A “LinkedIn Strategy”? Ok, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Oh God, not more social media to manage’.
But don’t scroll away just yet, because LinkedIn is far more than social media. And if you have a B2B company, it might be the perfect tool for your marketing strategy.
LinkedIn has been around for 18 years – longer than Facebook! It started as a site for recruiters because people had digital resumes and that’s about it.
But now LinkedIn is growing up, so settle in and let’s talk about why your B2B business should have a LinkedIn strategy.
Where your people are
In business, you should never jump on a social media bandwagon unless that’s where your customers are. If you’re a B2B brand, they’re on LinkedIn.
Here are the latest stats from Hootsuite:
- 4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn drive a business’s decisions.
- 61 million senior-level influencers are on LinkedIn.
- 55 million companies are on LinkedIn.
- 93% of B2B marketers say LinkedIn is the most successful site for lead generation.
Importantly, you can connect with influencers on LinkedIn (real ones, not the half-naked botoxed ones!).
And the platform currently has 772 million members. That’s a lot of professionals you can get in front of!
What’s your why?
So now you’re interested in giving LinkedIn another look. But, before you start posting, stop and think about why.
Like any social media, you need to figure out what result you want from LinkedIn. You might want to:
- increase your brand awareness and credibility
- sell products and services
- connect with potential customers
- make more business contacts
- recruit new employees.
It could be all of these. Once you know, you can decide on a strategy for getting there. Here are some ideas for your LinkedIn strategy.
How to get attention
Posts
There are so many options for posting on LinkedIn, including text, images, videos, podcasts, links to PDFs, polls and surveys, and even sharing content from other members.
Develop a content calendar to make life easier. There’s nothing worse than staring at the screen on Monday morning trying to think of a post. Hootsuite can help you schedule your posts ahead of time and deliver them on the right days.
If you have presentations, you can use SlideShare to publish and then post them. These get very good engagement.
As your posts gain traction and get shared by like-minded people who connect with other like-minded people, your posts could spread far and wide.
Articles
You can use LinkedIn like a blog because it has great SEO. As well as being seen on LinkedIn, your articles could also show up in a Google search. This is a great strategy for increasing your industry cred.
Make sure your articles are well written, relevant and useful, and optimised for search engines. Otherwise they may just disappear without a trace.
Recorded videos
Hootsuite says LinkedIn users are 20 times more likely to re-share a video post, so you’d be mad not to try it.
You don’t need expensive equipment and lots of resources – even an iPhone creates amazing video these days. Typically, the hardest part is convincing people to get on camera!
LinkedIn Live
Once you nail the recorded video, this option lets you host live videos and virtual events. Live streams on LinkedIn increased by a whopping 437% in 2020. (Obviously we had nothing better to do!)
Using this feature does require more work in terms of planning and promoting, and there’s a learning curve to getting it right.
Groups
You can join groups to engage with like-minded people about a specific interest. You could even create your own group to show your expertise and attract the right people to you.
Paid advertising
LinkedIn’s paid advertising gets better every day. It’s more expensive than Facebook but it’s incredibly granular, so the people who engage with your ad are the right people.
However, it is an art. So be prepared to spend money before you get it right. But once you hit the sweet spot, you will see great results.
Measuring your progress
Once you decide on a strategy, you need to measure your progress in achieving it. You need to set targets to work towards. There are lots of options, but some might be:
- new followers per month
- sales through LinkedIn
- views, clicks, comments and other engagement on posts.
LinkedIn provides a great array of analytics to show you how you’re tracking. Don’t avoid stats – make them your best friend!
Practice makes perfect
The LinkedIn algorithm will show people posts that are relevant and interesting to them, so you’ve got to know your audience and what they want.
Have fun with it. Play with the number of posts per day, week or month until you see what works. There is no single right answer – it’s different for every organisation.
There are so many ways for B2B companies to use LinkedIn for marketing – and the platform is rolling out new features all the time. If you haven’t jumped on board yet, use these LinkedIn strategy tips and just start!
If you have any queries or would like to discuss your specific needs, feel free to contact me.