« More Insights
We’re continuing our momentum of delivering crisp digital marketing news with the More Than Marketing podcast. This week, I react to three new topics. Listen to the podcast episode below to learn more details about my reaction and tips.
LinkedIn reveals more about how its news feed algorithm ranks posts
LinkedIn’s algorithm uses artificial intelligence to find niche, occupation-specific conversations. Their team has seen more engagement around niche topics (e.g., #performancemanagement) than broad (#management) topics, so they’ll reward you more if you use niche hashtags.
Since the top 1% of users get most of the reach and engagement on the platform, LinkedIn wants to create a more evenly distributed network. The average user now has a better chance of getting their post shared, so it’s no longer a power struggle. Their first tests with this update do appear promising, so it’s worth keeping an eye on this change..
In any case, the key is to stay active, post engaging content, comment on others’ posts, and encourage conversations.
People see LinkedIn only as a lead generation platform, but it’s also a great recruiting platform. They have specific ads for recruiting that are worth testing out.
Facebook Ads updates
Speaking of social media, have you heard of the new Facebook advertising developments?
There’s now a new Page Transparency section on every Facebook page. This feature lets you see the ads that a page runs and who manages the page. Scroll down on any Facebook page, and you’ll see it on the bottom right. Under Page Transparency, click See More.
You can also set up automated rules for Facebook ads to make the most of your budget. For example, you can increase bids or shut down a campaign if it doesn’t get a set amount of conversions within a time period.
But be careful if you use Facebook ads for recruiting. You can get in trouble if you run recruiting ads and target by gender or age because of anti-discrimination laws.
Unsplash dominates the stock image industry
If you’re going to be advertising, you need stock images.
Unsplash’s mission is to make images open and usable to the world. The Unsplash library has grown to more than 1.5 million photos and has been used in more than one billion posts online.
The library gets used more than its competitors combined, including Getty Images, Shutterstock, and Adobe.
Transcript:
[00:00:00.05]
– Hey, welcome to More Than Marketing.
[00:00:02.04]
I’m your host Arsham Mirshah.
[00:00:04.01]
Today we’re talking LinkedIn, Facebook
[00:00:06.09]
and you guessed it, stock photography.
[00:00:09.07]
Let’s get into it.
[00:00:11.00]
This week we’re talking LinkedIn,
[00:00:13.01]
some Facebook and Unsplash,
[00:00:15.06]
a free repository for stock images
[00:00:18.05]
should you need it, everyone does.
[00:00:20.08]
First and foremost, LinkedIn.
[00:00:22.07]
LinkedIn kind of unveiled
kinda under their hood [00:00:27.07] of how their newsfeed algorithm works, [00:00:30.07] and we got some tips from
one of their top execs, [00:00:34.03] and I wanna share those with you [00:00:35.04] because LinkedIn is a huge
source of B2B communication [00:00:40.04] and leads and information. [00:00:45.01] So, first and foremost,
they’re saying obviously, [00:00:49.00] LinkedIn’s using AI to identify niche [00:00:51.09] and occupation-specific conversations. [00:00:54.04] Obviously they’re using AI, right? [00:00:56.04] Owned by Microsoft, LinkedIn is, [00:00:58.05] and it makes sense that they’re
using some kind of algorithm [00:01:01.06] to put most relevant newsfeed
items in your newsfeed. [00:01:07.04] But how can you get to the top [00:01:10.05] of your prospect’s newsfeeds, [00:01:12.09] or your community’s newsfeeds, right? [00:01:14.06] If that’s something you’re tryin’ to do, [00:01:16.03] how can you do that? [00:01:17.02] Well, there’s some tips out there [00:01:19.09] and one of those is to use hashtags. [00:01:23.04] Not specifically though. [00:01:25.03] You don’t wanna just
use a million hashtags. [00:01:29.01] What you want to do is
