LinkedIn is a crucial platform for connecting with other businesses and professionals. It's where many people and companies are active - over 774 million users and 58 million companies.
LinkedIn is a must if your business needs to stand out in your market.
This guide will explore how you can use LinkedIn effectively for B2B marketing. We'll look at optimizing your company's LinkedIn page, creating engaging content, and leveraging automation to reach your target audience.
LinkedIn is the best place to share your expertise, expand your network, and find new leads.
The first step to leveraging LinkedIn is optimizing your business profile. An optimized profile helps maintain a consistent brand and lets others know what your business is about. A clear profile is vital if you’re going to expand your network.
Your profile should clearly describe your industry, look on-brand, and be SEO-optimized for discoverability. It should include a clear headline and bio that describes your company. Visual elements like a professional logo and an eye-catching banner are essential for making a solid first impression.
It should include:
Next, you need a defined content strategy on LinkedIn. Start by determining what kind of content you will post to add value. Professionals come to LinkedIn to learn something new related to their careers and demonstrate expertise through conversation. So, post content that relates to your offerings and provides value to your audience. Your network will grow, and you will make more connections.
LinkedIn lets you post videos, photos, graphics, articles, or straightforward text-only content. Along with deciding what media you will post, you should also know your intent and messaging.
Writing compelling copy for your posts is crucial for successful content creation.
When it comes to posting on LinkedIn, consistency is crucial. That includes how many days you post, how often you post each day, and what time you post.
If you cannot post every day, focus on posting during the weekend only. It’s best to post Tuesday through Thursday between 8:30am and 10:00am.
Though you can schedule posts natively through LinkedIn, the feature can be limited since scheduled posts are no longer editable. You then have to delete the post and recreate it. Instead, you can use a third-party tool like Hootsuite or Loomly that gives you more control over scheduled posts.
The other benefit of using a third-party scheduler is access to analytics and reports on your posts' performance.
Bonus Tips: A few things NOT to do when posting that can negatively impact your reach. Avoid
If you share an external link, wait an hour and add it in the comments.
Your social media strategy doesn’t stop once you’ve hit publish on your posts. Instead, it is the beginning of growing your network and increasing exposure. The next step is to engage.
Previously, we suggested asking for comments in your post copy. As people comment and provide their perspectives, it’s essential to respond. The best thing you can do is to respond quickly, preferably within the first 1-2 hours of posting.
The first 90 minutes after posting is critical. If your post receives high engagement during that time, it will get more reach for the first 8 hours. So, reply to as many comments as possible within that time frame.
A great way to proactively engage is to connect with commenters. If people in your target audience like and comment on your posts, send them a connection request. They’ll feel noticed and be more likely to engage with future posts.
LinkedIn provides an excellent opportunity to discover a segmented audience based on accounts that engage with your content. You can use your network to map out a targeted contact list for outreach.
Mapping your market allows you to be far more strategic with your limited bandwidth. You can segment your target market to understand who the most relevant contacts are in the short-term vs. long-term.
You can build a comprehensive database with tools like PhantomBuster, Apify, and Databricks. And once you know who you are going after, you can continue to iterate your shared content. Find out what your audience wants and share thought leadership on those topics.
Now that you’ve compiled a contact list, use connection requests to reach non-followers who have interacted with your posts. Be sure that you only send a maximum of 100 requests per week to avoid being suspended.
Fight the urge to try to ask for a conversation or to close a sale in that connection request. Those leads are still cold and need warming before they trust you enough to talk to you. Let them know you appreciate their engagement and would like to connect.
You have an optimized LinkedIn account, share valuable content, and engage with your audience. Let’s consider what success looks like.
Starting out, marketers will often decide to use LinkedIn primarily for bottom-funnel, cold sales. That leads to wasted energy and money, with little to no results.
Instead, LinkedIn is best used to consistently share value-driven content with your audience, building trust and respect. By the time you make that first contact, they’ll already know and love you. Closing the sale will simply focus on configuring the best possible product for their needs.
Measure success by the engagement and leads you gain at the top of the funnel, and you’ll see more opportunities for bottom-funnel sales.
Read more about top-funnel marketing in our article: “The Path to B2B Revenue for Seed-Stage Startups.”
Though these best practices are crucial to stand out on LinkedIn, keep in mind these are not set-it-and-forget-it tips. Social media is constantly changing, and adapting your LinkedIn profile to stand out is vital. Make it a habit to audit your profile every 3 to 6 months to check for an optimized account that adds value to a growing network.
If you need to accelerate your marketing efforts, OneForce is your ideal partner. With expertise in growth marketing, content creation, and lead generation, OneForce can help you leverage your LinkedIn strategy for growth.
Schedule a meeting today: calendly.com/oneforce_inc/knowledgebase
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