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What Motivates LinkedIn Members to Engage With Your Content?
10:17 AMCreating content doesn’t guarantee results. Content marketing results happen when the right content meets the right audience. To...
Creating content doesn’t guarantee results. Content marketing results happen when the right content meets the right audience. To ensure your content eventually finds its ideal audience and gets a fair shot at delivering results, you’ll want a distribution strategy for each piece of content you create. That's why we introduced a new series of resources: Sophisticated Marketer's Sessions.
Even with a sound distribution strategy, though, not every piece of content will get the engagement you hoped for. With all we know about online consumer behavior, content engagement doesn’t need to be a daunting task.
Fortunately for marketers, the LinkedIn platform is home to a massive amount of behavioral data from over 500 million members. Through data-driven insights, we’re able to illuminate what makes content consumers tick—and, more importantly, what makes them click. The following Infographic contains audience insights to help you market smarter. Then, keep reading for some of our top takeaways.
We surveyed more than 9,000 members across the globe to understand how people engage with content on LinkedIn. Here’s what we learned...
Influence Comes from Everywhere
When it comes to finding great content online, LinkedIn users are surprisingly consistent. While 57 percent said their peers were a top source of engaging content, colleagues, companies, and influencers were close behind at 54, 52 and 51 percent, respectively.
This is great news for companies looking to run ad campaigns on the LinkedIn platform. Consumers are about as willing to engage with content from brands as they are with content from other sources. Unlike other platforms, where friends and peers might have greater influence, companies are well-positioned to push their content out to an eager audience.
Relevance and Value Matter
Marketers have to understand what types of content their audiences want. You’re not just marketing to their demographic profile. You’re also trying to fulfill their needs and desires. Our research shows that 62 percent of LinkedIn users want content that is educational and informative, an insight that falls in line with similar studies.
Relevance is the next-most important content quality, cited by 61 percent of LinkedIn users. Staying on top of trends, finding inspiration, and supporting skill development were other prominent reasons why users would engage with content.
Your audience may display different behaviors, but it’s important to understand these macro trends and where your audience’s patterns align and diverge.
Bridging the Generational Gap
Generational trends have shown some stark differences between segments of LinkedIn’s members. Millennials, for example, were more likely than Gen Xers to engage with educational, inspiring, and skills development-based content, which may reflect their younger age and their desire for professional growth.
Gen Xers, meanwhile, were more interested in content that was personally relevant to them, as well as content that kept them up-to-date on the latest trends. This could correspond to Gen Xers being more established in their careers, and more focused on keeping pace with industry changes.
The demographic makeup of your own target audience will determine how these insights should shape your content, at least while you’re still refining your own content strategy.Creating content is hard work, but inspiring engagement is an art form. Take your content to the next level by using LinkedIn to pair your content with its perfect audience.
