The top marketers in the country have been saying it for a while. Businesses are not using LinkedIn to its full capability, and they need to better capitalize on the platform’s potential in their marketing efforts.
Our own experience confirmed it. When Insight Marketing Group President Jennifer Thompson joined the Digital Agency Expo in New York City in September 2019, she was astonished at how often the world’s leading digital marketers mentioned LinkedIn.
“The topic that kept coming up time and time again was the use of LinkedIn and how marketers and businesses are not using LinkedIn enough in their marketing,” says Jennifer. “Those experts all agreed that the primary reason to use LinkedIn is that it is like Facebook was around 2012 when it was still the Wild West, and full of opportunity.”
About Us
Since 2006, Insight Marketing Group has been working side-by-side with medical specialty groups of all shapes and sizes. Our mission is to simplify the marketing process so that physicians and administrators can focus on what they do best: running their practices.
Everything we do is designed to grow medical practices and provide measurable, easy-to-understand results while protecting and enhancing online reputations.
The Challenge
LinkedIn is the world’s most extensive professional network, with more than 546 million users in more than 200 countries. It’s also one of the fastest-growing networks among small business owners and entrepreneurs.
LinkedIn is a game-changer for sourcing and acquiring the best talent out there, particularly when looking to recruit a new doctor in today’s competitive physician recruitment market. Beyond its HR value, when used effectively, LinkedIn acts as another channel to build one’s brand, be it personal or business-based. The platform can also help ramp up social media strategy and expand practice awareness among engaged patients, readers, and peers.
We wanted to prove LinkedIn’s marketing value to ourselves and our clients. But we needed a concrete way to show how to leverage LinkedIn’s untapped potential to boost both employee and patient engagement. And we also needed a method to share the results with our clients and community at large.
The Solution
To demonstrate LinkedIn’s value to our medical practice community, both from a marketing and an employee engagement standpoint, we decided to embark on an internal employee engagement LinkedIn contest.
The contest lasted 30 days, and participation was open, not obligatory, to all Insight Marketing Group employees. Employees were to post one video per day, every day for 30 days and could choose from specific categories, including:
- Tactics
- Strategy and planning
- Patient Experience/Customer service
- Employee engagement
- Leadership
- Case study
Videos were to be around one minute in length (plus or minus), and the Insight Marketing Group company page needed to be tagged in each post. It was up to each participant to track and report their results for each video on a master spreadsheet. The incentives for participating? A $400 bonus at the end of the month plus an extra $500 prize for the employee who had the best performing video post.
Results of the Contest
The contest sparked a flurry of visibility and engagement on LinkedIn, especially during the first week. All employees had spikes in profile views, shares, and comments. Moreover, within the first week, company post impressions increased by 688%.
The business page also benefited from a 7% increase in followers (up to 183 from 171) and maintained a 3.9% engagement rate throughout the contest. Views did decrease (in some cases by as much as 75%) as the month-long contest went on.
Across the board, content with faces (self-style videos) performed the best. Simple, actionable tips were the most popular content type. Posts that incited ideas and conversations tended to attract the most comments and perform the best. The Insight Marketing Group staff found that posts expressing gratitude or happiness also performed well.
The most successful (and winning) video had a big boost when a thought-leader with nearly 30,000 LinkedIn followers commented on the post. This immediately exposed the post to her audience, which garnered even more likes and views.
“When that thought-leader commented on my post, her followers got a notification to that effect,” says Danielle Owings, Director of Client Services & Operations. “It then greatly accelerated the views on my post.”
Free Healthcare Awareness 2024 Calendar
Nearly every month of the year has a health holiday or observance, and there are also a number of awareness months that your patients and staff would love to know about. You also don’t want to miss chances to celebrate with your practice’s followers.
Free Healthcare Awareness 2023 Calendar
Nearly every month of the year has a health holiday or observance, and there are also a number of awareness months that your patients and staff would love to know about. You also don’t want to miss chances to celebrate with your practice’s followers.
On the whole, our staff felt like they received more engagement and higher quality comments or dialogue on LinkedIn than on other social media channels, especially Facebook. “I feel like I got more engagement on LinkedIn than I ever do with social media and what’s on Facebook,” says Jennifer.
Insight Marketing Group Vice-President of Client Strategy, Corey Gehrold, echoed those sentiments. “Not only was the engagement there (on LinkedIn), but it was also a different kind of engagement. Rather than just an occasional “thumbs-up” or “like” that you get on Facebook or Instagram, when people commented, they didn’t just say, “Hey, cool video.” They said, “Oh, that’s a really interesting tip. How would you apply it to this?” Or, “What do you think about using that tool in this way?” And then, we were able to have that dialogue.”
Key Takeaways
For minimal dollars, the team at Insight Marketing Group was able to launch an internal LinkedIn contest that employees could participate in using nothing more than their iPhones. The contest boosted employee engagement and visibility for the company.
Perhaps more importantly, employees enhanced their connections within their own LinkedIn circles and even expanded their reach. And because the posts were all related to medical practice strategic planning and marketing, the company benefited as a result.
Many of our clients saw the posts and would mention them to us in passing or in meetings. Moreover, some of the videos will be repurposed and used for Evergreen content. We have accumulated valuable content and visibility that will pay huge dividends down the road.
