What’s the Difference Between LinkedIn Live and LinkedIn Events — and How Can Nonprofits Use Them?
As your nonprofit works to attract new supporters and build stronger relationships with existing ones, hosting events can be a great way to earn people’s attention and drive awareness and donations. To help you make the most of this strategy, LinkedIn offers two features you can use to host, manage, and promote your upcoming events: LinkedIn Live and LinkedIn Events.
New to hosting nonprofit virtual events on LinkedIn? If you’re unsure about the difference between LinkedIn Live and LinkedIn Events, or why LinkedIn is the right platform to host your events, this blog post outlines everything you need to know to get started with these free features.
What are Linkedin Events?
The LinkedIn Events feature allows organizations and individuals to easily create landing pages on LinkedIn to promote their upcoming events. You can use this landing page to share details about your nonprofit’s event, collect registrations, and drive greater attendance through automatic reminders.
When you create a LinkedIn Events page, you can indicate whether the event will be online or in person. If you’re hosting an online event, you can either link to an external platform, such as Zoom or BlueJeans, or choose to stream directly on LinkedIn using LinkedIn Live.
What are LinkedIn Live events?
With LinkedIn Live, you can broadcast nonprofit virtual events from your organization’s LinkedIn Page — and engage in real-time conversations with your LinkedIn followers.
When you go live on LinkedIn, many of your Page’s followers will receive a notification, encouraging them to watch live. If you used LinkedIn Events to promote your virtual event in advance, people who registered will also receive reminder notifications. And your possible pool of attendees isn’t limited to your existing followers. Any LinkedIn member can discover a LinkedIn Live event and choose to watch — so encourage your followers and attendees to post about the event on LinkedIn to prompt their network to check it out.
Since broadcasting live allows you to respond to people’s comments in the moment and weave in other interactive elements, LinkedIn Live events tend to see strong engagement — averaging 7x more reactions and 24x more comments than native videos produced by the same broadcasters. Unless you choose to delete them, your LinkedIn Live events will also be automatically recorded and available to watch on your nonprofit’s LinkedIn Page, allowing supporters who missed the live stream to catch up later.
How can nonprofits host LinkedIn Live events?
Before your nonprofit can go live on LinkedIn, you need to make sure you’ve met certain eligibility requirements and have selected a third-party broadcasting tool. After taking these steps, try creating a LinkedIn Event and selecting LinkedIn Live as the event format. If this option does not show up, you may not be eligible at this time.
Drive awareness and engagement with LinkedIn virtual events
Whether you’re looking to inform your LinkedIn Page followers about your nonprofit’s upcoming in-person gala or are hosting a fireside chat with your CEO online, get your event noticed with LinkedIn Live and LinkedIn Events.
Want to get even more eyes on your nonprofit’s events? Consider advertising on LinkedIn. To learn more about the different kinds of ads available, as well as the dedicated support available to eligible nonprofits, contact our team.
