How B2B Brands Can Level Up On LinkedIn
LinkedIn is one of the best branding tools out there. It’s the ultimate sewing circle for professionals. And if you have a great LinkedIn strategy, it can be a huge channel to drive downloads, conversions, and ultimately, customers.
BUT — there’s always a ‘but’ — it’s not enough to just post on a regular cadence. Posting everyday doesn’t guarantee an increased following or engagement. In fact, it can often have the opposite effect IF the content sucks. People get fatigued with your repetitive content and do everything they can to avoid you. Think about it: if a company you follow posts all the time, but every post is “sign up for my webinar, download my ebook, sign up for that webinar again,” are you really going to pay attention to them? No, it’s white noise.
So here’s my big secret for how to level up on LinkedIn as a brand:
Stop thinking that you “need” to use the company page.
Seems counterintuitive right? How do I get my brand name out there if I’m not publishing under my brand name. Well, I think of it like this. There are two tracks on LinkedIn:
1. The company page
2. Individuals at the company
The company page is great for hiring. You have an active roll that needs to be filled ASAP, throw it up there by all means. But otherwise it’s the page of a faceless company.
Like I said, no one wants to see repeated self-serving promotions. There’s a reason why those posts get very little engagement. Great, you put out a piece of content, but why should I care? What’s in it for me? What’s the selfish benefit? It’s like if a comedian was on Twitter and only posted tour dates. Yeah, it’s smart to let fans know when you’re going to be in town. But people follow you, by and large, for your personality. They want to hear you crack jokes, have timely observations, etc. Give them something without the prospect of an immediate return for yourself.
So instead of throwing out aimless promotions under a company logo, use the people inside of the company to actually spread the word (like the CEO, CMO, sales, etc.).
People will care a lot more about your brand if they can see the real faces behind it. Have your CEO talk about some learnings from the shareholder meeting that day. Or have the founder talk about what he/she learned scaling a business from $0 to $15M in ARR. These are valuable, real insights from real people that endear people to your brand and your story.
Once you’ve established this rapport with your audience, THEN you can sneak in a promotion here and there. But keep the same personal tone of voice when you do it. Instead of “here’s an ebook we wrote on ABM,” try writing something like, “Molly and Elizabeth worked really hard on this for months, and put together something amazing. I’d love for you to check out the result of their effort.” You’re promoting the same thing in both posts, but the second will generate engagement because there’s real people behind it. Suddenly, that ebook means something beyond a demand gen tool.
Ultimately, I treat the company page as the “news ticker” for the brand. Nothing more. Don’t want to have people be the faces of the company? That’s fine too. Just don’t complain when social media doesn’t work for your business.