Cultivating a personal connection to your brand is invaluable, since people buy from people they trust. LinkedIn's Thought Leader Ads help you authentically communicate through a trusted voice to build brand equity and stay top of mind when your target audience is ready to buy.
Use Thought Leader Ads to build brand awareness and engagement by promoting organic posts from your company's leaders, employees, and champions. For example, you can establish your leadership as an industry authority by sharing professional perspectives on emerging trends, build community around your thought leaders by engaging audiences with penetrating insights, connect with potential candidates by highlighting company culture through an employee lens. Here's how to set up a Thought Leader Ad in three easy steps.
Step one: make sure you have the correct permissions. To create a Thought Leader Ad, you will need Super Admin, Content Admin, or Sponsored Content poster permissions for your accounts company page. You will also need Creative Manager access or higher on your Ad account.
Step two: create an ad set. In Campaign Manager, create a new classic ad set. Choose a campaign objective of Brand Awareness or Engagement and an ad format that matches the posts you want to sponsor. Your options include Single Image, Video, Event, and Article and Newsletter. Promoting a sponsored article supports the Lead generation objective as well.
Step three: create a new Thought Leader Ad. Create your ad by navigating to the Ads in this ad set page and selecting the Browse existing content button. In the Content Library, choose LinkedIn members to search for and select member posts that you'd like to sponsor. You can search posts from members who are employees of your company or are personally connected to your LinkedIn profile. Select the desired post from the member and click Request approval to send a sponsorship request to them. In the Request approval dialogue, click Send. The thought leader approval request will appear under the Notifications tab on the LinkedIn platform.
You will be able to track the status of your request under the Requests tab. Once approved, add the ad to your ad set and launch. The Partnerships tab in Campaign Manager provides an alternative method for browsing existing content. Here, you will have access to a continuous stream of organic LinkedIn member content relevant to your brand that you can request to use in your ad campaign. Once permission has been granted, select Create campaign to initiate the campaign creation flow. You can now tap into a wealth of relevant, ready-made content created by trusted partners to enhance your brand's credibility and success. Post a Thought Leader Ad today.