According to the Content Marketing Institute’s latest trends report, 89% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn to boost their effectiveness. Sponsoring content on our platform enables them to reach more of their target audience – and it’s a big step towards improving content marketing ROI. However, it’s the style, format and creativity of their Sponsored Content on LinkedIn that decides just how engaging and effective it is.

2. Sponsored Content

3. 89% of B2B Content Marketers Are Using LinkedIn
So how do you ensure yours gets visibility? By sponsoring it.
Sponsoring your best content is step
one to earning more views, but the
way you write the update has a
massive impact on how much
engagement you earn. The following
examples are designed to inspire your
creative streak and help you generate
the most social media engagement
you can with the content you create.
Source: Content Marketing Institute 2017 Trends Report

4. Taking a content-heavy white paper
and condensing its value into 140
characters with a call-to-action is an
art, and when it’s done well the results
are high engagement.
4
Get back to the basics

5. “Evergreen” content was the play of
the day in 2015, but 2016 saw the
professional platform follow the social
media suit as a place for people to get
not just news, but timely analysis and
opinion.
5
Help your audience understand news, trends and
their impacts

6. Marketers have gone from relying
heavily on curated content, to focusing
more on in-house content production.
However, great advice and insights
come from many places. Messages
written elsewhere can still be valuable
to your audience.
6
Curated content is still part of the mix, but to a lesser
degree

7. Sometimes even a professional
audience is in the mood for something
lightweight or entertaining. Yes, your
thought leadership content has a home
on LinkedIn, but so does some of your
“consumer” content- just test and learn
what works for your brand and your
audience.
7
Test lightweight topics

8. Robots will replace human jobs, right?
That’s been the party line in the
humans-vs.-technology debate. This
article by Bloomberg argues that both
can co-exist peacefully.
8
Take a contrary position

9. Whether it’s a 3-D printed cement
castle or a firefighting machine that
looks like a supersized power tool, the
“wow” factor of industrial technology
strikes a chord with the LinkedIn
audience.
9
“Cool” technology goes viral

10. There may never be a shortage of
resume or career advice on LinkedIn,
so finding a white space in these areas
is tough. This post manages to offer a
“disruptive” view on the traditional
resume, and it earns a high
engagement rate as a result.
10
And, of course, career and CV advice are always
welcome

11. Consumer product promotions on
LinkedIn are nothing new, and with an
automobile promotion making into our
top performers list this year, perhaps
next year will see an increase in the
crossover from B2B and B2C.
11
Professionals are consumers, too

12. Video
12

13. YouTube and Vimeo have long been
video platforms that play natively on
LinkedIn, but this year saw a rise in
YouTube-hosted video promotions.
This one from IBM shows why: video
can still tell a story in a way no other
medium can.
13
Share YouTube videos for organic auto-play and in-
feed viewing

14. Recruiting and LinkedIn go together
like summer and ice cream, and in this
example, so do video and recruitment
advertising. The video shows the “work
hard but have fun” mentality that this
agency clearly embodies, and in a way
that is funny and engaging.
14
Humour works on LinkedIn- and it stands out

15. Not all videos are created equal,
however. This one from Sonos works
because you can understand the
message, and the humour, without
having to turn your sound on.
15
Consumer products + entertaining video = success

16. How do you tell a long story to an
audience with a limited attention span?
Time-lapse video is one way. This
example from TaskEasy gets a
message across loud and clear, and
makes getting in touch very easy with
a call-to-action embedded into the
video.
16
Speaking of videos that engage without sound…

17. ©2014 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved.©2014 LinkedIn Corporation. All Rights Reserved.