is an “approach to problem-solving involving pattern recognition, spatial reasoning, lateral thinking, and interpersonal communication.”

Additional Resources

LinkedIn Ads now support alt-text on images. Alternative text is copy describing the appearance or function of an image on a page and is read aloud by screen reader assistive technology. This feature is accessible in the Campaign Manager. 

In addition to being a best practice for the sake of inclusivity, it is also beneficial to marketers for SEO purposes.

Lastly, LinkedIn has recently added several courses and learning paths in their Learning section related to accessibility. 

Pages and Product Updates 

Post Templates

Looking to make your posts stand out? LinkedIn has begun rolling out post templates, which allow you to build creative posts without starting from scratch. Add images, backgrounds, and stickers, or change fonts. 

To access post templates, build a post natively in the app with the “Post” button, and then click “Use template.” This simple adjustment will get your audience's attention and encourage engagement on your content. 

Pinned Comments 

If you have an engaged and thoughtful audience, you’ve likely gotten great comments on your posts that deserved recognition. Now you can highlight them with pinned comments.

If you like a comment, click to pin it and it will be the top comment for all readers. The pinned comment can be swapped out anytime. 

Pinned comments help you guide the conversation. It can help set the tone for the type of engagement your brand is looking for. Another use is to lead people to their next steps in the context of your original post.

Featured Commitments 

It takes more than a company description and a list of job openings to make a successful company page. That’s why LinkedIn has added a new section to highlight company values. 

More and more applicants are looking for employers based on their values, so LinkedIn has rolled out “Our featured commitments.” Brands can showcase company culture by including blog posts, certifications, and other evidence, as well as a list of commitments.

Each company can select up to five commitments, which include items such as:

• Diversity, equity, and inclusion 

• Work-life balance

• Social impact

LinkedIn Newsletter Updates 

LinkedIn Newsletters give marketers the best of social media marketing and email marketing, rolled into one. The latest update at the end of 2022 will improve newsletter discoverability. It will also help to build your subscriber base and offers an improved analytics dashboard to boot. 

New followers of your LinkedIn profile will get an automatic notification to check out your newsletter. The LinkedIn search tool will also aggregate more newsletter content, making your newsletter easier to find.

To take advantage of this, make sure your newsletter publishes high-quality, relevant, and consistent content. Incorporate the same best practices you already use to optimise web copy for search engines. 

Pre-Filled Lead-Generation Forms

Several B2B brands rely heavily on LinkedIn’s native Lead Gen Forms to reduce friction for prospects. Now LinkedIn will automatically fill in work email on the form for users. 

This will lead to a more streamlined process, resulting in more accurate data submissions that make B2B lead lists more actionable. This will give the brand insights related to email addresses including cost per lead and submission rate. 

Insights and Offerings Guide Strategy

If used to their potential, these changes will improve the efficiency of your company's content marketing campaigns. Audience insights and performance metrics can help with creating and distributing valuable content moving forward. Improvements in inclusivity can only broaden your appeal.

For expert guidance on how to leverage your data to guide content marketing strategy, book a demo with 1827 Marketing. From social posts and newsletter content to keyword-optimised articles and more, we bring your content creation, automation, and amplification together.