In this week’s Five on Friday, we’ll tell you more about LinkedIn’s new notifications tab and how it will help you streamline your use of the professional platform, Recurly’s Dan Burkhart shares subscription success secrets with PYMNTS, a study by Pulp Strategy reveals that Twitter is the top non-traditional B2B marketing channel, we offer 8 (out of 48) project management tips from the Successful Project Managers’ blog, and LinkedIn publishes five top subscription jobs from well-known companies including Pandora, Microsoft and Tableau Software.

Get Timely Updates with LinkedIn’s New Notifications Tab

If you are a regular LinkedIn user, you might have noticed the new Notifications tab on the menu bar, just to the left of your profile photo. On this tab, users will get timely, relevant (at least according to LinkedIn) updates on people in their network. MarTech Advisor highlights content in the Notifications tab in this July 13 article by Sushman Biswas.

• Daily Rundown: This notification provides users with a curated summary of top news of the day.
• Search Appearances: Users will receive weekly notifications on how many people found them via LinkedIn search along with the top companies those “searchers” work at. According to MarTech Advisor, the notification will help users better understand how their profile is being discovered, so they can make any needed adjustments to take advantage of potential opportunities.
• Customizable Notifications: Users now have some control over notifications they don’t want to receive in the future. They can also turn on notifications for specific posts. For example, users can now mute or unmute notifications. They can also unfollow users from who they do not want to receive updates. Users can even turn off notifications like birthdays if they don’t want to receive them. These selections can be changed at any time.

Learn more about notifications on MarTech Advisor, or how to manage notification updates on LinkedIn.

The Secrets to Subscription Success

In a recent article for PYMNTs, “The Secrets to Subscription Success,” Recurly co-founder and CEO Dan Burkhart offered a few nuggets of wisdom for achieving subscription success.

1. It’s no secret that recurring revenue is critical to the success of a subscription company, but sometimes you have to invest a lot to make that sale. After that, retaining new customers for the long-term will help you move beyond the break-even point toward profitability.
2. Burkhart told PYMNTS.com that it is important to continually reinvent yourself to maintain perceived value by your subscribers. At the same time, they want a consistently dependable product. He gives the example of Netflix and Spotify who continue to provide the same, quality content its subscribers depend on, but they are also regularly adding new content, even exclusive content to retain their customers.
3. Trust is a key component to subscription success. Customers need to know when you are going to charge them, what your terms and conditions are, etc. They don’t want to be misled or locked in.
4. Stand apart from the competition. As the subscription economy grows, subscribers have more choices then ever whether it is a streaming video on-demand service, a meal kit or a beauty box. You must be willing to be extraordinary and/or unique to stand above the competition.

Read more subscription secrets from Dan Burkhart in the original PYMNTS article here.

LinkedIn: Top Subscription Jobs

Looking for a job in the subscription world? Here’s a sampling of some of the top subscription jobs available on LinkedIn (as of July 26, 2017), including everything from a subscription analytics analyst to  product and marketing managers.

Senior Product Marketing Manager
TEEMA Group, New York, New York

Based in Manhattan, this company provides a popular subscription-based fitness app which is changing the way people work out and stay fit. This fueled-by-positivity company is looking for an individual contributor to be a Senior Marketing Manager to specialize in Retention Marketing & Email Marketing to help build customer loyalty and lessen churn. Read more on LinkedIn here.

Marketing Manager, RM Office Freemium
Microsoft, Redmond, WA

Engaging our OneDrive customers and driving upsell to paid subscription products is a key strategic initiative. This position will play a key role in driving real impact to the business. The ideal candidate will have passion in three areas: creating exceptional customer experiences, using data and analytics to inform programs and campaigns, and building and optimizing campaigns across multiple channels. We are looking for an individual with exceptional communication skills, a high drive for results in a rapidly evolving business and the ability to collaborate with engineering teams to build end-to-end, customer-centric communication experiences. This individual must be a self-starter and comfortable dealing with ambiguity. Read more on LinkedIn here.

