Microsoft Tops LinkedIn’s List of Top 10 Global Brands

Microsoft leads content marketing on LinkedIn, coming in first once again on the platform’s list of top 10 global brands.

Last year, Microsoft dominated the tech sector on LinkedIn’s inaugural list of the 10 most influential global brands. This year, the tech giant further improved its content marketing performance, beating many major publishers like Forbes and Harvard Business Review, as well as companies like Google and IBM.

Microsoft’s dominance shows that content marketing is no longer publishers’ speciality, according to Valter Sciarrillo, head of the projects team within marketing solutions at LinkedIn.

“Great content isn’t just the domain of media companies anymore,” Sciarrillo explains. “Companies that make a deep investment in understanding their target audiences and developing stories with them in mind can produce a steady stream of engaging content that also serves their business objectives.”

While IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Salesforce maintain their presence on the list, Google is catching up in content marketing, as well. The company ranks seventh this year; the search giant wasn’t even on the list last year.

Calculating a brand’s Content Marketing Score, LinkedIn spent six months analyzing company page updates, employee shares, Sponsored Updates, activities in Groups and Influence, and employee posts. If brands want to beef up their content marketing on LinkedIn, they should leverage employee-generated content, according to the CMO Council.

“We see some brands like Dell effectively mobilizing their employees to drive content,” Sciarrillo says. “Social media guardrails need to be put in place, but when employee advocacy is done right, it can humanize your brand and even drive lead generation.”

The 10 most influential brands in terms of content marketing on Linkedin are:

1. Microsoft
2. Forbes
3. Harvard Business Review
4. IBM
5. Inc. Magazine
6. Hewlett-Packard
7. Google
8. Salesforce
9. Domo, Inc.
10. EY

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