LinkedIn is one of the most popular social media platforms out there, so it comes as no surprise that brands want to leverage it fully. And in these times when video content is a holy grail for customer engagement and conversion, LinkedIn is not left behind.
Coming as a perfect platform to run webinars and virtual events, LinkedIn has emerged as one of the most powerful marketing tools. Brands can now engage their target audience with eye-catching video content to build a strong reputation – so running webinars there is just as natural as it is on YouTube or any other platform.
What is webinar LinkedIn, why should you get into it, and how do you go about setting it up? Let’s find out.
What is LinkedIn Webinar
A Linked In webinar is a live video event that businesses use to engage their target group in real time. During this interactive and virtual event, companies and individuals can share their products and services, their ideas, and other relevant information with their audience.
The Benefits of Webinar on LinkedIn
#1 More diversity for LinkedIn Feed
In an era of images and short videos, hosting a webinar on LinkedIn can help you stand out. Instead of relying on visuals, it gives you the opportunity to spark conversations and engage with your target audience in real time. Since video content is easy on the eye, it can be used to capture more attention on LinkedIn Feed of your potential clients.
#2 Strengthening your brand awareness
LinkedIn webinars come with another advantage – they can give organizations a lot of insights into their audience's preferences. Running successful interactive conversations and engaging in meaningful dialogues allows brands can gain more trust from their audience and nurture any existing knowledge they have on them. Unlock the power of webinars with a strong LinkedIn profile.
#3 Increased networking quality and volume
Whenever you feel like you are running out of ideas or content that would ignite conversations, webinars come to save the day!
Creating a webinar, especially if it includes a Q&A session or other interactive formats, can help you naturally drive more conversations and build better, long lasting connections. Via webinars, you can connect with new professionals in relevant circles, make introductions and relationships, and establish yourself as an authority in various industries. This is far better than cold outreach like cold calling or messaging because you can build relationships at scale.
#4 Making the most of social media reach
How would you go about getting access to the full extent of your target audience's network? Wouldn't it be just glorious? With webinars, you can do just that (and more, obviously). Every person who attends your event is a potential connection and business opportunity. Every lead can become a deal if you push the conversation further - so there's really no downside to, at least, trying with webinars.
Good Practices for running a webinar on LinkedIn
#1 Set up LinkedIn events for your webinar
For many audiences, the first impression of your webinar will be on LinkedIn events. That's exactly why you need to provide complete information about the event, including its purpose, date, time and topics – without it, you won't be able to attract any registrants as your events will never pop in search for them.
LinkedIn events give you a plethora of opportunities to conceptualize your insights, but also to structure all information. This native LinkedIn feature allows you to set up an event page directly on the platform, and invite potential attendees and prospects, add speakers, and post updates. It can also serve as a platform where everyone in your team can find info about the upcoming event from.
The list of people attending is available publicly, so you can actually create some type of FOMO among your potential customers – if they see many people attending, they surely won't want to miss out.
#2 Use paid LinkedIn ads to promote your webinar
How to get even more leads for your webinar on LinkedIn? Try the power of LinkedIn Ads. They are a great way to reach the right people and promote your event. You can create ads specifically targeted at people who fit your target profile, and use them to drive registrations for your webinar.
Ads on LinkedIn allow you to showcase visuals, specs and details about your webinar in an engaging context. The more you can showcase, the better!
#3 Create a webinar landing page
Among many marketing solutions you can use for driving attendance, landing pages (created outside of Linkedin) can be the most effective if we're talking about driving connections from the right audience.
Landing pages are usually more detailed than LinkedIn event pages, but, for webinars, they can also be used to add extra information that won't fit into a LinkedIn event page, such as the speaker's bio and session agenda.
Here's also where you can put info on your previous webinars, more details about your business, or even some tips and resources for professionals attending your webinars.
There is also one more advantage to it – you can put a special registration form on your website and generate email leads that you can use for further outreach. Your sales team will thank you for that!
#4 Use email outreach to spread a word (or two) about your webinars
Speaking of outreach, using a list that you previously built elsewhere can help you MASSIVELY in promoting your event.
People who have already attended your previous meetings and webinars, or those who ever collaborated with your company should get the notification of your webinar in their inbox. Of course, if you have all the right permissions from them.
Do it once – and you can quickly find out that following this short method will be much more effective than reaching out blindly to people from outside your network.
Then, you can create a couple of email sequences to introduce your (next) event and make sure everybody knows the details. To seal the deal, you can also add some extra incentives to get more people in - like bonuses or discounts for early bird attendees who register first. If you plan on running more webinars, you can mention that in your emails as well, creating FOMO from its very roots.
#5 Share content related to the webinar on social media platforms and other related forums
Even a single post on social media can have a huge impact and generate more registrations for your webinar.
And even though you run it on LinkedIn, you should use various social media platforms, such as to show off the content related to your event.
Below, you'll find 6 quick practices you can try out:
- Schedule quotes from the speakers.
- Publish interesting visuals that illustrate the main topic of your talk.
- Cross-post the same content on all your social media accounts.
- Tag other industry experts in the field in related posts.
- Share updates with people who already registered for the event.
