5 Key Metrics to Track When Raising Awareness of a Company’s CEO on LinkedIn
By Amanda Plavner, Digital Marketing Manager, Markitects, Inc.
Note: for most of the items below, you need login access to your CEO’s LinkedIn account.
1. CONNECTIONS AND FOLLOWERS:
Connections are by default also Followers. It’s important to note how many Connections/Followers your CEO has at the start of your campaign and then on an ongoing basis while your campaign runs.
From a metrics standpoint, the number of Connections you have is only visible when logged into the CEO’s LinkedIn account; other users cannot see the exact number of Connections he or she has. The Follower metric is visible from anyone’s account that is connected to the CEO. There is not a historical record of this from a Personal LinkedIn page; instead, you should manually track this metric weekly.
If the CEO becomes a “LinkedIn Influencer,” people may start following the CEO’s page without connecting with them. However, Connections should still increase.
Important questions to ask: Is the CEO’s LinkedIn audience growing? Are we reaching more people? Are more people asking to connect with the CEO because of this campaign?
2. PROFILE VIEWERS:
Once logged into the CEO’s profile, LinkedIn provides a chart detailing how many people viewed their LinkedIn each week. It’s important to note how many more viewers the CEO is getting during your campaigns versus when they are not posting regularly.
With LinkedIn Premium, the CEO can see everyone who has viewed their profile—not just the last few. While the names and titles of the people are not exactly a metric, they are still helpful information in determining who you are reaching on LinkedIn. If someone keeps looking at your CEO’s page, maybe it’s time for your sales team to call them!
Important questions to ask: Are more people looking at the CEO’s profile as a result of our posts/campaigns? Who are the people looking at the CEO’s profile—current customers, prospects, coworkers, external salespeople? Are the viewers relevant?
3. POST IMPRESSIONS:
From the CEO’s account you can see how many Impressions each post received. Keep track of how many Impressions each post gets to determine what type of content or format is the best post for your audience. Compare each post, but also compare your Impressions over a greater amount of time (for example, month 1 vs. month 2).
From a personal page, it’s also important to look at where the Impressions are coming from (what companies, what types of job titles, and from where location-wise).
Important questions to ask: Which posts are reaching more people? Why are these posts reaching more people? Are you reaching people that we want to reach—at the correct jobs, job levels, and locations? Are most of the Impressions internal employees, current customers, prospects, or others?
4. POST SHARES:
Similar to Post Impressions above, from the CEO’s account you can also see how many people Shared each post. Since a share creates an entirely new post, you will NOT be able to see all Impression data for the shared posts (those belong to the person who’s account it is), but you CAN track how many Likes the Shares received. This gives some indication about how the post is getting amplified.
Important questions to ask: Who is sharing the CEO’s posts? Are the posts spreading beyond the Shares?
5. POST LIKES:
Likes should be tracked for each post as well as compared over a longer period of time. Similar to viewers, you can see specific names of people who Liked the post, which allows you to check your audience and evaluate: A) if you are reaching appropriate people and B) if people like the topics you are posting.
Important questions to ask: Which posts are receiving more engagement? What type of posts resonate more with my audience? Is my audience appropriate?
Monitoring your marketing efforts is vital to all campaigns, especially when your CEO or other executives are involved. While LinkedIn provides a comprehensive suite of metrics for Company pages, often times Personal page metrics get overlooked. The above metrics will help you track any type of thought leadership or awareness campaigns that you promote via a Personal page. Make sure to track the right metrics, that are important to your company and campaign, and don’t be afraid of those metrics that you need to configure manually.