If I were running marketing at a B2B startup today, LinkedIn would be our primary "PR" channel.
The founder(s) would be sharing content 3-5x/week.
The head of marketing, head of sales, and head of customer success too.
They would be sharing what they are learning from customers as they are building - this could be quick write-ups after customer calls, learnings from pain points, content about the life/job of the person they are trying to sell to.
I don't believe that these people don't have the time to write - because those same people are writing in Slack, email, Wiki, and Google Docs all day. They can find ways to turn this into LinkedIn content.
It doesn't have to be super polished, but it has to be real - people want the real tactical examples, the experiences, the lessons. You'll get that everyday if you're actually building a company, selling a product, and trying to help customers win.
Every now and then some "non work" content is great too. Share some habits, some routines. Reading. Exercise. Hobbies. Books. Observations. We're all humans at work writing on LinkedIn, and we like to hear from each other. And if you look around at what's "working" on LinkedIn you'll see a lot of this content today.
I would also:
- Create a list of your target customers and connect with everyone I can via LinkedIn. Over 50% of people will accept connections from you, and this means that they are now opting in to see your content. So now your dream customers are in the audience of eyeballs who will see what you write.
- Comment, comment, comment. Not just replying to comments on your posts like it's your job, but finding other people in your industry and commenting on *their* posts. This will not only get you writing and engaging more (and it works like a prompt; someone already wrote a post, you just have to answer. it's much easier than writing from a blank page) but LinkedIn also *rewards* comments and you will boost your visibility and engagement. You'll also get ideas for future content - a comment can easily turn into your next post.
- Be consistent. You can't read this post, do what I recommend for 3 weeks and then throw your hands up and declare it's not working. Do this for 6 months to a year and come back. You'll increase the number of followers here, the number of people who know about you and your company, and the number of inbounds you're getting.
Don't have the time for it? I hear you. That's my favorite objection. Because this TAKES TIME. It can give you an advantage and be an incredible channel, but it takes time to build.
So it really comes down to: are you willing to put in the time and do this every week?
Or is it easier to light $20,000/month on fire and pay a PR agency to "get you earned media" in your niche as a Series A/B/C startup when the only publication you can pitch these days is TechCrunch and that publication is a complete waste of time anyway ....
Also LinkedIn has 875M users and 310M monthly active users...