With over 300 million users worldwide, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking website. Daily usage rates of LinkedIn may be lower than other social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter, but it is the key platform for users who are serious about their career. For those serious about their career, furthering their education could be the next step for career advancement. So how can the higher education industry leverage this platform? Here are five ways:

LinkedIn Ads

Maybe the most commonly used advertising strategy, LinkedIn Ads is self-service advertising solution where you can create ads and target users by key demographics like location, job industry, job seniority, field of study and many more. These ads appear on prominent pages on the LinkedIn.com website while a user is browsing on LinkedIn and when a user clicks on your ad, they are taken to your website or landing page. From my experience, business related graduate programs tend to perform best with LinkedIn Ads when it comes to driving traffic and generating leads.

Sponsored Updates

LinkedIn’s Sponsored Update campaigns help raise awareness for your brand, build relationships with your target audience and ultimately drive leads. As your institution posts updates on LinkedIn, you can essentially ‘promote’ these updates to reach more users and attract new followers. LinkedIn offers the same comprehensive targeting options as LinkedIn ads but unlike LinkedIn Ads, Sponsor Updates can be delivered on every device (desktop, tablet and mobile phones).

Sponsored InMail

Send trusted, attention-grabbing messages directly to members’ inboxes with LinkedIn’s Sponsored InMail. LinkedIn members can only receive one InMail every 60 days, preventing other advertising from targeting your same audience and guaranteeing you exclusive communication with this user during that time frame. You will work with dedicated team of LinkedIn strategists that will help you develop messaging ideas and implement a highly targeted email campaign. A new update to this service: LinkedIn now segments targeting even further by only sending messages to users that are active on LinkedIn.

Display Advertising

LinkedIn Display Advertising allows you reach your target audience on and off of the LinkedIn platform. LinkedIn uses a network of 2,500 partner websites to target users with display ads that help keep your brand on your prospects’ mind while also increasing conversions. LinkedIn Display Advertising offers similar targeting options as LinkedIn Ads and full-funnel analytics, allowing you to reach your ideal audience and to know exactly how effective your advertising campaign is.

Lead Accelerator

LinkedIn’s newest advertising solution, LinkedIn Lead Accelerator, is similar to marketing automation tools like Hubspot and some might say it is retargeting on steroids. This advertising solution helps you engage known prospects, target more anonymous website visitors with messaging specific to their interests, and ultimately increase leads into your pipeline.

Here’s an example of how it works: A user visits a page or pages on your website relating to your MBA program but doesn’t convert. This user then is targeted with display ads with MBA specific messaging. But instead of just showing them the same display ad repeatedly for 30 days, you can set-up a workflow where the user will be targeted with one ad one week, a different ad the following week, and so on. If a user converts on one of your ads and requests more information about your MBA program, they are then put into a new workflow where they are then targeted with display ads with a new CTA that encourages them take the next step (visiting your campus, registering for an online event or submitting an application). Cool, huh?

(It should also be noted that not all advertising opportunities are offered through the University pages but rather their company pages).

Have any success stories with LinkedIn advertising that you’d like to share? Please comment below!

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