“You can’t improve upon what you do not measure.”
-Marc Ohmann
This quote from my boss has stuck with me. Our company is built on measurable data. I truly do not have a job if there is not information out in the gigantic thing we call the Internet that we can measure. We use lots of different tools, like Google Analytics and our own measurement tool to figure out how well our Inbound Marketing efforts are working.
Well, it looks like your favorite professional networking site is stepping up their game! Today, Linkedin is releasing two new tools to help you utilize your professional/social network. The first is called Content Marketing Score and the second is Trending Content. These tools work well in tandem (which seems like a good reason to release them at the same time) because one helps you to measure success and the other helps inform you of what good content looks like by taking the best of what is out in the Linkedin world and putting it right at your finger tips.
Content Marketing Score:
“It measures member engagement with your Sponsored Updates, Company Pages, LinkedIn Groups, employee updates, and Influencer posts (if applicable). It then gives you a single score, ranked against your competitive set. You will also get recommendations about how to improve your score based on different levers you can pull to give you more reach, frequency and engagement. You can filter your score by region, seniority, company size, job function, and industry.”
This Content Marketing Score seems like a great step for Linkedin, but it isn’t anything new or revolutionary. It does allow companies that try to get a good handle on their Linkein presents to simplify the steps that they must take to gather the information. Plus, it is coming straight from Linkedin, which seems like a good thing because Linkedin wants you to succeed. They want you to continue to use Linkedin to advertise, utilize, and expand.
It also gives you information to track and see trends without having to do it all yourself.
Trending Content:
As an inbound marketing company, we know how important it is that knowing your industry and your audience is important. Traffic is created through good content, and good content is created by knowing what gets the gears turning for your target audience. This is why Linkedin created the Trending Content tool.
Linkedin is now giving your the ability to search hot topics based on industry. Industries like executive, health and pharmaceuticals, IT, marketing, students, small businesses, etc. can be targeted much easier.
In conclusion, this seems like a good step for Linkedin. I know that I will utilize these tools in the future, and even though they aren’t cutting edge concepts, I wouldn’t say that Linkedin is totally behind the times either. They simply seem to be realizing the importance of quantitative data. It will be interesting to see how many people start to use these features as well as what bugs get recognized and how Linkedin will address them, but only time will tell. For now, we can be excited that Linkedin is taking steps in the right direction!
