LinkedIn elevates Wire Program with new name and offerings

LinkedIn is expanding its BrandLink offering (previously known as its Wire Program) to make it easier for advertisers to align their editorial content with top global creators and trusted publishers.

The announcement:

LinkedIn is doubling down on its investment in video, and today, the platform has announced the expansion of the Wire Program – now called BrandLink – to allow advertisers to align with editorial content from trusted publishers and, now, some of the world’s top creator voices in the US and UK, including:

• Steven Bartlett, entrepreneur, investor, speaker, author and host of the second biggest interview podcast in the world, The Diary Of A CEO
• Bernard Marr, best-selling author and futurist
• Rebecca Minkoff, founder & chief creative officer of Rebecca Minkoff and co-founder of Female Founder
• Allie K. Miller, #1 most followed voice in AI business (2M), Fortune 500 AI and Startup Advisor
• Candace Nelson, founder of Sprinkles and Pizzana
• Guy Raz, creator/host of How I Built This and CEO of Built-It Productions
• Gary Vaynerchuk, creator, chairman of VaynerX and CEO of VaynerMedia
• Shelley Zalis, founder and CEO of The Female Quotient

B2B marketers are facing intensifying pressure to provide campaign impact, and new LinkedIn research finds that 91% of them believe that video helps to accelerate advertising ROI.

But ROI is not simply about video – it’s about delivering ads against contextually relevant content. Coupling this with video, which 62% of B2B marketers believe is the most effective in reaching and influencing members of the buyer group, helps increase brand recall.

With this expansion, brands can choose from a collection of Shows by LinkedIn that include exclusive video content from creators and publishers on topics that matter to LinkedIn’s more than 1 billion members. At launch, the initial set of Shows will focus on the CEO playbook, AI and innovation, starting and scaling a business, female entrepreneurship, and small business stories. With each show, a brand will have the opportunity to run their in-stream ads ahead of the creator content on LinkedIn.

Matthew Derella, vice president, LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, said: “With the expansion of BrandLink, we want to deliver relevant and credible content on topics that our members care about, and make it easier for brands to reach audiences that matter most to them adjacent to content that our members trust.

“Video creation on LinkedIn is growing at twice the rate of other original post formats, and 91% of B2B marketers say that video accelerates advertising ROI, so we’re doubling down on video to build a unique ad offering that includes some of the most influential voices in the industry. The expanded BrandLink offering will include exclusive Shows by LinkedIn, alongside select creators, to help both brands and creators grow their businesses.”

Gary Vaynerchuk, creator, chairman of VaynerX and CEO of VaynerMedia, said: “We are entering one of the most interesting evolutions of influencer marketing—the extreme rise of the B2B influencer. The organic social dialogue on LinkedIn has been nothing short of revolutionary. With the rise of video on LinkedIn, I’m excited to be included in BrandLink.”

Since launch, publishers that are part of the BrandLink pilot have found success with the ad format, and in-stream video ads against publisher content have seen, on-average, a 130% higher video completion rate and a 23% higher view rate when compared to standard video ads.

As part of the expansion, LinkedIn is also onboarding more publishers around the world—including ADWEEK, Condé Nast, Der Spiegel, Dynamo, Entrepreneur Media, Fast Company, Front Office Sports, Inc. Magazine, Morning Brew, Penske Media Corporation, The Washington Post, USA TODAY, and WaitWhat—and offering multilingual content to enable brands to strategically reach and engage the audience that matters to them.

BrandLink is available on mobile and desktop and supports a growing list of global publishers who produce region-specific content. Global advertisers can target a location, such as Australia, as well as the preferred language setting on member profiles, aligned with LinkedIn’s current targeting capabilities.

Source: LinkedIn

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topics Allie K. Miller Bernard Marr BrandLink Candace Nelson Gary Vaynerchuk Guy Raz LinkedIn Matthew Derella Rebecca Minkoff Shelley Zalis Steven Bartlett Wire Program

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