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Seven LinkedIn tips for B2B businesses

At Content Empire we help many businesses connect with new and existing B2B audiences on LinkedIn. If you’re looking to achieve B2B business and marketing objectives with this social channel (which has around 10 million active users in Australia!) read on for a few handy tips:

1. Think about your goals, differentiate your content

LinkedIn is a great platform to:

  • Share news and content that demonstrates your business offering
  • Engage with and grow your B2B audience
  • Show prospective employees what it’s like to work at your company
  • Leverage your current employees as company ambassadors.

If any of these align with your business and marketing goals, LinkedIn could be the right channel for you.

Remember, every social channel is unique. With its 100% professional focus, creating content for LinkedIn audiences requires a different approach to channels like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest.

2. Optimise your company page

Be deliberate when setting up (or reviewing your existing) LinkedIn company page. Make sure sections such as ‘About’ are fully optimised and include relevant keywords. Your LinkedIn company page is searchable both within the platform and on Google and other search engines, so it’s another way new customers can find you.

Remember to be audience-focused on your company page. Think about what your audience is looking for on LinkedIn and how your content can meet their professional needs. Using plain language and adopting an accessible tone of voice are recommended.

3. Engage your employees

Employees can be invaluable ambassadors on LinkedIn. To successfully leverage your staff on this channel, consider:

  • Asking them to share posts from your company page
  • Encouraging them to update their own LinkedIn page so that it looks professional and reflects company brand values
  • Tagging them in your content. For example, you might acknowledge their contribution to a particular project.
  • Inviting them to provide ideas for LinkedIn posts.

4. Keep your B2B audience top of mind

LinkedIn is the ideal channel for sharing:

  • Industry and company news
  • Expert advice
  • Brand values
  • Case studies and testimonials
  • Career opportunities.

When developing your LinkedIn content strategy, consider the sorts of posts that will appeal to your audience and align with these pillars. LinkedIn’s algorithms favour content that creates conversations, which is why creating audience-focused content is so important. If your post resonates with your audience, it is more likely to attract comments, likes or shares.

Remember, LinkedIn (like most social channels) preferences content that keeps users within the channel (i.e. that doesn’t link off to your website). So, when planning what to post and when, make sure some of your posts (at least 25%) don’t include a link back to your website.

5. Hashtags: be deliberate

LinkedIn’s hashtag feature can help you to share content with new B2B audiences in your target sectors. LinkedIn recommends using a maximum of three hashtags per post. So, how do you decide which ones to use?

Researching the number of followers a particular hashtag has can be a good place to start. LinkedIn recommends using two ‘big and broad’ hashtags and one ‘niche’ hashtag every time you post. Researching and establishing a ‘set’ of hashtags and picking from this set every time you post can be a huge time saver that helps you efficiently serve your content to new audiences.

6. Choose digestible content formats

The popularity of snackable, short form content is on the rise. Make highly digestible content part of your LinkedIn content strategy. Short videos and infographics are good examples. Remember, around 85% of all video content on social media is viewed without sound. Captions are vital!

7. Re-purpose and pay to play

The way LinkedIn’s algorithms work, there’s a good chance your followers won’t see all your organic posts in their feed. With this in mind, don’t be afraid to re-purpose/re-post your content, especially your high-performing posts. For posts that did not do so well the first time, consider revising the post copy or using a different image to give your content a better chance of being seen.

LinkedIn’s paid options – including sponsored posts and ads – can be a great way to share your content with new audiences. You can use factors such as profession, location, industry and so on to select who LinkedIn serves your content to. While paid strategies on LinkedIn tend to be more expensive than Facebook or Instagram, the channel’s firm focus on professional networking still makes it highly worthwhile for many B2B businesses.

Do you need a LinkedIn content strategy and calendar, help to increase your following on LinkedIn, or just want to know if LinkedIn is the right channel for your B2B business? Content Empire can help. Contact us to talk about how you could kick more B2B marketing goals on LinkedIn.

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