LinkedIn is a powerful social media platform for B2B marketing. A company with an active presence on LinkedIn can build a solid professional network.
Over six hundred million people use LinkedIn, and it's still growing. Additionally, 46% of social media traffic to B2B company websites comes from LinkedIn.
This article will show you how to leverage LinkedIn to be a powerful B2B marketing tool.
Using LinkedIn for B2B Marketing
Set Up Your Company Page
The first step is to create your company page.
Fill out a LinkedIn profile completely. Be sure to include a description, profile picture, and banner. Use your company's logo and branding that's consistent with your website and other social media platforms.
Define Your Audience and Goals
Define what your objective is. Are you using LinkedIn for brand awareness or to generate leads?
Understanding what you're working towards and who you're targeting makes it easier for your company to determine the type of content to share and which calls-to-action to use.
Optimize Your Page
Optimize your LinkedIn company page just like your website. Use keywords that your target audience is actively searching for.
Just place them in your profile description and your list of company specialties.
The main reason to optimize your company page is to promote it. You can't expect people to stumble upon it. Link your company page to your website, share it across your other social media channels, put it in your newsletters, list it on your blog posts, insert it in your CTAs, etc.
Add A Showcase Page
If your company has multiple brands or product lines, then you need showcase pages.
These pages are extensions of your main company page, and they're nearly identical. Having numerous pages allows each brand to maintain its unique voice and personality.
Examples Of Excellent LinkedIn Company Pages
What does an optimized, SEO-friendly LinkedIn company page look like?
Here are some examples of companies with great LinkedIn company pages:
Intel Corporation
Intel Corporation develops cloud computing, artificial intelligence, data centers, and even their own PCs.
Their company overview highlights where they're planning to go as an organization:
They optimized their page to be searchable by search engines by using solid keywords like world-changing technology and artificial intelligence.
Greenhouse Software
Greenhouse Software is a leading provider of enterprise talent acquisition software. Their page stands out with a colorful cover photo and a great description.
Ripple
Ripple provides financial settlement solutions.
They stand out by leveraging the life tab on their LinkedIn company page. They share what it's like to work with them. They also include links to their blog and show a humanizing video.
Gong.io
Gong.io is a B2B conversation intelligence platform.
They grab your attention with a stunning and visually appealing banner. Gong.io makes excellent use of the "life" tab by providing an inside look at what it's like to work for Gong.io.
Bynder
Digital asset management platform Bynder provides an excellent tagline on their banner.
They also list their various specialties on their about page.
ePac Flexible Packaging
One company that uses a colorful banner image, detailed descriptions, and lists multiple specialties are ePac Flexible Packaging. They also provide a map that lists all of their locations.
Publish Quality Content
Once your company page is established on LinkedIn, you should start adding engaging content.
LinkedIn has excellent publishing tools that allow you to create and upload articles, images, and videos. It would be best to consider using all three to offer value to your followers to position your company as a credible resource in your industry.
Active LinkedIn users are always looking for new and valuable content. Your content needs to be unique. There's lots of content published daily on LinkedIn, which means generic topics won't get traction for you.
It would help if you took the time to create high-quality content that your target audience will find helpful. Your article should provide added value or a unique perspective to the industry alternatives.
To help your content stand out, OkDork analyzed three thousand LinkedIn blog posts and discovered what works best.
- Long-form content (between 1900-2000 words) gets the most social shares.
- How-to and list posts perform the best.
- Content with a 5th-grade reading level gets the most views.
Content marketing on LinkedIn is a great way for prospects to find your business. It will position your company as an authority in your industry and solves your prospect's problems. Producing great content can also reduce your sales cycle and guide your customer through your sales funnel.
Here are some companies that produce great content using an effective B2B LinkedIn marketing strategy.
HackerEarth
One company that does an excellent job posting content is HackerEarth.
HackerEarth posts content daily, each of which provides value.
Here are some examples of their most recent posts.
Their content consistently provides value by bringing in industry experts such as Microsoft and IBM.
They also promote upcoming events and competitions.
HackerEarth also shares a lot of videos, including webinars they host.
Deloitte
Management consulting firm Deloitte uses video for marketing themselves on LinkedIn.
They primarily use video to share industry insights and thought leadership.
Using video is their primary source of content. It makes it easy for Deloitte's management consulting firm audience to consume information and learn what they have to say.
Salesforce
Salesforce is an industry-leading customer success platform known for its CRM tools.
They publish content on various topics such as crisis response playbooks and best practices for using their platform on LinkedIn. They also announce upcoming webinars and events they are hosting, along with community outreach initiates and more.
Salesforce has so many users on its platform. Their content helps their audience connect with their brand while learning how to use the platform for their business.
Slack
Slack is a software tool that helps employees and communities communicate with each other.
