With over 810 million active users, LinkedIn is the largest “professional” social network on the planet. This makes it the go-to place for businesses looking to grow their presence both online and in real life.
One great way of gathering people around on a platform such as LinkedIn is by creating a digital event. And this method has become increasingly more popular in the last couple of years due to the pandemic.
Although the point of this article is LinkedIn Event Ads, since they are so easy to set up, we’re going to also focus on the many steps that precede them. Keep reading for more.
Why LinkedIn events?
The LinkedIn events feature one of the most effective ways that a business could promote and host an event online. The social network platform allows to you host all types of events, with different audience sizes and such. More on this below.
These events can be strategically used to showcase that your business or brand has expertise in a certain topic and is ready to share valuable content to its audience to back that claim up.
Additionally, LinkedIn Events can be used to promote an (offline) in-person event that you plan to host.
Such an exploit will only lead to the increase of your brand awareness and the growth of your business’ reputation. For instance, around 31% of marketers believe that event marketing is one of the most effective marketing channels out there.
How to set up a LinkedIn event
Types of LinkedIn event ads (professional gatherings)
Are you unfamiliar with some of the more popular professional gatherings that a business can rely on? Well, here are a few examples of LinkedIn events that you should definitely consider.
On a side note, given the current state of the world, we are going to be focusing mainly on remote events. However, please note that you can host any of these events in person too if you wish to do so, and they are equally as beneficial.
Networking events
The first word that comes into mind whenever someone mentions LinkedIn is networking. Indeed, the platform is filled with millions and millions of professionals. That makes it a hub for interactions and discussions between people and businesses alike.
A networking event can come in many formats. These include a live Q&A session, a webinar, a virtual cocktail party, a panel discussion, and more. These events are great because they give the attendees the opportunity to connect with fellow job seekers as well as established professionals.
Conferences & summits
If you really want to establish yourself as a leader in whatever industry you specialise in, then you need to showcase your expertise to a large audience. And what better place to do this than on LinkedIn.
These sorts of events are great regardless of whether you are a new business or an already well-established one. They can help you to show the online world your knowledge and expertise on a wide variety of subjects.
Additionally, these events present a great opportunity for you to substantially grow both your network and your business.
Workshops
As the name already suggests, these LinkedIn events are a great way for businesses to collectively teach their audience a new skill or set of skills. They can also be used to inform users about your industry, inside and out!
These events function on the idea of providing value to your audience members through educational and interactive discussions. They can also be as simple as having a guest speaker over, delivering a casual presentation to a group of attendees.
For instance, you can create a workshop event with the aim of educating your audience about the top skills that brands might need to better manage their workspace. If it turns out to be a success, such an event can make you appear as an expert in anything management and HR.
In other words, expect numerous users on the platform to check out your page and future events if you ever decide to make one.
Product updates
On LinkedIn, businesses can post whenever they have updates about a specific product. They can also announce the launch of an all-new product. Such an announcement can be time and energy-consuming, but it’s very much worth it.
You can create an event about updates and releases of your products that you deem worthy of the attention they will get. Additionally, you can also set up an event talking about the release of a product that isn’t necessarily yours.
Say, for example, Google is releasing a completely new platform that can help digital marketers. You can hold an event to talk about the release from the point of view of a professional. Similar to workshops, this can help to portray your business as a leader and expert in your industry.
Setting up your LinkedIn event ads
Once you’ve figured out what type of event you want to host on the platform, the next step is to create one.
Assuming you already have a LinkedIn company page, simply go to your page, click on the Admin Tools button, and select Create an Event from the drop-down menu.
Or, you can simply click on the Events tab on the Start a Post box from your feed page. Regardless of which method you use, you will be transported to a page where you have to fill out important bits of information about your event.
The information that you need to fill out includes:
- Details: Type in the Event’s name, its time (and time zone), the name of the host, a description, and confirmed speakers
- Settings: Here, you can choose whether the event will be public or private
- Location: Here, you should check the “This is an online event” box. Then, type in the registration or broadcast link. This refers to where the event will be viewable for attendees
Once you’re done filling in the details about your event, click on Create. You then move to the last and perhaps most important step in organising a LinkedIn Event. If you haven’t guessed, it’s inviting your audience.
Inviting an audience
What’s an event without an audience? Nothing really.
From the moment you start creating your event, you will notice that LinkedIn incentivises you to add certain elements that will help you to reach a wider audience. For starters, you can add LinkedIn hashtags to your event post.
You can also use the conveniently placed Invite Option, which is available for users right below the initial event information. Once clicked, you will have access to a wide variety of filtering options to help you reach people who are relevant to the event.
The first option in this menu is to invite people to your connection list. The list in itself can be filtered in several ways:
- Current Company: You can filter your connections based on whether they currently work with you in the same company or have worked with you in the past
- Schools: You can also filter your connections based on the schools they have attended
- Locations: You can use location filtering options that are based on the audience you currently have
- Industry: Lastly, LinkedIn allows you to filter people on your connection list by industry. This is a great way of ensuring that you only invite people that are relevant to your event
LinkedIn also allows you to share the event by simply clicking the share button, which will present you with a drop-down menu.
For one, you can share the event in a post on your personal feed or send it in a message to individuals of your choosing. LinkedIn also allows you to immediately share the post through Twitter and Facebook or to simply copy the link and share it anywhere you want.
LinkedIn event ads – Promote your event
Now, you can get numbers to your events organically. But in order to boost these, you will need to promote your event. As we’ve mentioned at the start of the article, promoting your LinkedIn Event through an Event Ad is easy. It’s what comes before it that really matters.
After creating your campaign, head to the LinkedIn Campaign Manager to begin transforming it into an Event Ad.
Start off by creating a new campaign group or using an existing one. If you choose the former, you will be prompted to a menu where you would have to choose the campaign objective of your ad campaign. In this case, we recommend Brand Awareness.
Next up
Next up, edit the other details of your ad campaign, such as your target audience, budget and ad format. In this case, you will, of course, have to choose Event Ad as the format.
Immediately after, LinkedIn will prompt you with a screen where you can either create a new ad from scratch to browse existing content. Assuming you’re following this article, the logical step here would be to browse existing content.
Then, you will be asked to name your campaign, add an introduction, and provide the event’s LinkedIn link. Once you have successfully added all of this information, click on Create.
After that, LinkedIn will give you another chance to review your campaign’s parameters and make changes if need be. Those changes may include budget & schedule, LinkedIn Audience Network and more.
Click on Launch Campaign and Tadaa! You’re done.
Need help marketing your events?
Our experts have years of experience when it comes to marketing events of all kinds through different platforms, including LinkedIn. If you need help with yours, just book a discovery call with us today.
0 Comments