- Post special offers and converting LinkedIn ads exclusively for your community familiar with your market.
You might also want to give a spin to other marketing activities, such as blogging or publishing on platforms like Medium, Quora, and Reddit (if your niche is related to them). Join relevant Facebook groups (and LinkedIn communities) and publish there too! For example, if your niche is life coaching, you need to target communities where your audience will be. This will make it easy to reach your ideal audience.
Taking advantage of forums related to your topic might bring additional registrations because people who are already involved in discussions there will likely be interested in discovering new insights. For them, it's just a quick switch of where they would be active, and your webinars might serve as a new, perfect channel for their involvement.
#6 Use LinkedIn influencers
On LinkedIn, you'll find plenty of influencers who can help you spread the word about your event – and you should use that, especially if your reach is not huge yet.
Reach out to them and invite them to join your webinar - they might be interested in participating (as an attendee, a co-host, or s speaker – or maybe even a sponsor?) or just sharing your content with their followers if they can resonate with it.
LinkedIn is full of microinfluencers and nanoinfluencers who, on a global scale, don't have a huge audience following. But... it's not about that. They have an engaged audience in your sector and that's where you'll find people interested in joining your webinars.
These influencers can help you reach even more of the right group, without breaking the bank in the process and nurturing them on your own.
#6 Follow up after your webinar
What is the number one mistake most marketers make? They don't do any follow up after their webinars.
So how do they want to keep their attendees engaged and interested in future events, if they don't ask questions in the first place?
The key is to ask for feedback and optimize your webinars' performance based on customer data and their interest sets – not a guesswork to search for areas to improve.
Here's what you can do:
- Send out emails with polls and surveys, asking for their comments on what was covered in the webinar.
- Search for key topics that were discussed and ask your audience for their comments on them.
- Send out a list of topics you want to cover next and ask for their opinion on the matter.
- Attach a thank you note with some additional resources that might help them further explore the topic.
All of these tactics MIGHT sound like standard practices but they are actually extremely effective not only in getting extra attention from your audience, but also in letting them know that their needs and preferences really matter for you webinars.
Running webinars on LinkedIn with LiveWebinar
If you want to ensure success with your webinar, you should use LiveWebinar as your go-to platform.
LiveWebinar is designed with one goal in mind here: to make running a successful webinar on LinkedIn easier and more efficient than ever before.
And since LiveWebinar goes above and beyond the standard format of regular video, you can give your performance a real boost and stand out of the crowd with a personalized experience.
Here's how LiveWebinar can help you run and promote your webinars on LinkedIn.
#1 Participant tracking
Don't let your next webinar or meeting be a hit-or-miss!
With the Participant Tracking feature of LiveWebinar, you can make sure that your event reaches the right people and keeps them engaged.
Integrate LinkedIn Insight Tag (and/or use your own custom tracking code on top of it, too) and enjoy the breeze to gather valuable insights about who is actually engaging with your content - giving you the tools to identify where attention lies and maximize performance.
#2 Streaming to LinkedIn
How would you feel if you could stream your webinar directly on LinkedIn? With LiveWebinar, it's possible! Using our advanced Custom API, you can take control of the platform experience and stream your content directly onto LinkedIn's massive user base - for maximum reach and engagement.
This gives you the full ability to monitor data in real-time to ensure that your streaming is running smoothly from start to finish.
You shouldn't neglect it, as with this simple and intuitive method, you can reach an even bigger audience. And since streaming directly on LinkedIn is automated and hassle-free, it won't take too much time away from other activities either.
#3 Zapier integrations
LiveWebinar integrates with Zapier, giving you the power to automate your webinar processes faster and easier than ever before, without having to do it all manually.
Selected triggers & actions:
- when a recording of your webinar is post-processed and ready for download. Based on this trigger you can download it to you FTP server or upload to Vimeo/YouTube.
- when a new sub-account is created under your account.
- when sub-account is deleted.
- when a webinar is cancelled / deleted.
- when someone fills in the Lead form before entering your webinars.
- when new registrant registers to your webinars.
- when a webinars details changes.
- creates a new registrant to your webinar – will also trigger "New Registrant" event.
- creates new Webinar based on your input – triggers "Webinar Create" event.
Among many options, two of them will be extremely beneficial for boosting your LinkedIn promotion:
- Creates a new update for a Company Page on LinkedIn
- Posts a status update sharing some content on LinkedIn
#4 Interactive options
LinkedIn Live format leaves a lot to be desired – especially if you want to engage and interact with your audience, it's pretty limited.
On contrary, LiveWebinar delivers features like Q&A, polls, and surveys - so that you can provide an interactive experience without any extra software to download, or extra effort. Top it up with a whiteboard, Website Presenter, or a moderated chat feature and you get an incredibly powerful tool to make your webinars as engaging as they could be.
Make LinkedIn webinars great again
LinkedIn is not a newbie out there, and video content is not something that was discovered just yesterday. That's why you HAVE TO stand out. And here's where the opportunities provided by LiveWebinar make running a successful event online on LinkedIn easier and more efficient than ever before. So, what are you waiting for? Go set up your first webinar and conquer LinkedIn!