Their LinkedIn page has lots of content educating people on how to use their software.
They also have numerous case studies explaining how Slack has helped other organizations.
Slack positions itself as a great software solution and a resource for communicating effectively across different industries by providing educational content.
Cognixia
Technology training company Cognixia helps businesses prepare for future technological solutions.
They regularly host webinars to give their audience the latest news and trends in business technology.
This keeps Cognixia's audience interested and engaged with their industry. It also showcases what Cognixia can provide as an industry leader.
Other Companies that do an excellent job producing content on LinkedIn include:
Share Newsworthy Content Daily
Creating content is an excellent way to get found on LinkedIn, but it can also be time-consuming. You should also share content from relevant sources that your company didn't create that your target audience will find helpful.
Take some time daily to share some newsworthy content and add your thoughts.
Being active on LinkedIn every day gives you a place to express your brand's position and engage with your prospects and customers.
It also shows that you're up-to-date with the latest developments in your industry.
Join Groups Where Your Customers Hang Out
LinkedIn groups are an excellent place to build meaningful connections with your customers. Focus on a small number of groups that fit your target customer's industry and look for ways to engage them. You can see what they post and respond by adding a thoughtful comment of your own.
You can't join a LinkedIn group as a business; you can only participate as an individual. However, observing and engaging with your target audience provides great marketing benefits for your company.
LinkedIn allows you to join up to fifty groups, so you need to focus on the groups to add value and engage in conversations with people in your target market.
Here are some tips to maximize the most out of using LinkedIn groups:
- Choose groups with at least a few hundred members.
- Engage with your top groups at least a few times a week.
- Start discussions in your top groups.
- Add your thoughts to popular discussions.
The more groups you join, the more significant influence you'll make.
You can also create your own group that focuses on your own business. Being the owner and moderator of your group, you can gain leadership and recognition in the industry.
Just keep your group focused on the user, and don't make it all about your company.
Position yourself authoritatively and don't be focused on sales.
That way, you can form a place where your target audience can gather and interact.
Advertise On LinkedIn
Organic company updates can only take you so far. You may find that purchasing a LinkedIn ad will help increase traffic to your company page. This means instead of going to your audience; your audience will come to you.
You should optimize your company page before you get started with a paid advertising campaign. You need to include showcase pages for the products and services you want to promote, so when new traffic arrives, they will see what you have to offer. Then choose which one of the following paid services you'd like to use.
Sponsored Content
Sponsored content boosts the visibility of your posts.
Organic posts that show up on the feed of your followers can be seen by the target you choose by paying for sponsored content. Choose artless that are popular with your followers to use for sponsored content.
Your sponsored content should have a call-to-action or a gated component like a webinar or a white paper that a new reader can sign up for or download. It would help if you always targeted your widest possible audience.
Your sponsored content will be distributed on the LinkedIn feed or other pages of the people you're targeting. The content will appear as company updates on your company profile or showcase pages when they click back to your site.
Direct Sponsored Content
Direct sponsored content expands on sponsored content.
Direct sponsored content posts are not published on the company page. They're not part of a campaign, and your company can personalize or tweak the content. This will allow your company to test and retest the content until they're satisfied. The advertiser creates both sponsored content and direct sponsored content ads in LinkedIn's campaign manager.
Text Ads
Text ads are LinkedIn's version of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Just like other PPC options, companies can choose which audiences to target. The company creates its ads, sets the budget, and pays when the ads get clicks or impressions.
Sponsored InMail
Sponsored InMail is LinkedIn's version of an email marketing campaign. Companies using sponsored InMail can send personalized messages such as invitations to webinars, or other events to targeted audiences, with no limits on character counts.
It's quick to set up and launch campaigns, and just like other LinkedIn advertising services, companies set their budget.
Sponsored Messages
Sponsored messages are ads that are sent right to your audience's LinkedIn inbox. You can send these ads in "message" or "conversation" format. Companies will experience variable success rates with each format.
If you're a B2B marketer, LinkedIn is the most powerful online tool you can for lead generation.
To get started on LinkedIn, first, do these three steps:
- Complete and optimize your company page.
- Fill in the required fields on your company profile.
- Please share a link to your LinkedIn page in an email, tweet, or link back to it on your website.
Then, test things out, make mistakes along the way, and keep improving.
If you are looking for more information on how to use LinkedIn for B2B marketing, reach out to us today and we will help you develop a LinkedIn B2B marketing strategy.
Drew is an avid photographer whose images have won many awards.In fact, all of the images on this site were taken by him.
When he is not helping Nimbletoad's clients stand out online you'll find him surfing, hiking in the mountains, or fishing off the coast for yellowtail.
He lives in Vista, located at the northern tip of San Diego, with his wife Brooke and their three dogs Nora, Oliver, and Fin.
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