use three to five hashtags [00:01:32.02] and specifically, you wanna be specific. [00:01:35.02] So, instead of something like #management, [00:01:38.04] you might wanna say something like, [00:01:40.00] performance management,
#performancemanagement, [00:01:42.08] ’cause that’s going to
be way more specific. [00:01:45.04] And if someone who you
wanna to get in front of [00:01:50.00] is maybe in the same industry [00:01:51.06] and maybe you share some followers [00:01:53.04] and that person follows that hashtag, [00:01:55.07] it’s gonna get a major boost [00:01:57.03] and more likely to show
up in their newsfeed. [00:02:01.00] LinkedIn also said that
they recently kinda tweaked [00:02:05.01] their algorithm a little bit [00:02:06.03] to give people who don’t
have as many followers [00:02:10.08] and aren’t maybe in the 1%
of the most engaged users, [00:02:15.00] a little bit more kinda
juice to start showing up [00:02:19.04] in their newsfeed as well. [00:02:21.03] So, that’s good. [00:02:22.05] My recommendation is
if you want to show up, [00:02:25.00] you gotta be active, you
gotta be on the platform, [00:02:27.03] you gotta be posting
content, first and foremost. [00:02:31.01] Engaging content, interesting content, [00:02:32.09] multimedia like videos, [00:02:35.05] photos. [00:02:36.09] You gotta be commenting
on other people’s stuff, [00:02:39.03] and just engaging. [00:02:40.01] You gotta be active on the
platform and adding value. [00:02:43.00] You do that, you’re more
likely to show up as well. [00:02:48.00] The last thing I wanna
say about LinkedIn is [00:02:50.07] people look at it as a lead gen platform, [00:02:54.03] and it is undoubtedly. [00:02:55.05] That’s where business
goes to do business, sure. [00:02:59.01] But it’s also a great
recruiting platform, right? [00:03:02.09] LinkedIn has specific ads for recruiting. [00:03:05.05] You can put, and I’m sure you’ve seen it, [00:03:07.08] if you go to your LinkedIn newsfeed, [00:03:09.00] you probably seen this where
it’ll show your picture, [00:03:12.03] and then [00:03:14.09] the picture of a company
that is advertising for you [00:03:19.00] to come look at their jobs. [00:03:20.07] Don’t just think of
LinkedIn as like lead gen. [00:03:23.00] it is lead gen and it’s also lead gen [00:03:25.03] for your recruiting pipeline as well. [00:03:28.02] On that note, so is Facebook. [00:03:30.02] I wanna give you a couple
tips about Facebook. [00:03:34.04] Facebook rolled out relatively recently [00:03:36.08] a page transparency feature. [00:03:40.09] So, you can go onto any Facebook page [00:03:45.05] and then go to the
lower right of that page [00:03:49.01] and there’s a section
called page transparency. [00:03:52.03] If you click then, see more, [00:03:55.00] you can see who manages the page, [00:03:59.03] the history, when it was made, [00:04:00.07] and locations from the managers [00:04:03.03] but most importantly, the coolest part, [00:04:05.03] is you can see ads from that page. [00:04:08.07] So if you wanna spy on your competitors [00:04:11.02] and see what ads they’re running, [00:04:13.04] you can go right to their Facebook page, [00:04:15.09] hit see more on page transparency [00:04:19.07] and then go to ad library. [00:04:21.07] You’ll see the ads that
they’re currently running, [00:04:23.07] you can look at what they’re doing. [00:04:26.02] You can’t see who they’re targeting [00:04:27.06] and how they’re targeting and all that, [00:04:29.02] but you can at least get a
sense for what platforms, [00:04:34.05] are they on Instagram or just on Facebook. [00:04:36.09] What are they saying, what
do their ads look like. [00:04:39.00] That’s pretty cool. [00:04:41.03] Just like I was saying LinkedIn
is great for recruiting [00:04:45.08] as well as lead gen, the
same goes for Facebook. [00:04:48.05] I think too often people look at Facebook [00:04:50.01] as a lead gen platform and again, it is, [00:04:53.00] but you can also recruit
