Forrester Groundswell Submission

The Challenge

As the world’s largest technology company, Hewlett-Packard serves millions of customers all around the world, each with unique needs and expectations of high quality, personal experiences. To deliver on these expectations, HP must create, build and sustain a dialogue with customers to better understand their needs as they evolve.
It didn’t take long to settle on LinkedIn as the perfect venue. Not only were people already discussing the topics HP wanted to participate in, but the platform was also evolving at a rapid pace, becoming a lead destination to engage with the enterprise audience:

• 87% of LinkedIn users trust the site as a source of information affecting decision makers.
• 49% find LinkedIn to be a good source for word-of-mouth information on brand experience

HP decided to go all in, and became one of the first brands to participate in company pages, and ultimately became the first to reach 1 million followers. The result is a program that allows HP the opportunity to reach nearly 70% of LinkedIn’s entire user base – including CXOs, IT managers and other business decision makers – with targeted content and engagement programs, a dream for any marketer.

The Plan

HP had two initial objectives:

• Build emotional connections with followers on LinkedIn.
• Acquire new brand advocates.

“ First, we listened and we watched. We saw what customers were talking about in other communities. We dipped our toe into the pool and put content out there to see how this community would react to it. ” Natalie Malaszenko
HP's vice president of Digital Marketing

HP began by taking advantage of a new LinkedIn “Company Pages” offering, which allowed HP to develop a robust brand presence on the platform.

The plan was to:

1. Increase engagement with new and existing followers through highly targeted, quality content
2. Align content with HP’s overall marketing and communications program
3. Significantly increase follower base through paid and organic media

Content Targeting

In the past, the team found it difficult to target specific audiences with relevant content through social media. With an audience and product offering as diverse as HP’s, sending the wrong (or unwanted) content to the wrong people would, at best, cause an annoyance and, at worse, could lose current or potential customers. Using LinkedIn’s targeting ability, however, and relying on a robust internal development process, HP ensured that its content addressed the needs of specific audiences, and then precisely targeted it to ensure that each piece would be delivered to the people most likely to appreciate it.

Executive Visibility

To increase HP’s visibility and add value to the LinkedIn audience, CEO Meg Whitman participated in LinkedIn's "Influencers" series, posting a series of columns written by executives exclusively for LinkedIn members.

Events & Marketing Initiatives Support

HP leveraged its growing LinkedIn follower base to bring its events online (e.g., “Discover”) and to engage followers around key campaigns (e.g., “Business Accelerated”):


For HP Discover, for instance, HP used LinkedIn to drive users to the event, as well as to provide a virtual event experience for those who could not attend in person. A variety of multimedia content, including some in real time, was made available to users. While engagement was the primary goal, HP also saw a 5% increase in new followers due to Discover-specific discussions and engagement activity.

For other events, HP has used LinkedIn to drive attendance from users who live in the relevant geographic area.
HP used LinkedIn to great effect in the Business Accelerated campaign, which supports the HP OfficeJet Pro X. HP engaged business development managers and IT decision makers on LinkedIn in daily discussions around the topic of how to move faster in business. Prizes were awarded during the campaign, including a grand prize trip to the Indianapolis 500. The quality of the conversations exceeded expectations as business professionals shared relevant expertise on everything from the latest technologies and trends, to accelerating tax day preparation, in addition to positive commentary on Officejet Pro X and other HP products. The program achieved some spectacular results:

• There was a 48% increase in traffic to the HP site that hosted the program
• Business Accelerated participants spent on average 53% more time on the site than the average visitor
• Repeat participants returned on average five times to engage in Business Accelerated’s daily topic discussion
• Businesses boasted about why they deserved their own world record, and HP promoted and boated about its own World’s fastest desktop printer on 1M + Follower base

Additionally, HP partnered with LinkedIn to create pioneering interactive ad units that helped HP become LinkedIn’s first “Most Followed” brand in October 2012. Using the targeted LinkedIn Follow Ads, HP increased their company page following by 300,000 followers in a two-month period.

The Results

On February 25, 2013 at 2:53pm Eastern, HP became the first company to hit 1,000,000 followers on LinkedIn.

HP’s LinkedIn program has increased knowledge of the brand and its key messages – including the desired perception of the company as a provider of revenue-generating solutions beyond just hardware. The program has significantly increased HP’s unaided brand awareness, consideration, and likelihood to recommend. HP’s followers are also advocates. HP followers are 1.5 times more likely to consider and 2.5 times more likely to recommend HP than non-HP followers. HP has actually seen a 15% higher engagement rate with CXO vs. non-CXO followers. Additionally, nearly 20% of the users HP reaches virally through LinkedIn are business decision makers. All in all, a terrific return on investment in social media.