LinkedIn launches ‘Sponsored Updates’ to help brands target users

On Tuesday, LinkedIn announced the rolling out of ‘Sponsored Updates’ to its service. The new ad platform allows brands to target specific groups of LinkedIn users. The introduction of ‘Sponsored Updates’ is a significant move by LinkedIn, as previous advertisements were largely restricted to users who ‘followed’ a particular company on the social network. The updates will become available to all brands with a LinkedIn companies page by the end of the month.

What are ‘Sponsored Updates’?

‘Sponsored Updates’ allow brands to target specific groups of LinkedIn users with advertisements. At present, LinkedIn has over 200 million members across 200 countries. Brands will be able to select either CPC (Cost per click) or CPM (Cost per mille) pricing and can promote updates to target these users. 

‘Sponsored Updates’ are available across desktop, smartphone and tablet devices. The advertisements are marked ‘sponsored’, with the updates appearing directly in the user’s homepage feed along with organic posts from their network and the companies they follow. Users will then have the option to ‘Follow’ the sponsoring company, as well as ‘Like’, ‘Comment’ and ‘Share’ the sponsored posts to their wider network.

Brands can also track the effectiveness of their ‘sponsored updates’ through comprehensive analytics that provide insights to the effectiveness of the updates. 

What will be the impact of ‘Sponsored Updates’?

According to Marketing Land’s Ginny Marvin, ‘the targeting LinkedIn offers is powerful ... Publishers can select audiences by company, title, job function and seniority levels in addition to the typical geo-targeting options available on other platforms’. This level of targeting will allows brands to promote ‘sponsored updates’ to the exact groups of users they want to communicate with.

What do we think?

‘Sponsored updates’ ensure brands will be able to reach out to specific professional groups of professionals they want to target. As Katie Ingham of CMS Wire explains ‘the way LinkedIn is designed, sponsored content is more beneficial to LinkedIn users than is for those that use Facebook and Twitter’. If brands can produce interesting and engaging content through their ‘sponsored updates’, their presence and reputation will be amplified across the social network.