your next employee [00:04:58.02] on Facebook as well. [00:05:02.05] The targeting on Facebook is just so rich [00:05:05.05] that you can find those pockets of people [00:05:07.03] who like your competitors [00:05:09.09] or work at your competitors [00:05:12.06] or have ever worked there [00:05:13.07] or like tools or publications
that are in your industry, [00:05:19.04] and you can target those people
with relevant advertising [00:05:22.01] to say come apply to our jobs. [00:05:24.05] One quick tip though, [00:05:27.05] you can target by age on
Facebook and other things, [00:05:34.00] such as gender, but when
you’re putting up a job ad, [00:05:38.08] you can’t target by those. [00:05:40.08] Because it’s illegal first and foremost [00:05:42.08] and you can get in a lot
of trouble for doing that. [00:05:44.04] So, definitely be careful. [00:05:45.07] Leave the gender to all and
the age range to all as well [00:05:49.05] if you’re gonna be doing
job ads on Facebook. [00:05:52.04] And then one more thing about Facebook is, [00:05:55.01] it’s a very complex advertising network. [00:05:59.01] I don’t know more or
less complex than Google. [00:06:02.08] Those two are the two biggest, [00:06:04.06] but there’s automated rules in Facebook. [00:06:07.02] So you can tell Facebook, [00:06:09.01] hey if I’ve spent $200 [00:06:10.09] and haven’t gotten a
conversion, shut it down. [00:06:13.09] Or if I’ve spent $1,000 [00:06:16.07] and the cost per is less than 10 bucks [00:06:20.09] or whatever your CPA is, [00:06:23.05] you can tell it to increase your bids [00:06:25.08] and your budget so you’re getting more. [00:06:27.08] So these automated
rules can help you kinda [00:06:31.03] manage your campaign [00:06:32.03] while you’re not paying attention to it. [00:06:35.00] The speed at which
consumers are on Facebook, [00:06:40.05] and digesting this
content, is moving quickly. [00:06:43.06] So it’s good to have some
automated rules in place. [00:06:47.06] And if you’re gonna be
running Facebook ads, [00:06:49.05] if you’re gonna be running LinkedIn ads, [00:06:51.01] you’re gonna need some stock photography. [00:06:53.03] Where can you get stock photography? [00:06:54.07] Well, Adobe has a ton, Getty Images [00:06:57.09] or iStock photo has a ton, [00:07:01.03] but those require subscription. [00:07:02.08] You gotta pay per use or
pay for a subscription [00:07:06.00] to download them. [00:07:07.04] Or, you can go to Unsplash.com. [00:07:10.02] Unsplash is a free stock photography site, [00:07:14.09] I think they have more
than two million images [00:07:17.07] if I’m reading this? [00:07:19.05] Yeah 1.5 million photos, [00:07:21.07] and that’s being added
to every day obviously, [00:07:26.00] and they are free. [00:07:27.06] You can search for different topics, [00:07:30.01] you can download them, [00:07:31.07] doesn’t cost you anything. [00:07:33.03] You can even download
them without signing up [00:07:35.00] as a user on their site, it’s amazing. [00:07:38.00] They’re pretty cool. [00:07:38.09] They actually ask you to
give kudos to the people, [00:07:42.09] when you download something [00:07:43.08] it will come up with a
little thing that says, [00:07:45.04] hey do you want to tweet about this [00:07:46.09] or share it on Facebook [00:07:49.04] to give the photographer some credit? [00:07:52.00] So I thought that was pretty nice, [00:07:53.02] but they are, it’s pretty interesting. [00:07:56.07] Now I haven’t dug deep to see
if their content is better [00:08:01.09] than iStock or Adobe, but I
kind of imagine it wouldn’t be, [00:08:06.01] no offense Unsplash, [00:08:07.02] but you get what you pay
for kind of thing, right? [00:08:10.08] But hey, I’m not complaining. [00:08:12.04] Free stock, if you find
what you need in there, [00:08:16.08] the more the merrier, sounds good to me. [00:08:19.02] That’s it for this week’s
episode of More than Marketing. [00:08:21.03] Subscribe, like, send this to a friend, [00:08:25.04] comment, reach out to me, [00:08:27.00] let me know what you wanna hear about [00:08:28.06] and let me know if this
is helpful, or not. [00:08:30.09] I’d love to hear it, thanks for your time. [00:08:33.01] Have a great day.
