When using LinkedIn and its campaign manager as an advertising platform, it can be frustrating and confusing about what you can and can’t do. Here at Hydrogen, we enjoy a challenge and love nothing better than getting stuck into a strategy plan! However, there are a few features we would like LinkedIn to incorporate or bring back:
Mentions
Sometimes, our clients will attend an award ceremony, sponsor an event or do some charity work that they want to talk about on social media. Depending on the post, it might be one that’s part of a campaign. While you can mention a person or a company in an organic page post, it’s not possible to do this in a Sponsored Post.
We may not need to use this feature very often but on the odd occasion that mentioning is required, many may find it frustrating that they can’t let another Company Page know that they have been tagged. We’ve investigated this and we’re not sure why this isn’t possible on LinkedIn when it is on Facebook and Twitter.
Native Scheduling
The best crafted posts are the ones that have been written directly on the platform they have been designed for. Facebook’s Creator Studio and Twitter’s compose mode provide the perfect solution when scheduling a post in advance.
For LinkedIn, there is no alternative. Fortunately, we can use tools like Hootsuite, Buffer and Sprout Social to schedule, among many other things. However, every now and again, LinkedIn will disconnect and the post will fail to publish.
Schedule Video
Following on from the inability to schedule straight on the platform, even scheduling video for LinkedIn using a third-party tool has its downfalls. For example, some tools will publish the video as a thumbnail.
This might be something Buffer is on the road to solving:
Schedule Ad Time
Do you have an ad you would like to go live at, say, 3pm? The only way you can do this currently on LinkedIn is to manually set your ad live at that time. We’re hoping that this is something that will change in the future!
Different Creative
Currently, we can’t promote a group of ads in LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager unless the creative is the same format (e.g. all images or all video). This makes optimisation tricky, especially when you’re looking to A/B test a video against an image!
Followers
A few years ago you could see who your individual followers were simply by clicking on the number of followers at the top of a Company Page. This is no longer possible. Don’t get us wrong – we think LinkedIn’s analytics platform is fantastic! We’re able to understand our LinkedIn audiences on a much deeper level, from their industry to their company size. However, we’re a nosey bunch by nature and would love to know who our individual followers are!
Budget
If you’re going to advertise on LinkedIn you need the budget for it. Currently, you can only advertise from a minimum of £8 per day. Minimum bids can be quite high too, which can be frustrating when there’s a small budget to work with!
Can’t Delete Ads
If there’s an ad or campaign that was set-up and no longer required, the only option you have available on LinkedIn is to pause or archive. On the bright side, this allows us to keep these ads stored on the platform for future reference!
Ad Transparency
This is something on our list that will be with us soon! For over a year now we have been able to view the ads currently or recently run on Facebook and Twitter. Over the next few weeks, LinkedIn will be rolling out its new Ads Tab to Company Pages, detailing on all Sponsored Content run over the last six months! We can’t wait to see this new feature!
While we patiently await the new Ads Tab, LinkedIn have also teased that this is the first of many updates to come – many of which we hope are included in this list! Having some of these features would allow us to work more pro-actively.
Despite these minor setbacks in the meantime, we know all the tricks of the trade to make your LinkedIn advertising work! Contact us today to discuss a LinkedIn social strategy.