By sculpting organic posts on LinkedIn that create engagement and adding a CTA to boost it as a Thought Leader Ad, Fame reduced costs per result.
TL;DR
- The author: Tom Hunt, Founder and CEO of Fame, B2B podcast agency.
- The goal: Decrease cost per engagement with brand-building ad posts on LinkedIn.
- The tactic: Sculpt organic posts that create engagement (likes, comments), nurture that engagement, then add a CTA and boost it as a Thought-Leader Ad to carry the social proof from the engagement into the ad phase.
- The result: Low investment for a boost to engagement and impressions, and a better conversion rate due to social proof.
What’s the marketing tactic?
On LinkedIn, if an ad has lots of engagement in the form of, likes, and comments, you will get more impressions for your money.
Tom Hunt discovered a hack that made the most of this quirk of LinkedIn algorithms and could reel in those cheap impressions and engagements.
The first step of the tactic involves sculpting the perfect organic post. This may take a few attempts, but there are a few tips to follow.
First of all, address the problem that your business is supposed to solve. Find a narrative – something engaging, spicy, and interesting.
Spend a quarter of your time working on the hook, because the goal at this point is to spark engagement.
Putting line breaks between sentences is a great way to catch the eye and make your post-ultra-scannable. And remember, no filler.
It may take multiple tries to find the post that captures people’s imagination and inspires the kind of comments and engagements you’re looking for.
When it comes though, reply to comments, ask questions, and keep on feeding that moment. Canvas your family and friends too, capitalize on the success of the post and build on it. Get people to add more questions and more conversation. Your employees too – they can create more of a buzz.
Finally, a day after that furor has died down, edit the post and add a call to action at the bottom. Put a couple of lines about your service or product with a link.
Take this newly edited post and boost it with Thought-Leader Ads. Now, it is not just any old ad, because it’s carried all of those engagements with it, now acting as social proof that your product/service does what it says it does.
Run the ad for as long as you want and monitor its success with the LinkedIn Pixel to see how many more impressions it is bringing in.
What was the result?
With this tactic, you achieve more affordable ad impressions for your investment. Plus, the conversion rate is better due to the social proof your ad carries with it.
When the ad blows up, you’ll see a return for your company page and personal page.
Why does it work?
This is based on a detailed understanding of LinkedIn’s algorithms.
The tactic relies on the understanding that an ad on which users can see a positive, good-natured, supportive commentary, plus an ad owner who is willing to engage with customers, is an ad that will inspire more trust than one with no engagement at all.
Getting more people to see your ad is one thing, but converting them requires the social proof that all the previous steps in the tactic have provided.
Want to experiment with LinkedIn ads? Check out our LinkedIn Experimentation course.
