By Arda Atalay, Head of MENA Private Sector at LinkedIn Talent Solutions
To say that 2020 was a year like no other is perhaps an understatement. We have seen immense disruption in the way we live and work, and years’ worth of digital transformation within months. There were unprecedented challenges in the professional world, including work from home, the evolving notion of productivity, workplace culture, learning and upskilling, and most importantly, managing human resourcing – be it existing resources or hiring new resources for the transformed workplace. In January, sessions on LinkedIn were up 30%, conversations were up 48%, and hours spent on LinkedIn Learning had doubled, compared to a year ago. Large numbers of people were asking for advice and help on LinkedIn, whether to find a job, learn new skills, or simply seek help from others in similar situations.
LinkedIn is the number one platform for B2B lead generation
It accesses a market with twice the buying power of average web audiences, as four out of five members on the platform are driving business decisions.
- LinkedIn’s marketing solutions help promote an organization’s updates to targeted audiences on desktop, mobile, or tablet, allowing them to drive awareness and leads on the world’s most viewed professional news feed.
- Our tools allow intelligent and efficient marketing. Organizations can target quality audiences in a professional context, eg: market to influencers, decision-makers, and executives who have the power to act on new opportunities.
- Marketers can find the right ad format to drive results; whether their objective is to build brand awareness, generate leads, or drive website traffic.
Market your business to attract the right talent
According to LinkedIn data, candidates are 1.8x more likely to apply for a job if they’re familiar with the company.
LinkedIn Live
LinkedIn Live streams were up 89% between March-June 2020. It was interesting to see how organizations rallied around the new normal by leveraging all LinkedIn has to offer. For example, Adobe swiftly moved their annual Adobe Summit event to a virtual format. Expecting over 23,000 attendees, the organization needed to understand how to generate emotional engagement and earn attention at scale, without the advantage of bringing thousands of people together in a shared space. Marketing Solutions was up over 50%, as advertisers increasingly turned to the platform as the trusted way to reach professionals ready to do business.
LinkedIn Events
Location is just as important as it was pre-pandemic; and LinkedIn being the world’s largest professional network lends itself as a safe and trusted platform. Users can generate a native landing page on LinkedIn, with a unique URL to promote on their channels, stream to their event attendees using LinkedIn Live, and engage with their audiences at all points in the events lifecycle.
Stories
Stories was introduced last year allowing users to share photos and videos of up to 20 seconds on their accounts. With professional life going beyond engagement during business hours for most members, LinkedIn Stories made it possible to offer a behind-the-scenes look at daily activities, exchange knowledge, and for brands to promote their services in a new format on the platform.
Stories Ads is being tested in beta phase with a limited number of advertisers with all members globally. Stories Ads can help brands grow their reach with our community of more than 740 million members with video and image ads. Already, we have had more than 600 advertisers activate campaigns with positive performance in clicks, views, and cost metrics.
The future values online learning
Over the past year, we’ve seen huge growth in demand for online learning. Hours spent on LinkedIn Learning – our online learning platform which has 16,700+ learning courses taught by expert instructors on business, technology, and creative topics – double compared to a year ago.
Whether people are looking to upskill to secure a new job or learn new skills to adapt to changing circumstances, people and companies are turning to online learning as an accessible, on-demand option for professional and personal development. LinkedIn has launched a global skills initiative aimed at bringing more digital skills to 25 million people worldwide by the end of this year. Our goal is to help those who have lost their jobs due to COVID-19 and the resulting economic crisis get the skills they need to secure new employment.
With over a 1,000 hours of free learning courses, nearly 13 million people around the world have learned new skills related to the most in-demand jobs in the four months since June 2020.
This article was published in Communicate’s Q1 edition. You can access the full magazine here.