Subscription Sales Representative
Columbia Books & Information Services, Washington, D.C. Metro Area

Columbia Books & Information Services, a growing provider of compliance information, training and in-depth data, has a fantastic opportunity for an ambitious and entrepreneurially-inclined Inside Sales / Renewal Sales professional who can contribute to several of our Thompson business units by selling and renewing our print and digital subscription compliance resources. You will work directly with our marketing teams to identify prospects, educate current and prospective buyers on the new products and services we offer, and renew current customers. Successful candidates will love engaging with people on the phone, thrive on beating their goals, and be creative in brainstorming new sources of leads with marketing. Read more on LinkedIn here.

Senior Software Engineer, Subscription Licensing & Packaging
Tableau Software, Palo Alto, CA

Come join a fast-paced and tight-knit team delivering a global business-critical subscription platform. We are looking for a self-motivated and results-driven senior backend engineer to design and deliver mission critical, highly scalable, and reliable services. Our code base is primarily written in Java on the backend with TypeScript, ReactJS and Saltarelle on the front-end. Some of the things you will be doing include architect and deliver mission critical, highly scalable and reliable services that run 24×7, tackle tough design and engineering problems and working cross-functionally to enable other teams to use the services built by your team. Read more on LinkedIn here.

Analyst, Subscription Analytics
Pandora, Oakland, CA

Pandora is looking for an Analyst to join the growing Pandora Subscription Analytics team in Oakland, CA. The Analyst will be responsible for condensing internal data points into key metrics around Pandora’s subscription offerings. The ideal candidate will blend strong data pipelining and visualization skills with a keen business analytics sense. Read more on LinkedIn here.

Twitter Rated Best Platform for B2B Marketing, Instagram Best for Image-Based Content

In a recent study by digital communications and technology agency Pulp Strategy, Twitter was rated the best platform for B2B marketing, while Instagram was the favorite for image-related content. Twitter received 47 percent of marketer acceptance in non-conventional B2B channels. Here are some other interesting statistics from that study:

• 75 percent said Instagram was their favorite channel for sharing photos and videos.
• Twitter received a 63 percent brand approval rating.
• Facebook received 56 percent brand approval rating.
• 76 percent of users consider user-generated content more trustworthy than brand-generated content.
• Content with images got the highest over engagement at 55 percent, with clickable links at 24 percent and videos at 12 percent.
• LinkedIn had the highest number of links shared by users with 76 percent of overall engagement volume.

“While social media is already hailed as the king of marketing, content continues to gain more prominence and has become one of the major influencers in the overall customer decision-making process,” Ambika Sharma, Founder and Managing Director, Pulp Strategy, said in a statement.

Read more results from Pulp Strategy’s Future of Content 2017 report on ET Brand Equity here.

8 (out of 48) Top Project Management Tips 

This post on the Successful Project Managers’ blog is from November 2014, but the advice is still solid. Here are 8 top project management tips from their list of 48.

1. Make sure you fully understand your role and responsibility. You won’t be able to guide the project successfully otherwise.
2. Before your first meeting with the client or executive who you will report to, do as much research as possible. Do you clearly understand the project? Has any portion of it been done before? Are there industry benchmarks that might offer insight into this project?
3. Work with your project team to define the time line, so they become part of the process from the outset. Individual members may be able to better estimate how long certain steps will take.
4. Do a risk analysis before you get started. What could go wrong? What snags might you hit along the way? What’s your back-up plan?
5. Describe the objectives of the project as succinctly as possible, so everyone is clear on what the project is, what tasks are needed to complete it and what the deliverables will be.
6. Make sure your team includes a diverse mix of people in terms of background, experience and strengths. You don’t want to choose people who only think like you.
7. Understand your own strengths and weaknesses, and be realistic what you can contribute to the project.
8. Clearly define the role of each segment of the team and who will do what.

Get 40 more project management tips here.

We hope this week’s Five on Friday was both interesting and useful. If so, we hope you will share it with colleagues and friends, and please let us know what other topics you’d like us to cover in future editions. Have an article or story idea for us to consider? Please email me at [email protected]. I’d love to hear your suggestions. In the meantime, have a great weekend and stay cool!