LinkedIn Unveils Virtual Events and Poll Features

LinkedIn recently rolled out virtual events and poll features which will provide brands with new engagement opportunities.

LinkedIn preconized that it accelerated its product roadmap to allow businesses to connect with their online communities.

Over the last few months, the B2B communities have been shaken due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Several in-person meetings and conferences have been canceled. To help businesses overcome these challenges and better connect with their audience groups on the platform, LinkedIn has rolled out virtual events and poll features (called “Create a Poll”).

In an announcement made on LinkedIn Marketing Blog on the 12th of May 2020, it was promulgated that LinkedIn recognized the importance of equipping marketers with the tools required to bring their professional community together.

That was the reason for the LinkedIn professionals deciding to accelerate their product development roadmap to establish a strong alignment between LinkedIn Events and LinkedIn Live. The new features will be upgraded throughout the present quarter and will be subsequently released with improvements and will be tested simultaneously for several features aimed to help the B2B community host virtual events, share important updates and rally them a distance. The best part is all these functionalities are gonna be extremely free for the B2B marketers. LinkedIn Virtual Events All new virtual events feature by LinkedIn is a combination of its previously released LinkedIn Live and LinkedIn Events features. The B2B marketers will now be able to stream a virtual event for the followers of their company page or their Event attendees. Also, the LinkedIn page admins would now be able to use some third-party broadcasting tools to stream virtual events on websites such as Reachstream, Wirecast, Streamyard, and Socialive. (LinkedIn claims that it will be adding more third-party broadcasting apps in the coming months.) Whether the marketers may be looking to build awareness with a new product or service or strength relationships with their target audience groups, LinkedIn virtual event solutions will help marketers bring their professional community together. With the help of LinkedIn Live, many organizations will be able to engage with their target audience groups and expand their reach. On the other hand, the LinkedIn Events feature allows marketers to equip their target audience groups to seamlessly create and join professional events. Owing to the current pandemic situation, the business world has moved from in-person conferences to virtual events, and realizing this opportunity, LinkedIn Events and LinkedIn Live have been launched as new virtual events solutions that enable marketers to stay connected with their communities and meet their customers wherever they are. John Mellor, Chief Strategy Officer at Domo describes the importance of the LinkedIn Virtual Events feature, as follows:

“The typical Domopalooza event draws a couple thousand customers…We opened up the virtual event and saw 9,000 pre-registrations and more than 12,000 people watching the event, which was four of five times what we would have had in person.”

The new feature offers the following advantages:

a. Marketers Can Host Events Safely and In a Trusted Environment

With the help of the LinkedIn Live feature, marketers can choose whether they prefer to live stream to their Page followers or Event attendees. Thus, marketers can meet their audiences where they are. Also, as mentioned earlier, several third-party broadcasting partners can be leveraged by admins and more options would soon be available for the marketers to select from.

b. Helps Attract the Audience Groups Relevant to your Business

With the help of the new feature, marketers can easily share their events with their page followers, and can even send direct invitations to their first-degree profile connections with ease.

c. Marketers can Drive Engagement For Their Event

Marketers can build buzz around their events by posting an update on their company page or event feed and by making relevant recommendations for the attendees. According to LinkedIn, LinkedIn Live is witnessing 23x more comments per post and 6x reactions per post as compared to the native videos. Thus, LinkedIn Live is a great way to build real-time engagement with your followers and connections.

d. Gain maximum Traction of Your Virtual Events

Marketers can keep the conversation going with their target audience groups with the help of a video tab, even after the virtual event is over. This can be done by the means of a Video tab which is a dedicated hub for the organic video content on a page. This tab can be addressed by all the members of a business community. With the growing proliferation of virtual events, the Video tab helps marketers extend the self-life of their digital video content. LinkedIn Polls The all-new ‘Create a Poll’ feature of LinkedIn can be accessed in the post composer window. This equips LinkedIn members to gather feedback from all-across the platform. With the help of this feature, LinkedIn members will not only be able to gather feedback from all-across the LinkedIn platform but also will be able to ask questions by listing up to four responses as a choice. The poll can be kept active from 24 hours up to 2 weeks. A poll can be shared with the connections of a LinkedIn member or with anyone across the LinkedIn network. However, the poll feature can be specifically beneficial for marketers if they target it to the selected groups across LinkedIn. According to LinkedIn, targeting specific groups with the poll will help marketers gain more relevant insights. For example, a marketing professional who belongs to a group of marketers on LinkedIn can question the group members about their favorite email marketing tool. The performance of the polls and the responses received can be monitored in real-time. The person who posted the poll can watch who has voted and how they have voted. The owner of the poll can also directly message a person who has voted from within the poll. LinkedIn’s poll feature is available for desktop and mobile devices and is being gradually unveiled since its initial announcement on May 12. What Makes These New Features Even More Interesting In the list of the new feature updates for the present quarter, LinkedIn has included additional ways for the marketers to communicate with and contribute to their communities. The new custom announcement will equip marketers to post critical and timely updates to the top of their respective pages. Once this is done, the business community of the particular marketer can stay abreast of important activities and announcements that follow, including important hiring decisions, shifting operational priorities, or other important measures announced in the interest of the workforce. LinkedIn has also added a “Volunteer” call-to-action button option to allow the non-profit organizations to question members if they can volunteer for a cause. However, this button is only available for the well-known non-profit organizations and school Pages across LinkedIn, as a measure to ensure that the member community on LinkedIn is protected. About LinkedIn LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking website. Founded in the year 2003, the platform propagated the mission #InItTogether and has been connecting the professionals across the globe to make them more productive and successful. LinkedIn has 675+ million members across the globe. The executives of all the Fortune 500 companies are on LinkedIn. The company is headquartered in Sunnyvale and specializes in online professional networking, job postings, Company and People Search, Address Book, Advertising, Professional Identify, Company Search, and Group Collaboration. The company has a wide range of revenue sources from Talent Solutions, Marketing Solutions, and Premium Subscriptions and thus, constitutes a diversified business model.