kinda under their hood [00:00:27.07] of how their newsfeed algorithm works, [00:00:30.07] and we got some tips from
one of their top execs, [00:00:34.03] and I wanna share those with you [00:00:35.04] because LinkedIn is a huge
source of B2B communication [00:00:40.04] and leads and information. [00:00:45.01] So, first and foremost,
they’re saying obviously, [00:00:49.00] LinkedIn’s using AI to identify niche [00:00:51.09] and occupation-specific conversations. [00:00:54.04] Obviously they’re using AI, right? [00:00:56.04] Owned by Microsoft, LinkedIn is, [00:00:58.05] and it makes sense that they’re
using some kind of algorithm [00:01:01.06] to put most relevant newsfeed
items in your newsfeed. [00:01:07.04] But how can you get to the top [00:01:10.05] of your prospect’s newsfeeds, [00:01:12.09] or your community’s newsfeeds, right? [00:01:14.06] If that’s something you’re tryin’ to do, [00:01:16.03] how can you do that? [00:01:17.02] Well, there’s some tips out there [00:01:19.09] and one of those is to use hashtags. [00:01:23.04] Not specifically though. [00:01:25.03] You don’t wanna just
use a million hashtags. [00:01:29.01] What you want to do is
use three to five hashtags [00:01:32.02] and specifically, you wanna be specific. [00:01:35.02] So, instead of something like #management, [00:01:38.04] you might wanna say something like, [00:01:40.00] performance management,
#performancemanagement, [00:01:42.08] ’cause that’s going to
be way more specific. [00:01:45.04] And if someone who you
wanna to get in front of [00:01:50.00] is maybe in the same industry [00:01:51.06] and maybe you share some followers [00:01:53.04] and that person follows that hashtag, [00:01:55.07] it’s gonna get a major boost [00:01:57.03] and more likely to show
up in their newsfeed. [00:02:01.00] LinkedIn also said that
they recently kinda tweaked [00:02:05.01] their algorithm a little bit [00:02:06.03] to give people who don’t
have as many followers [00:02:10.08] and aren’t maybe in the 1%
of the most engaged users, [00:02:15.00] a little bit more kinda
juice to start showing up [00:02:19.04] in their newsfeed as well. [00:02:21.03] So, that’s good. [00:02:22.05] My recommendation is
if you want to show up, [00:02:25.00] you gotta be active, you
gotta be on the platform, [00:02:27.03] you gotta be posting
content, first and foremost. [00:02:31.01] Engaging content, interesting content, [00:02:32.09] multimedia like videos, [00:02:35.05] photos. [00:02:36.09] You gotta be commenting
on other people’s stuff, [00:02:39.03] and just engaging. [00:02:40.01] You gotta be active on the
platform and adding value. [00:02:43.00] You do that, you’re more
likely to show up as well. [00:02:48.00] The last thing I wanna
say about LinkedIn is [00:02:50.07] people look at it as a lead gen platform, [00:02:54.03] and it is undoubtedly. [00:02:55.05] That’s where business
goes to do business, sure. [00:02:59.01] But it’s also a great
recruiting platform, right? [00:03:02.09] LinkedIn has specific ads for recruiting. [00:03:05.05] You can put, and I’m sure you’ve seen it, [00:03:07.08] if you go to your LinkedIn newsfeed, [00:03:09.00] you probably seen this where
it’ll show your picture, [00:03:12.03] and then [00:03:14.09] the picture of a company
that is advertising for you [00:03:19.00] to come look at their jobs. [00:03:20.07] Don’t just think of
LinkedIn as like lead gen. [00:03:23.00] it is lead gen and it’s also lead gen [00:03:25.03] for your recruiting pipeline as well. [00:03:28.02] On that note, so is Facebook. [00:03:30.02] I wanna give you a couple
tips about Facebook. [00:03:34.04] Facebook rolled out relatively recently [00:03:36.08] a page transparency feature. [00:03:40.09] So, you can go onto any Facebook page [00:03:45.05] and then go to the
lower right of that page [00:03:49.01] and there’s a section
called page transparency. [00:03:52.03] If you click then, see more, [00:03:55.00] you can see who manages the page, [00:03:59.03] the history, when it was made, [00:04:00.07] and locations from the managers [00:04:03.03] but most importantly, the coolest part, [00:04:05.03] is you can see ads from that page. [00:04:08.07] So if you wanna spy on your competitors [00:04:11.02] and see what ads they’re running, [00:04:13.04] you can go right to their Facebook page, [00:04:15.09] hit see more on page transparency [00:04:19.07] and then go to ad library. [00:04:21.07] You’ll see the ads that
they’re currently running, [00:04:23.07] you can look at what they’re doing. [00:04:26.02] You can’t see who they’re targeting [00:04:27.06] and how they’re targeting and all that, [00:04:29.02] but you can at least get a
sense for what platforms, [00:04:34.05] are they on Instagram or just on Facebook. [00:04:36.09] What are they saying, what
