LinkedIn Introduces the New: How You Rank Feature

Up till now all LinkedIn members have had access to the very popular: Who’s Viewed Your Profile feature, which as the name suggests highlights which other users have in the last period of time since the last update viewed your profile on the LinkedIn site.

Obviously this is a very useful function that allows you to proactively monitor who else is interested in you and potentially the skill set you have that may be of use to them in their setting.



As recently announced however this feature is now being further augmented with the ability to assess how you rank comparatively against the other members of your direct LinkedIn network in respect to profile views.

Now if you are not ranking favourably in this area surely this presents an immediate opportunity for you to observe these other profiles and make some constructive observations that will highlight areas of comparative weakness between your profile and theirs, as a basis for positive and needed change.

Of course LinkedIn has always had the equally helpful feature of telling us all how complete our respective profiles were and backed this up with a number of suggestions that could be immediately implemented to achieve a more complete and professional presence on LinkedIn.

It is important to remember that this new initiative will assist anyone in the three hundred plus million pool of active users regardless of whether your are a consultant, business owner or employee looking for additional job opportunities within the market place.

For example for consultants and business owners possible business prospects approach leading candidates on LinkedIn through the use of keywords which drive relevant traffic to appropriate profiles such as yours and other member s who may also be vying for the same, business, role or contract.

In LinkedIn as in anywhere else in the professional landscape of Professional Networking Social Media sites, it is imperative to differentiate yourself, your profiles and your skill set from others who you may be in competition with both within your own network and outside of it.

By studying these metrics on a regular basis there is no doubt you will be able to keep refining your LinkedIn presence and consequently be better placed to achieve your objectives for LinkedIn.

For more information on LinkedIn or any other aspect of Social Media and Digital Marketing go to:

http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/training/short-courses/marketing-sales-and-service/social-media-emerging-force-sm  sign up for a social media workshop or visit the Digital Enterprise Program (DEP) listing for free social media workshop at:

http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/training/briefings/marketing-sales-and-service/social-media

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,
Daniele.

Breitbarth's annual LinkedIn overview for 2014

Breitbarth's annual LinkedIn overview for 2014 has now been published and was based on data from a survey of almost 900 active users of LinkedIn globally.

The key findings are as follows as outlined in a recent reporting on: http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2014/25107/how-people-use-linkedin-infographic#ixzz324Y0YISU

Around 4 in 5 users (78.8%) have been members of the social network for at least 2 years, with 7.4% only joined in the past year, with the main findings for the last survey were as follows:

Free vs. Paid
    81% of users surveyed say they have a free LinkedIn account.    
    18% have paid accounts.
    1% are not sure.

Visibility
    64.3% of respondents say they allow their connections to see the rest of the people in their network. 
    12.8% say they do not.
    22.9% are not sure.

Number of Connections
    The largest percentage of respondents (25.2%) have between 500-999 connections on LinkedIn.
    6.8% have fewer than 50 connections.
    1.5% have more than 10,000 connections.

Hours Spent
    43.2% of respondents spend between 0-2 hours per week on the service on average.
    26.3% spend between 3-4 hours per week on average.
    30.6% spend 5+ hours on LinkedIn per week on average.

Features
    75.7% of respondents say they find the "Who's Viewed Your Profile" feature on LinkedIn helpful.
    63.3% find the "People You May Know" feature helpful.
    50.2% like the ability to directly message first-level connections.

Usefulness
    36.2% of respondents say LinkedIn has been extremely important in helping them grow their network, develop their business, and/or find employment.
    Only 1.5% say the network has not been important at all in helping with these efforts.

The data above is useful and gives a solid snap shot of what is likely to be the typical breakdown of use for LinkedIn from a world wide perspective.
Perhaps the number that is most conspicuous is that a relatively modest number of just over one in three (36.2%) of respondents said that LinkedIn was: extremely important in helping them grow their network, develop their business, and/or find employment, which of course is what it is designed to do and the number one reason 300 million people around the world are on it.

For me this data confirms what I know to be true and what I see evidence of each day as a 

marketing consultant and business trainer. Namely that people are still not using LinkedIn strategically as part of an integrated digital and social media marketing strategy and as a result are largely foregoing some of the great benefits it can bestow on users.

The need for more training is paramount to fully utilise its great potential and that of other premier social media platforms and other digital media modalities.

AS always I hope that everyone takes full advantage of the Digital Enterprise Program (DEP) workshops and free coaching sessions that are available to privately owned businesses in Australia.

Simply go to
http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program/workshops
to find out the next available and nearest workshop for their location. Be sure to also pass this link on to anyone you know that may also benefit from this free program where all aspects of social media and all other key areas of digital marketing will be discussed in full.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele.
 
 

Facebook Announce That New Video Metrics Are Soon To Released To All

I was pleased to hear from a recent Facebook Media Release in their news section new video metrics will be added to both Page Insights and Ads Reporting in the near future.

As things stand the admins of any Facebook business page can see the number of people that watching any video. The new metrics will add to this. Specifically they will provide key metrics such as: total video views, unique video views, audience retention and the average duration of the video view.

Obviously these additional metrics will provide you with greater insight as the Page Owner to better understand what is working well and what isn’t working as well as a process of producing more consistently content that will resonate with the Facebook audience.

Taken from the Facebook News Page, here are what the soon to be released metrics will appear like once you receive them as part of your Facebook Insights content.

 

Interestingly the metrics will reveal the total number of video views (as defined as a view of three seconds or more and will appear for all videos), as well as the total number of people that watched the videos.

The audience retention graph in Page Insights is also a welcomed addition that demonstrates what parts of the video have had the most interest on the basis that if someone comes back for a second look they may well choose to go back to a specific part of the video which will be captured by the spikes and troughs seen over the course of the videos entirety. 

Page Insights View

These new metrics will also allow you to see the number of people that reached a specific time into the video — 25%, 50%, 75%, 95% and 100%. This data will provide you with a clear guide as to how interesting and effective the various stages of the individual videos is and by extension how well they are each performing.

Ads Reporting View

Using the “data breakdowns” feature in Ads Reporting, you can also learn how specific audiences responded to your video. For example, if men between 25 and 40 are a demographic you target in your campaign, the data breakdown will show the number of views you received from that demographic.

Expected Timing for Roll out

Face book has said that these new video metrics will be available for all paid and organic videos uploaded directly to Facebook Pages and will roll out gradually over the coming weeks.

I believe that this trend of providing increased capacity to better understand and measure the key metrics is in perfect alignment that for so long (and especially with more traditional forms of outbound marketing), as marketers we have not always done a great job in defining, obtaining and subsequently analysing our  key metrics.

However with the advent of digital media modalities and an increased capacity to measure and correlate action to result, we really no longer have any reason to not fully embrace this type of tool wholeheartedly and maximise of potential return on investment.

And to learn more about digital metrics, social media or any other form of digital media remember to always check the Digital Enterprise Program list of free workshops through the VECCI website at:

http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program/workshops and get your free 4 hour coaching session.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,

Daniele.