Why should you use LinkedIn events for your business and personal brand?

In this article, I dive into the benefits of using LinkedIn Events for you as a business, and the link with building personal brands. Is that actually realistic? Discover it for yourself and please give your opinion!

Digital first became real in a blink of an eye.

During the pandemic, my role at the company changed in the first day of our lockdown. And that just after my first 2,5 months of working there. Before that, I was creating content for upcoming events, and helping my colleagues face-to-face with their social media approach. Just one of the things that changed within a blink of an eye! From that point on, all of this needed to be done from home. And also ‘paid advertising’ became very dominant.

Building professional brands

When I started at the company, I had a mission (presented) to get my colleagues more on social media (Linkedin/ Twitter), building their personal brand. Many of them became (more) active within a few months during the crisis. You could say that things accelerated. And I no longer had to promote the usefulness and usage of social media. Instead, a huge demand started, mostly at sales, marketing and recruitment. Of course, it was a victory, but for a sad reason.?

On a trip to Verdansk

Although most of my colleagues became a whole lot more social-savvy, I (still) saw a lot of corporate content being shared on Linkedin. There was an advocacy program that was implemented already.?

The rare content that had a personal touch, was almost gone. Quite logical, because nobody was at the office, with clients or at events anymore. There even was a drop in Linkedin usage of about 35% at one point. No things were happening that people thought was worth sharing.?

Fun fact is that other social media platforms showed a growth of 35% at the same time. Twitch, Instagram and TikTok saw huge growth. Now that we were working and living at home, we looked for entertainment in other ways. Creativity burst from our illuminated squares and many people went on weekend trips to Verdansk.

Something we could laugh and cry about (and cats)

Video of Laura on TikTok

But it took not too long before people started sharing their home office and situation. Cats, dogs, babies, six screen home control room workspaces, kitchen tables and laundry racks flooded the Linkedin feeds. We felt a bond with each other, being in it together: “the new normal”. Something we could laugh and cry about, and personal, so very attractive to see and respond to. It gained value in a different way, but at least it was a renewed start of using Linkedin in an authentic manner. Maybe there was an internal benefit of it too. I saw colleagues popping up in my timeline who I had never seen before.?

Business could almost only been done digitally

Pardon this long introduction, but getting to the point of people building their online personal and professional brands: it is not something that is done within a day. And when all the home offices, Teams and Zoom screenshots were shared, the personal touch mostly disappeared and the branded content got the upper hand again. That is not a great way to build relations via social media. And that is the point: business could almost only be done digitally, during that time. And social media, particularly Linkedin, for that, plays a very important role.

Confusing side question: will the metaverse be the next step in the direction to the digital economy??

The breakthrough of webinars

(B2B service) organizations realized that. But was this the final breakthrough of doing business digital first? Let’s say it was a big trigger. We saw a growing amount of events, talkshows and online trainings popping up on our timelines. And within this trend, a new stream app, Clubhouse, was introduced. This voice-only functionality will also be released soon on Linkedin.?

So online events are here to stay! But what does all of this have to do with the importance and usefulness of using LinkedIn Events? And why is this interesting in building online personal brands?

LinkedIn events are relation builders

I think LinkedIn events lead to a great collaboration between your organization and the building of online business relationships via personal brands. It is a way for your colleagues to share corporate content with a personal touch. It gives them the possibility to personally invite (individuals in) their network really quickly.?

Of course an events need to be:?

• relevant (theme/topic),
• attractive (speakers),
• and look great (design-wise).

A personal invite can be very appealing and trustworthy, and convince someone to hit the event attent/register button.?

So LinkedIn events can help your colleagues to become personal with their professional brand, in an easy way. Of course your colleague ideally adds a personal note to the invite. And it would be a huge plus if the subject of the event matches their expertise to make it all logical too.?

Strengthen the personal brand

It would even be a bigger plus if your colleague is part of the event line-up. In that case, he/she can be added to the LinkedIn event as a speaker. For them even an easier way to help promote the event and connect it to their personal abilities (brand). And all of this is done on LInkedin, without the commercial environment of a company website.

Colleagues, whether or not part of the event program, can even start creating and publishing content around the event topic(s) and link to it (vlogs, blogs, newsletters). This could be done in collaboration with marketing, but also on their own initiative. This is an easy way to connect their expertise to a trending subject, underline the benefit of the event, and promote their own expertise. LinkedIn Events and personal brands can lift each other in a reliable way. This is the real deal, when it comes to employee advocacy and social selling.

More benefits of LinkedIn Events

Other reasons why I like using LinkedIn Events:

• Linkedin notifies attendees when the event is about to start
• You can invite your full network (post)
• You can add a link at the event page to your registration page or live stream (traffic)
• It provides an extra button in the menu of your company page (soft conversion stimulation)
• It shows thought leadership
• You can tag (external/ internal) speakers (so they can confirm and promote the event too)
• You are able to see who potentially will attend the event (and approach these people personaly, but be subtle)
• You can use the LinkedIn Event form and download the CSV (or connect it with your CRM with Zapier).
• You can connect it with live event functionality of preferred suppliers of Linkedin (easy hosting)
• It’s free (I am Dutch…)

Okay, I understand you want to see numbers too

I have to be discreet, so I can’t give you details about the event itself. And of course, some events are small with a very specific (small) target group, and other events are big and appeal to a wider audience. In my experience with two bigger events, they gained about 106% and 73% more clicks to the event page on our website via the LinkedIn Event page with 900+ to 1000+ attendees.?

I am not only cheering.?

There are also a few downsides to LinkedIn Events. LinkedIn (maybe) solved a few of them, because they recently simplified the functionality. For example, they removed the timeline (where you could add posts to the event) within the events.?

A few other things you have to be aware of:?

• Your own colleagues can be in the list of attendees too (so be aware that you filter)
• It’s very easy for people to click the attend button, forget about it, and eventually not join the event.
• When you host the registration via your own website, you need to do some comparison between attendees of the LinkedIn Event and the actual registration list via your website. If people did not register via your website, you have to manually approach them to tell them to still do the registration. This by the way also could be a conversation starter, so it’s not just annoying.
• You are limited to the functionality of Linkedin in terms of design.

One trick I often implemented for online events, with registration via the website, was that I changed the link to the website to the link of the live event (that included a form too). In this way, the attendees that didn’t register via de website, still had the possibility to quickly join the event, without a registration process (and confirmation email) via the website.

What is your opinion / experience with LinkedIn Events?

I hope this article helped you with considering the use of Linkedin Events (for personal brands). I am very curious about your experience, and your pros and cons!