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LinkedIn: Marketeers to think of themselves as 'main stream advertisers' to progress on social

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By Natalie Mortimer, N/A

April 8, 2015 | 3 min read

Marketeers need to think of themselves as "main stream advertisers" if they are to succeed on social media and aid its maturation, LinkedIn's head of UK sales Ashraf Kamel has said.

Ashraf Kamel head of UK sales LinkedIn

Speaking today (5 April) at the IAB Social Media Grows Up conference, Kamel urged brands to rethink the role they have to play on social media to assist the medium to reach maturity, and advised they steer away from trying to create the "human narrative" that is unfolding.

"There is this human narrative that is just unfolding itself on social media today and its representing who we are. As marketeers we need to understand that our role is to not create the human narrative but our role is to respect it and be additive to it," he said. "Social media isn’t going to grow up until it realises that our role as marketers is not actually social media but it is advertising on social media."

"For us to progress we have to start thinking of ourselves as main stream advertisers. We need to be at the front of every media campaign… and actually take charge of it," he continued.

This year content creation in the B2B sector is expected to grow by 70 per cent year on year, yet Kamel said that one in two marketeers classify themselves as ineffective at content marketing - something he warned is contributing to "content pollution" on social.

"You’re just spewing content that nobody wants to breathe," he said. "The unfortunate reality is that half of what is going to happen this year is exactly that. We have the privilege as professionals to be in the news feeds of millions of millions of people, and these news feeds are very sensitive so we have a responsibility to make sure that what we put in them is incredibly relevant to them."

To acheive relevancy Kamel advised that brands and marketeers spend their time in the middle of two marketing actions. The first is the capability to market based on intentions, for example if somebody is a business traveller their intent is business travel, combined with marketing based on first party data or identity such as a LinkedIn page.

"If B2B marketeers spend their time in the middle of people’s intentions and their identity, their content will be incredibly relevant."

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