Established initially primarily as a business networking site, LinkedIn is now also a core component in many B2B lead generation and content marketing strategies. The platform's growth means the company can now claim to operate the world's largest professional network on the Internet, with over 660 million members in over 200 countries and territories.

LinkedIn has become such a crucial part of so many B2B strategies because its very nature makes it the perfect platform for content marketing. The company reports that 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn as a content distribution channel, and "There are 2 million publishers posting fresh content on LinkedIn, along with peer posts in the feed, long-form content, LinkedIn Groups and 7 million brand-managed company pages."

Why Use LinkedIn for B2B Content Marketing?

"According to the latest B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends research from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, 93% of the most successful B2B marketers say their organisation is extremely/very committed to content marketing, compared to just 35% of the least successful."

~ From LinkedIn's Marketing Solutions Blog

Why do so many B2B marketing professionals use LinkedIn to raise awareness, build relationships and generate leads? It has many unique benefits that are not obtainable through other channels:

Targeted Audience

LinkedIn is the one social platform where it is possible to find a top-tier business audience consistently. Being able to search on a user's job title, ranging from the most junior levels to CEO, makes it easier to find those business professionals who are directly involved in decision-making or those who have a substantial influence on the purchasing decision. Content targetted for the business mind finds an eager audience here.

Trust

There is no better way to establish thought leadership and build brand trust than to publish outstanding and insightful content on LinkedIn continually. Once there, other business professionals can add their endorsements, comments, or shares, building your reputation far better than you could through any paid advertising outlet.

Trending

LinkedIn is also the place to find the most current content in a particular industry. Use it to comment or post on other industry insider pages, or reference pieces when you add your unique spin on your site.

Because LinkedIn can be such a powerhouse, 1827 Marketing has searched out the best guidance from LinkedIn and other experts and summarised them for your convenience. This digest of useful resources and best practices will help you to build your company's communication strategy.

Defining Your Target Audience on LinkedIn

The foundations of a strong LinkedIn strategy are to build your network and extend your reach beginning with creating a company page that presents your business in the most favourable light for your targeted business audience. After creating your Page, you can enter further details so visitors can make an informed decision about whether they will follow and use it as a reliable point of reference. Be sure to include a logo, cover image, tag line, concise description, company hashtags, and location details. Showcase Pages spotlight a brand, business unit, or initiative and 'showcases' messages of interest to specific audience segments.

LinkedIn Groups provide a place for professionals who are in the same industry or those with similar interests to share their insights and experiences and build networking connections. Join and start groups that will help your company connect with interested individuals. Learn more by downloading this handy LinkedIn Groups: Communities for Professionals guide.

Creating Content for LinkedIn

Use the company's wealth of publishing tools to create and upload updates, valuable articles, images, and videos. Post meaningful, relevant content that will educate, inform and build trust, rather than content that only promotes your products and services. Discover what is essential to your target audience by downloading and following this useful e-Book, "LinkedIn Presents The Dynamic Duo: Superpower your content marketing with LinkedIn's Content Marketing Score and Trending Content."

The LinkedIn Publishing Platform allows its members to write, edit and distribute articles that share your professional expertise with a business audience. The "Recent Updates" section can be used to keep your LinkedIn page fresh. This is where you can post your blog updates or links to your infographics and white papers. Articles, on the other hand, are in-depth pieces you can use to highlight any challenges you recently faced, innovative solutions you created, business opportunities you have seen and seized, and significant trends in your industry.

A helpful LinkedIn Content Creator's Guide answers such key questions as: What should I write about? Should I post an update, a short-form or long-form article, or a video? How should I manage comments? How should I use hashtags in my posts? You can add hashtags to encourage engagement with your content, and also add images, videos, slides, and other rich media to bolster its usefulness and shareability. Be sure to visit the LinkedIn Creators home page for more insights on optimising your profile, finding your target audience and understanding the tools to help you analyse and share your content strategy.

Using specifically targeted content that focuses on industry concerns will increase reach and build engagement. Forbes online and LinkedIn have both identified some best practices for effective B2B content marketing strategies:

• Move beyond simple lead generation to fully concentrate on creating more value.

• Share content regularly to demonstrate thought leadership.

• Explain difficult concepts that underscore your organisation's unique advantages.

• Share posts with appropriate LinkedIn Groups, to extend their reach and readership to an even wider audience.

• Drive prospects and customers to your LinkedIn page by sharing links to content and videos.

• Step outside your comfort range from time to time to explore issues that are relevant to your industry.

• Focus more on the quality of the information you provide, rather than the quantity of the content you upload.

