Social Ads – Advertise on LinkedIn and Xing

Social Media is booming

An opinion survey by the market research institute Civey showed that 43.6 percent rarely or never read daily newspapers. Readers much prefer to switch to apps with push notifications. Times have changed. In the professional environment, too, you no longer read trade journals. Experts inform themselves today in so-called groups, which you can join on Xing or LinkedIn. The size of the memberships speaks for itself: Xing has over 14 million users, LinkedIn even 562 million, of which over 11 million are in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. A range that is immense. That’s why TÜV Rheinland has set up various regional and showcase pages on both networks, which have already been followed by many members. But that’s not enough for us yet, of course we want to grow even further! We now have more than 30,000 followers on the TÜV Rheinland Group LinkedIn profile! Every day we post new articles to keep our followers up to date and encourage them to interact with us.

Increase range – despite algorithm

But what about the range? If more than 30,000 followers follow us on the LinkedIn profile, will each of them see our news postings?

No, unfortunately not. The social networks “cut” the reach by using algorithms. This means that only those who interact with us frequently may get our post displayed. Xing and Co. won’t tell us how this works exactly. And why? Because Xing and LinkedIn also want to earn money and offer the possibility of advertising here. Thus one can buy the range in the relevant target group. That’s what we call: Social Advertising.

Social Ads

In digital marketing, social advertising refers to the strategy of spreading advertising messages and communication via purchased advertising space in social networks. Almost all social media platforms offer this possibility. Be it Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or even Xing and LinkedIn! Of course, each network has different advertising formats. You have to take a close look and think about who you want to reach and what you want to get out of it at the end of the day. In other words, the conversion can be: downloading a white paper, subscribing to a newsletter or requesting a quote. Here’s an example: LinkedIn and Xing can advertise already posted content, such as the announcement of a whitepaper. This message is then called “sponsored content”. This sponsored contribution can then be displayed to a target group that you have specified in advance.

The budget issue

We are repeatedly asked how much budget should be planned. This question cannot be answered without further ado, since it always depends on what is to be achieved with the advertisement, how large the range is and whether one sets up Cost-per-Click or Cost-per-Impression (costs per 1000 impressions). LinkedIn also sets a minimum daily budget of 25 euros. There are no minimum requirements for the competitor Xing. You can work with daily budgets or runtime budgets. Otherwise LinkedIn and Xing, like most platforms, are based on Max-CPC and automated CPCs. In addition, a start and end date can of course be specified. Once the target group has been defined, the campaign managers of the respective platform display a forecast for the planned social ads. This gives an overview of the expenses to be expected.

Conclusion

Social media advertising for B2B is a real alternative to Google AdWords. The high CPC initially acts as a deterrent, but can be justified by the high-quality target group definition.

In any case, you can increase the reach of your news and campaigns many times over, and ultimately our community can continue to grow. Speaking of growing! Please have a look at our channels and follow us! We are happy about likes, comments and of course new followers.