For IBM LinkedIn is a crucial social media platform, both as a content channel and a discussion forum for IBM employees to actively engage with customers.

1. Analysis & Outlook
Social Media Marketing Strategy@ IBM LinkedIn Strategy
LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional networking site also one of the major social media
platforms that companies across the world use to engage with customers, industry experts and
others and also utilize LinkedIn to share brand marketing, company values, and product updates,
with potential partners, investors, and customers. Initially most of the companies utilized
LinkedIn for recruiting purposes like posting job opportunities, identifying talent and verifying
the backgrounds. In a study carried by data analytics firm, Simply Measured, IBM has emerged
as the top brand with maximum – 6,052 – number of engagements. IBM shares relevant industry
articles to engage computing professionals.
IBM LinkedIn page has close to 1.5 million followers and millions of interactions every year.
The company uses LinkedIn to let audience know happenings within the organization, and it also
posts articles from around the Web on IBM-relevant topics. Topics like Big Data, Cloud
Computing, Research, Innovation, latest product launches, etc. are all covered on the LinkedIn
page.Followers comment on the updates and posts, like them and even start their own discussion
threads that leads to the millions of interactions that makes IBM the most active company on
LinkedIn.IBM promotes its services under the products and services tab, where various products
like IBM Training and IBM Software are recommended by LinkedIn users.
For IBM LinkedIn is a crucial social media platform, both as a content channel and a discussion
forum for IBM employees to actively engage with customers. “We are finding LinkedIn to be a
promising content platform as opposed to just a recruiting platform,” said Ethan McCarty is the
Director, Enterprise Social Strategy and Programs for IBM. “Usage of the site is trending a lot
more toward professional content consumption – it’s not videos of cats. The fact is, people
behave differently on different networks,” says McCarty. “On Twitter we try to structure content
around an impactful headline. In [the Facebook] context, people want to talk about less technical
topics and more societal impact kind of work. When it comes to LinkedIn, we tend to get deeper
into the professional details. If you’re going into a community that’s all about smarter water
management, we feel pretty confident about putting more technical water management content in
there.”” he says in an interview with Lauren McKay, eMarketer.
LinkedIn Groups play a crucial role in pushing IBM content towards an important and informed
expert audience with an advantage of pushing IBM employees to the forefront in engaging with
customers and generating opportunities directly. “What’s nice and distinctive about LinkedIn is
we can really emphasize interactions with IBM experts and the content they create,” says
McCarty. LinkedIn is a perfect ecosystem for IBM as it includes discussion groups,
recommendation ads, thousands of job postings, updates, comments, shares and other forms of
social display advertising that is generating significant return on investment for IBM and it also
meets the fundamentals of IBM social media strategy of reach, engagement, amplification and
conversion.
Rajesh Prabhakar
Analyst Bio @http://socialmediacases.blogspot.com/