5 Benefits of LinkedIn Geo-Targeting

Five hundred years ago, the prevailing theory was that the earth was flat. Then came Christopher Columbus and his famous “discovery” of the New World. Since then, the scientific community has ceased debating the shape of the Earth, which we now accept as being round.

Until recently.

With the advent of the digital age, globalization, and super-fast distribution, the world has become extremely interconnected. Today, a company located in China can do business in the United States – with the same ease as it can in China.

Companies increasingly have potential and existing customers located in different locations worldwide. In the current business environment, a company must craft its social media content according to each specific geographic region that it’s targeting. Following this logic, LinkedIn offers the ability to geo-target any status update posted on a Company Page, letting companies maximize their global presence on the platform.

So, what are the benefits of geo-targeting for LinkedIn Company Page posts?

Divide and Conquer

The more target markets a company must reach, the more challenging it becomes to fully maximize the leads generated from each market. To this extent, the best strategy is to separate company divisions or departments, and have each one focus on a different geographic location. LinkedIn’s geo-targeting functionality enables each division to market to a unique target market, and ensures that a company gets the most out of its social media marketing.

Measuring Success Rates

“Trust, but verify.” These are words that every business should live by. When a company has a massive and diverse social following, it needs to be able to measure the effectiveness of its social media activities in each location.

By having unique messages that go out to each target market, a large company can easily see the effectiveness of its marketing campaigns in specific locations. If one market is seeing a significantly lower level of lead generation than the rest, the company will be able to more easily address, and solve, this issue.

Division of Labor

While virtual communication is a wonderful tool for marketing teams that are spread out geographically, there is no replacement for face-to-face collaboration. Geo-targeting allows global companies keep their local marketing teams as independent units, and have each one focus its efforts more successfully.

Language

The world is flat, but that doesn’t mean we can all communicate on the same level. Language is – and will most likely remain – a huge barrier to global marketing efforts. People tend to relate much more to posts that appear in their own native tongue, and that’s where geo-targeting can be extremely useful. It lets marketers worldwide target specific geographic regions using the local language – and create social content for LinkedIn that resonates with users in each location on a personal level.

Location Specific Promotion

Clearly, the promotion of a corporate event that’s taking place in Turkey will most likely be irrelevant to a LinkedIn user in Argentina. With geo-targeting, marketers can make sure the promotional content they post on their Company Page is targeted to the correct geographic audience, thereby maximizing the ability to reach the most relevant users.

via Business 2 Community http://ift.tt/MtMoKu