The Economist renews focus on LinkedIn

Lucinda Southern of Digiday writes about how The Economist is renewing its focus on gaining more readers through LinkedIn after not receiving any traction via Pinterest.

Southern writes, “The Economist’s approach to social media is, according to the publisher, to promote quality over quantity. It’s taken that mission to LinkedIn, which it uses for brand awareness rather than to drive traffic. By tweaking its approach to publish a broader spectrum of content, the Economist saw its LinkedIn follower count grow from half a million last year to 2.4 million, and it continues to grow at a rate of 25,000 followers a week, according to Law.

“When it first started actively posting to LinkedIn in September 2015, the team focused on posting only business and finance content in line with assumptions about its readers on the platform. By June 2016, the growth rate started to plateau. The publisher realized readers on LinkedIn, professionals who are trying to get an edge in their career, have a variety of interests.

“‘Limiting content on LinkedIn to business and finance also limited the followers we could attract,’ wrote Edmund Henry, social media writer at The Economist. To meet these needs, it broadened the article topics to include art, culture and entertainment, areas covered in the Economist on other platforms. It started to include more articles like this about a machine that blends wine, or this on how not to annoy a flight attendant, and started posting content, audio, visual, charts and articles, on the hour throughout the day.”

Read more here.