What is LinkedIn Live? [+How to Leverage It in Your Marketing Strategy]

Every week, I use LinkedIn to talk about current events and connect with other content creators.

And I’m not the only one. In fact, LinkedIn has had nearly 700 million active users in 2020 and has become one of the top social media platforms.

In the last year, companies have started to use the social network’s new live-streaming technology.

While Facebook and Instagram launched live streaming features in 2016, LinkedIn just recently decided to join the live streaming platforms.

In February 2019, LinkedIn Live was launched to individual users. This year, it was announced that LinkedIn Live would also become available to business pages.

With this announcement, LinkedIn decided “to bring you a tighter integration between LinkedIn Events and LinkedIn Live, by turning these two products into a new virtual events solution that enables you to stay connected to your communities and meet your customers wherever they are.”

Live streaming continues to gain popularity among audiences. In fact, in 2019, internet users watched 1.1 billion hours of live video.

Additionally, according to Go-Globe, by the end of 2020, live streaming is expected to account for 82% of all internet traffic.

Plus, LinkedIn Live streams have increased by 158% since February 2020.

Although LinkedIn Live isn’t available to all businesses right now, it might be time to start thinking about live streaming.

To get started with LinkedIn Live, you can complete an application online to become a Live broadcaster.

In this post, let’s review how you can leverage LinkedIn Live in your marketing strategy to attract new audiences.

1. Virtual Events

With the recent integration of LinkedIn Live and LinkedIn Events, the social media platform is a great place to host your virtual events.

LinkedIn virtual events allow you to meet your audience where they are and host your event in a trusted environment.

Additionally, hosting a virtual event on LinkedIn Live will help you attract the right professional audience.

You can share your events with your business page followers, plus you can send event invitations to your first-degree profile connections.

Instead of taking videos during your virtual conference and posting them on LinkedIn later, LinkedIn Live allows you to connect with your audience in real-time.

According to LinkedIn, LinkedIn Live is seeing 23 times more comments per host and six times more reactions per post than native video.

With LinkedIn Live, you can engage and connect with your followers in real-time during your virtual events.

2. Recruiting

LinkedIn is one of the main hubs for recruiters and job-seekers alike. In fact, recruiting is one of the top benefits of having a LinkedIn profile for individuals and brands.

With LinkedIn Live, you can support your recruiting efforts by showing off your workplace culture, introducing team members, and answering questions from your audience.

Additionally, you can host a live panel with employees on what it’s like to work for your company. Team members can discuss what their hiring journey looked like and give tips to people who want to work for your company one day.

You can also host a Q&A with different people on your team to highlight their specific roles. For example, you can have them introduce themselves and their role, and then take questions about their day-to-day tasks and duties.

If you want to use LinkedIn Live to support your recruiting efforts, think about other social media tactics you’ve implemented, and then strategize how those can convert into a live stream.

3. Thought Leadership

One of the central LinkedIn strategies for most companies is to use the social media platform to position yourself as an industry leader.

To do this with LinkedIn, you can discuss current events in your industry and boost your content creation strategy.

Using LinkedIn Live, you can host a panel for industry thought leaders, including those at your company, to talk about industry trends and issues.

Additionally, you can host a live stream dedicated to interviewing industry professionals and experts.

Amplifying thought leaders and participating in industry discussions is a great way to use LinkedIn Live to attract new audiences.

4. Showcase Expertise

Not to be redundant, but becoming an authority in your industry is an important part of your marketing strategy.

LinkedIn Live presents an excellent opportunity to showcase your expertise.

Using live streaming technology, you can share your tips and tricks with your audience. To do this, brainstorm how-to topics that your audience is interested in.

If you’re struggling to come up with ideas, consider repurposing old content like blog posts or YouTube videos.

Producing live streaming content will help you boost your content marketing strategy.

5. Announce a New Product or Partnership

As a professional social media platform, LinkedIn is a great place to announce a new product or partnership.

In fact, you might consider doing this on LinkedIn Live. You can bring on representatives from your company and partner company to discuss what the new partnership entails.

This is also a great opportunity to educate and interact with your audience.

By launching a product during a live stream, you can get immediate feedback from your audience, answer questions, and conduct a live demonstration.

The announcement of LinkedIn Live proves that live streaming will continue to be an important tactic in your marketing strategy. In fact, this feature shows that consumers are interested in interacting with brands in real-time.

If you’ve already used Facebook and Instagram Live, LinkedIn Live might be another platform to use and experiment with — especially if your audience is more likely to be on LinkedIn than other platforms.

To learn more about how real brands are using LinkedIn Live, check out this blog post on LinkedIn Live examples.

Originally published Jun 15, 2020 5:00:00 AM, updated June 15 2020