In a month synonymous with college graduation, LinkedIn announced it is making improvements to higher education offerings and services provided for students.

“The updates offer fantastic improvements, giving schools more transparency and control of their marketing on LinkedIn,” said Brian Connelly, Account Executive at LinkedIn. “We’re moving back to focusing on the core value LinkedIn has to offer, and that’s connecting the world’s professionals with opportunities to improve through education.”

Along with this change, a new app was introduced that will impact the way students use LinkedIn and, in turn, the way universities focus their digital marketing strategies.

The new LinkedIn Students App is extremely appealing and easy to use. Students just log in with their LinkedIn credentials, and the app pulls in relevant information, like their majors and graduation years. Right away, the app starts making recommendations in a card format for users to tap into.

These cards include:

• Role cards (career ideas)
• Recommended reading cards (articles of interest)
• Company cards (companies that might be a good fit and have hired alumni from a student’s college)
• People cards (alumni from a student’s school with shared skills and majors)
• Job cards (current and specific job openings)

Finally, there’s the ‘extra-credit’ cards, where articles appear from relevant companies and universities. Sponsored posts are a great way for universities to offer valuable and relevant content to LinkedIn users, and they’re more native to the platform than text ads.

As students and young professionals turn toward this app and away from desktop and mobile sites, universities will want to utilize sponsored updates, as this will be the only way to appear in the app. Though general buzz suggests text ads will eventually be included on these cards, stay ahead of the curve and take advantage of sponsored posts.

Focus your sponsored posts on:

• Notable alumni
• Exciting program updates
• Student success stories
• Financial aid options
• Upcoming events
• Recent awards or recognition

Right now, university pages are not able to post sponsored updates – the school must also have a company page. It has been discussed, but not announced, that LinkedIn may be merging these two pages in 2016 so universities wouldn’t need to manage separate pages. This would be a huge win for marketers, as it would increase the ease of pushing out content, not to mention the wide range of analytics that company pages offer.

Make the most of your university page:

• Add alumni and request that they provide testimonials.
• Create posts about upcoming events where students can connect with alumni or faculty.
• Use showcase pages to highlight individual programs.
• Post content with open-ended questions to encourage engagement.

Connelly agrees and recommends that universities engage with students by providing meaningful information in the native feed through organic and paid sponsored content.

Need help with your digital advertising efforts on LinkedIn? Let us know how we can help!