New LinkedIn features to help international marketing

Improved targeting of Company LinkedIn Company pages and posts

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> Recommended link: LinkedIn announcement of new International features

This week, LinkedIn have introduced two new features to allow companies to target their content better to LinkedIn members in different countries by improved geotargeting by country location and language preference.

Given that 2/3 of LinkedIn members live outside of the US, and the network is available in 21 different languages, LinkedIn are following Facebook and Twitter (also announced this week), to allow members to connect social updates and ads with local audiences. For LinkedIn, this will be particularly useful for larger B2B brands who tailor content for different international markets.

For full details of the options to tailor company updates, company names,  descriptions by country see this Help Page:

For companies using LinkedIn for marketing purposes such as lead generation and brand awareness, there will be opportunities to send company posts in the specific language of those LinkedIn members, and to take into account their location. For example, if you are a multi-national company looking to target Spanish speakers living in the UK then this could be beneficial for companies looking for Spanish translators for example close to home.

From my own personal viewpoint, I could see this as being useful in the Higher Education market. If I was looking for LinkedIn members from a particular country to write web copy in their native language for my website, or obtain some cultural information to plan my social media strategy then these connections could be extremely valuable.

So, how do these LinkedIn targeting features work?

• Target by language:  The post is targeted by language, based on the 'language default'' set up in the company page.  This is set up in the 'Settings of your company page'. When a member reads an update on a company or showcase page, they may now only see the blog post which fits their 'language preference'
• Target by geographical location: As the screenshot below shows, you can lso target by geography.
• Target by other member filters. You may not be aware, but this adds to an existing capability to target members for company updates by other targeting filters including company size, industry, function, seniority, geography,
• Advertising can also be targeted. Updates can also then be further promoted through sponsored updates.

See these additional LinkedIn resources for targeting your company blog posts for global audiences.