do their ads look like. [00:04:39.00] That’s pretty cool. [00:04:41.03] Just like I was saying LinkedIn
is great for recruiting [00:04:45.08] as well as lead gen, the
same goes for Facebook. [00:04:48.05] I think too often people look at Facebook [00:04:50.01] as a lead gen platform and again, it is, [00:04:53.00] but you can also recruit
your next employee [00:04:58.02] on Facebook as well. [00:05:02.05] The targeting on Facebook is just so rich [00:05:05.05] that you can find those pockets of people [00:05:07.03] who like your competitors [00:05:09.09] or work at your competitors [00:05:12.06] or have ever worked there [00:05:13.07] or like tools or publications
that are in your industry, [00:05:19.04] and you can target those people
with relevant advertising [00:05:22.01] to say come apply to our jobs. [00:05:24.05] One quick tip though, [00:05:27.05] you can target by age on
Facebook and other things, [00:05:34.00] such as gender, but when
you’re putting up a job ad, [00:05:38.08] you can’t target by those. [00:05:40.08] Because it’s illegal first and foremost [00:05:42.08] and you can get in a lot
of trouble for doing that. [00:05:44.04] So, definitely be careful. [00:05:45.07] Leave the gender to all and
the age range to all as well [00:05:49.05] if you’re gonna be doing
job ads on Facebook. [00:05:52.04] And then one more thing about Facebook is, [00:05:55.01] it’s a very complex advertising network. [00:05:59.01] I don’t know more or
less complex than Google. [00:06:02.08] Those two are the two biggest, [00:06:04.06] but there’s automated rules in Facebook. [00:06:07.02] So you can tell Facebook, [00:06:09.01] hey if I’ve spent $200 [00:06:10.09] and haven’t gotten a
conversion, shut it down. [00:06:13.09] Or if I’ve spent $1,000 [00:06:16.07] and the cost per is less than 10 bucks [00:06:20.09] or whatever your CPA is, [00:06:23.05] you can tell it to increase your bids [00:06:25.08] and your budget so you’re getting more. [00:06:27.08] So these automated
rules can help you kinda [00:06:31.03] manage your campaign [00:06:32.03] while you’re not paying attention to it. [00:06:35.00] The speed at which
consumers are on Facebook, [00:06:40.05] and digesting this
content, is moving quickly. [00:06:43.06] So it’s good to have some
automated rules in place. [00:06:47.06] And if you’re gonna be
running Facebook ads, [00:06:49.05] if you’re gonna be running LinkedIn ads, [00:06:51.01] you’re gonna need some stock photography. [00:06:53.03] Where can you get stock photography? [00:06:54.07] Well, Adobe has a ton, Getty Images [00:06:57.09] or iStock photo has a ton, [00:07:01.03] but those require subscription. [00:07:02.08] You gotta pay per use or
pay for a subscription [00:07:06.00] to download them. [00:07:07.04] Or, you can go to Unsplash.com. [00:07:10.02] Unsplash is a free stock photography site, [00:07:14.09] I think they have more
than two million images [00:07:17.07] if I’m reading this? [00:07:19.05] Yeah 1.5 million photos, [00:07:21.07] and that’s being added
to every day obviously, [00:07:26.00] and they are free. [00:07:27.06] You can search for different topics, [00:07:30.01] you can download them, [00:07:31.07] doesn’t cost you anything. [00:07:33.03] You can even download
them without signing up [00:07:35.00] as a user on their site, it’s amazing. [00:07:38.00] They’re pretty cool. [00:07:38.09] They actually ask you to
give kudos to the people, [00:07:42.09] when you download something [00:07:43.08] it will come up with a
little thing that says, [00:07:45.04] hey do you want to tweet about this [00:07:46.09] or share it on Facebook [00:07:49.04] to give the photographer some credit? [00:07:52.00] So I thought that was pretty nice, [00:07:53.02] but they are, it’s pretty interesting. [00:07:56.07] Now I haven’t dug deep to see
if their content is better [00:08:01.09] than iStock or Adobe, but I
kind of imagine it wouldn’t be, [00:08:06.01] no offense Unsplash, [00:08:07.02] but you get what you pay
for kind of thing, right? [00:08:10.08] But hey, I’m not complaining. [00:08:12.04] Free stock, if you find
what you need in there, [00:08:16.08] the more the merrier, sounds good to me. [00:08:19.02] That’s it for this week’s
episode of More than Marketing. [00:08:21.03] Subscribe, like, send this to a friend, [00:08:25.04] comment, reach out to me, [00:08:27.00] let me know what you wanna hear about [00:08:28.06] and let me know if this
is helpful, or not. [00:08:30.09] I’d love to hear it, thanks for your time. [00:08:33.01] Have a great day.
Featuring:
Arsham MirshahCEO & Co-Founder
Podcasts Info:
8:42
Categories:
MarketingNews + Business
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