As the leading social network for professionals, LinkedIn offers unparalleled opportunities for businesses to connect and start conversations with their audiences on topics that matter.
A strong LinkedIn presence enhances your brand’s credibility and provides a global platform for demonstrating thought leadership. One effective way to grow your audience is through LinkedIn follower ads. Not sure where to start? In this article, we walk you through the steps to create and execute a successful LinkedIn follower ad campaign and highlight the benefits of having a robust following on this platform.
What are LinkedIn follower ads?
LinkedIn follower ads are a type of sponsored content specifically designed to help increase your company page followers. Unlike other ad formats that promote specific posts or drive traffic to your website, follower ads focus on growing your audience directly on LinkedIn. These ads appear in the news feed and encourage users to follow your company page with a simple click.
Setting up your LinkedIn follower ad campaign
1. Target your audience
LinkedIn offers sophisticated targeting options, allowing you to reach specific demographics based on location, industry, job title, company size, and more. Define your audience attributes to ensure you target the followers you are seeking to engage. For instance, if you’re a B2B software company, you might target IT managers in small and mid-sized companies within your city or state.
2. Craft compelling ad creative
Your ad’s visuals and copy should be compelling and relevant. Follow LinkedIn’s guidelines and use high-quality images or videos that reflect your brand’s identity. The copy should be concise, highlighting the benefits of following your company page. Consider using a clear call-to-action (CTA) such as “Follow us for up-to-date industry insights and updates.”
3. Set your budget and schedule
Determine how much you are willing to spend on your campaign and for how long. LinkedIn allows you to set a daily or total budget, giving you control over your ad spend. Schedule your ads to run at times when your target audience is most active to maximise visibility.
Executing and optimising your campaign
1. Launch and monitor
Once your ads are live, monitor their performance regularly. LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager function provides detailed analytics on metrics such as impressions, clicks, and new followers gained. Use this data to assess whether your campaign is meeting your goals.
2. A/B testing
To improve your ad performance, conduct A/B testing. This involves creating multiple versions of your ad with slight variations in the headline, image, or CTA. By comparing the results, you can identify which elements resonate best with your audience and refine your ads accordingly.
3. Optimise based on insights
Use the insights gained from monitoring and A/B testing to optimise your campaign. Hubspot offers a great guide to A/B testing. Adjust your targeting, budget, and creative elements based on what works best. Continuous optimisation helps increase the effectiveness of your campaign over time.
Benefits of a strong LinkedIn following
Simply put, a significant following on LinkedIn enhances your brand’s credibility. In a world where clicks, likes, comments and reposts are invaluable engagement tools and feed the network’s algorithms, more followers mean a broader audience for your content and the opportunity to nurture new relationships.
In addition to reputational gains and potential lead generation, a robust LinkedIn following can play a talent acquisition role, attracting high-quality candidates keen to join an active, reputable organisation who understands its colleagues, community and customers.
Don’t forget to live up to the expectations you have set! Relevant content, supported by a clearly defined B2B content strategy provide the blueprint for building and nurturing those follower relationships you have just created.
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