On the most important Holiday in the United States, LinkedIn launched what its Global Content Marketing Manager for the Marketing Solutions Group, Jason Miller, would most certainly call "Big Rock" content. It's essentially one of the most thorough, well-organized resource hubs for Veterans transitioning from active duty service to professional life in the civilian world.
It really caught my attention because, for the day, LinkedIn changed its standard logo in the upper-left hand corner of its site. It had quite the military look to it so I decided to check it out. As a Veteran myself, I couldn't help but be awestruck at the value of the content that was laid before me. LinkedIn put together a resource that has the potential to help tens of thousands of men and women who served in the military and it looked great.
LinkedIn Honors Veterans
The very first thing a visitor is presented with is a video that serves as a thank you to Veterans and an introduction to the mission of the new resource hub. It does an excellent job of empathizing with the employment challenges Veterans face every day. It showed that LinkedIn gets it.
Veteran Mentor Network
It then went on to encourage visitors to join its military community established to mentor soon-to-be or current civilians. With nearly 60,000 members, its potential for networking, mentoring and career advice is great. LinkedIn also offered its premium service free for one year to any Veteran. This further elevates the potential for successful networking and mentoring.
An Outlet to Say Thank You
It's likely that the vast majority of users in the US who visited the resource hub on Veterans Day were not Veterans. For those folks, LinkedIn provided a way to say thanks using a simple "Share Your Support" button. Users who clicked it could share the below message.
Latest Jobs for Veterans
LinkedIn also provides a one-stop-shopping experience for Veteran job-seekers right there in the hub. This is especially convenient for users who are new to the platform. Brands that hire Veterans and are featured here stand to gain not only great new employees, but really positive press, too.
A User Experience to Make Veterans Comfortable
One of the biggest challenges Veterans face when reentering civilian life is fear of the unknown. They're used to having their whole lives planned out for them by the Chain of Command. The last thing a Veteran wants to see is a super busy website that's difficult to navigate. Military and Veteran Administration websites are notorious for this. LinkedIn has the cleanest and most usable website that features robust Veterans' resources on the Internet today.
The resource hub features all of the content new Veteran users would need to learn how to use and excel in LinkedIn. It features tips, how-to's, stories, articles, cheat sheets, webinars and testimonials.
On Veterans Day I certainly got my fair share of thank you's and I appreciated them all. However, the team over at LinkedIn that put this resource hub together should certainly get thank you's, too. Content marketing can be more than leads, conversions and traffic. It can change people's lives for the better. I salute you Linkedin. Thank you for serving Veterans.