• Include PowerPoint presentations, PDFs and infographics that expand on your knowledge foundation. You can also use your LinkedIn page to promote podcasts and drive attendance to your webinars.

• Be sure to include your LinkedIn content in your customer journey map, so you completely understand its place as part of the overall marketing strategy.

Executing a Complete LinkedIn Strategy

Accessing some of LinkedIn's advanced advertising options can help to boost your reach beyond the organic measures you have taken:

• Sponsored Content: This option allows an advertiser to distribute LinkedIn Page updates to targeted LinkedIn members outside their organisation's LinkedIn Page followers and visitors.

• Direct Sponsored Content is Sponsored content that does not appear on the LinkedIn Page or Showcase Page. It allows your organisation to personalise, test, and improve content performance for a targeted audience without cluttering your LinkedIn Page.

• Ad Placement on LinkedIn: When advertisers run a LinkedIn Ads campaign, their creative can appear in a variety of LinkedIn locations, such as text ads, sponsored InMail and Dynamic Ads. Sponsored InMail is a message that is sent to LinkedIn messaging inboxes by an advertiser. Dynamic ads are personalised ads that change dynamically for each member.

• Increasing Distribution of Your Articles: Build a community around your content by replying to any comments you receive. Sharing your article in other posts will also give it additional reach.

• LinkedIn Influencers: LinkedIn Influencers represent a global collective of over 500 of the world's foremost thinkers and innovators. As leaders in their geographies and individual industries, they discuss newsworthy and trending topics.

• Data Targeting: LinkedIn offers filtering options which allow you to reach an engaged audience through data targeting. These can be used to find new prospects or to uncover new marketing segments around specific demographic categories. A great resource is this PDF about Targeting on LinkedIn.

Measuring Your LinkedIn Impact

Use LinkedIn's analytics tools to monitor the results and metrics of your B2B content marketing strategy. Analytics tools include:

• Profile Views: This reveals how many people viewed your profile in the last 90 days, along with details and demographics on post visitors.

• Content Analytics: The total number of views, breakdown of viewers, and how they engaged with your content.

• Search Appearances: See how many times your company profile came up in search results over the past week and information on what types of searches brought up your profile.

Conversational Marketing on LinkedIn

Use LinkedIn to create an experience and build social engagement instead of just broadcasting your information. Share other people's content and amplify their messages. If you are stumped for ideas, use LinkedIn's Content Suggestion Tool to identify content topics and articles that may be relevant to your LinkedIn audience.

Examples of Powerful LinkedIn B2B Strategies

Examples of powerful B2B strategies by companies that use LinkedIn as a base of operations include:

PwC

PwC is a global professional services network that has accumulated more than two million LinkedIn followers. It keeps them engaged by providing a continuous feed of content through its company page. It updates several times throughout the day to stay visible on its followers' feeds. PwC focuses on strength and builds trust by showcasing various employees.

ePac Flexible Packaging

ePac serves small and medium-size businesses by providing a fast and easy way to buy flexible packaging. It posts regular updates to the company page and often includes authoritative third-party content which builds on their organisation's narrative. Topical alignment is a crucial component for ePac, so they create a cohesive flow between third-party articles and first-party company content and reports. Other companies can emulate this approach by using Content Suggestions to find popular topics that their audience has already engaged with and capitalise on it with internal information.

Hays

Hays is a London-based staffing and recruiting firm that makes the most of its LinkedIn presence to drive powerful engagement. Their strategy is to help job searchers with the various aspects of finding ideal employment, so they utilise plenty of short and to-the-point video content to draw in scrollers. The company also incorporates the use of recognisable influencers to instil a feeling of familiarity.

Adobe

Adobe is a provider of digital media platforms and creative marketing software, so its services have a wide array of uses which appeal to a variety of potential users. The company uses its LinkedIn page to showcase the breadth of its services and provides social content that varies from branded and educational to research-driven and collaborative.

It is time to take a serious look at the potential of building a LinkedIn B2B content marketing strategy. 1827 Marketing offers powerful business tools that help you create campaigns and experiences that deliver results. Our marketing platform can track your content's performance and schedule posts, so you can tailor your strategy to suit your audience. Do they read LinkedIn at work? Is it something they do while commuting or catch up late at night? Scheduling tools allow you to post when your audience is looking, not just when you're available.

With 1827 you are also able to schedule repeat postings of content so it is not just a "one and done" situation. Your business will be able to tie in our marketing automation platform with behavioural triggers by using advanced techniques such as lead scoring, progressive profiling, and email automation. We work together to create a strategic approach that helps your business better engage with prospects and customers.