The Power of LinkedIn - New Features for Successful B2B Content Marketing

LinkedIn already offers a wealth of opportunities to build your personal brand, network with peers and potential clients, and showcase your expertise.

And yet, the platform continues to roll out a host of new updates to make LinkedIn the best social platform for professionals.

2023 started with a bang, with the platform launching several features to help build a successful B2B content marketing strategy. These updates give you new ways to publish, improved content discovery, and better information for relationship building.

Content Creation

LinkedIn has rolled out a brand new way to publish content and discover fresh perspectives. Collaborative articles are AI powered articles, published by LinkedIn but with crowdsourced insights.

This update might remind you of Quora or Reddit. However, the most important differentiator is that it’s happening on the B2B site. If you want to stay up to date and learn from expert voices in your industry, this is a great way to do it. By contributing, you can showcase your knowledge, network, and develop your professional brand. 

So, how does it work? LinkedIn's editorial team gets the conversation started. The platform then identifies users with the professional experience to contribute and invites them to participate.

LinkedIn determines who can contribute based on the skills listed on individuals’ profiles, as well as their roles and past engagements. So, if you work in medicine, don’t expect to contribute to an article about entertainment marketing.

You'll receive your invitation in notifications. From there, you can simply click the “Add your perspective” button. There’s one in each section of the article. 

If you’d like to be considered as a contributor, you can request an invite by engaging with the article. Collaborative articles offer the same interactions as other posts. You can also rate contributions as 'Insightful', as well as the overall quality of the article.

You can find collaborative articles relevant to your field by searching for a skill and checking the posts section of the skill page. LinkedIn will also recommend relevant articles in your feed, notifications, and emails.

The more you engage with this new feature, the more likely it is you’ll be invited to contribute. And, as more people click the “insightful” reaction to your contribution, LinkedIn will continue to showcase your work. Contributors who consistently make highly rated contributions can also earn a Community Top Voice badge in the Skills section of their profile. 

Currently, company pages cannot contribute to a collaborative piece of content, but brands can still leverage the feature to build authority and trust.

Employees represent their companies via their LinkedIn profiles. It's worth considering how you can engage all of your employees, not just the C-suite and brand spokespeople, in this work.

Content Discovery

LinkedIn Newsletters

Just a few months ago, LinkedIn invested in its own newsletter system by including newsletters in search results and notifications. New updates this quarter help marketers to boost their newsletter's reach and discovery. 

First, you can now schedule newsletters and articles to be pushed out at a specific time and date. Simply click the “schedule” button when you’re ready to post. 

LinkedIn also rolled out one-click subscription links to make it easier to grow your list. You can share new subscribe URLs and embeddable buttons on social media and other marketing channels. To activate this, just click Share on your post or newsletter. 

Lastly for newsletter updates, whenever your profile appears in search results, your newsletter will too, along with a “subscribe” button. This will instantly boost content visibility and subscriptions. If you haven't been excited to create and share LinkedIn newsletters before, this is your prompt to take a second look.

Other Content Updates

Next up is the ability to optimise your content for SEO and get it in front of the right people on search engines. You can customise the metadata on individual articles to target specific keywords in the title and description. Click “Publishing menu” in the top left corner of an article you’ve written, then click “Settings.” 

And, in another content discovery update, your LinkedIn profile will soon get a makeover. You will be able to organise your content in the Activity section. Showcase the types of content marketing your audience finds most engaging, from blog posts, case studies and white papers, to images and videos. Simply click the type of content you want to display first on your page. 

Targeted Sharing

LinkedIn’s built in sales relationship tool, Sales Navigator, has its own slate of updates. These are designed to help you better understand your buyers so you can build better relationships with them through the platform.

Sales Navigator Personas 

Another new update makes it easier to define your target audience, and then find people who fit that persona.

Once you've defined your ideal buyer, matching opportunities will be highlighted throughout LinkedIn, including in search results and Relationship Explorer.

Additional insights will help you prioritise accounts that are the best match for your business.

Relationship Explorer 

Your sales outreach can go from cold to warm when you have just a few things in common to bond over. Sales Navigator's new Relationship Explorer shows you the decision-makers within a target account, and potential hidden allies on the client's team.

Based on your buyer personas and existing points of connection, Sales Navigator helps you to understand the best options for growing your influence. 

And if you don't hear back from your first target? That’s okay. The tool also knows who your next-best contact is at the company. 

Improved Buyer Intent Insights 

The Buyer Intent feature is still new to Sales Navigator, but it’s already adding to the capability to prioritise your sales and marketing resources on the right accounts.

The new Product Category Intent will help sales teams to find in-market buyers. For sellers offering more than one product or service, you'll also be able to see which category is of interest so you can customise your approach to the lead's specific needs.

You will also get insights into activities that signal high intent. For example, LinkedIn ad engagement, InMail Acceptance, company profile visits, and visits to colleagues and leadership. 

Improved Search 

Sales Navigator search will now be less over-whelming and more precise with the addition of new search filters. You can filter by account lists, as well as “Spotlight Filters,” which include:

• Past customers: find leads who have moved to new companies from old client accounts.

• Past colleagues: find leads who used to work at your company.

• Executive TeamLinks: discover connections in your exec team's network.

• Profile visitors: focus your attention on leads who have recently viewed your profile.

CRM Auto-Save Features

These updates to auto-save help you clean up your CRM data in Sales Navigator so individual reps can focus on their own accounts.

First, users can customise their settings to control their accounts list. Users can also remove accounts individually from their Sales Navigator with the click of a button without removing it from the CRM. 

Create Connections With LinkedIn

These recent updates to LinkedIn present an array of opportunities for businesses and professionals to enhance their online presence and reach their target audience more effectively.

By staying up to date with the latest changes and implementing them strategically, you can gain a competitive advantage and greater success on the platform.

At 1827 Marketing, we specialise in helping B2B businesses make the most of their digital marketing channels. Contact us today to discover how we can customise a solution to fit your unique needs and achieve your goals.