This week, LinkedIn has published a new report, in collaboration with Coalition Greenwich, looking at how institutional investors are using LinkedIn to research and connect with potential partners-which, while fairly niche, does also include some more general insights that could be of relevance to all LinkedIn marketers.

There are four regional versions of the report, all well over 35 pages, and packed with notes and insights about key market shifts that impact how institutional investors are looking to use social platforms to complement their process.

And here are some clear value markers of note for LinkedIn specifically.

First off, there's the report's highest-level takeaway around LinkedIn's unique audience of senior managers:.
It's an extremely financially viable market segment that already describes several opportunities for outreach.

The report is also researching what makes the brands relate to this audience and how much material this audience wants to see in-stream. 
According to LinkedIn:

For marketers trying to break through, vapid content isn't going to do the trick. What this audience wants are highly bespoke insights delivered on a platform that makes it easy to see what's important. Half of the respondents (48 percent) now say customized content is the key, up from 33 percent in 2018. For marketers, that means research into audience needs and developing campaigns that perfectly address their priorities and challenges.

Properly curated, personalized content, wherever feasible, can create a lot of worth, which really boils down to audience segmentation and knowing what the unique value of your offerings is to each subset.

Interesting notes in the report about LinkedIn ad formats - and particularly, the rise of Document Ads.
This is also backed by independent research, which shows that PDF document attachments receive the most engagement on LinkedIn, which could be a significant consideration for all marketers to consider.

As well, there's an overview of what institutional investors believe each social platform is best for when doing research on a company.
That likely holds as the truth for most other researchers, also, which can help identify new opportunities for your outreach focus.

Again, the report is fairly niche in terms of insights that won't have a broad appeal in a more general social marketing context. However, there are some interesting notes that could help shape your LinkedIn approach.