Social media is powerful. Be it Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, the best way to generate buzz around your business is to harness these platforms. However, most businesses miss an important piece in their social media puzzle – LinkedIn. Getting a grip on B2B marketing for businesses on LinkedIn is a must.

Why?

Because LinkedIn is a B2B goldmine!

It is where the Fortune 500 decision makers like spending their time and network with relevant connections. 

How can you reach them?

That’s the best part. Most of the time, these stakeholders are scrolling for valuable content to read. You don’t need to know them to initiate conversation like on Facebook. They’re not searching for memes, pictures, or Buzzfeed quizzes. They log in on LinkedIn to read content that helps them in doing business – a trait that a B2B marketer relies on.

Here’s some other reasons to stop ignoring LinkedIn:

•  The networking platform has over 690+ million members; and there are about 675 million monthly active users.
•  A whopping 40% users log in to their accounts daily.
•  61 million users are senior level influencers while 40 million members are decision-makers.
•  LinkedIn is the most used social media amongst Fortune 500 companies.
•  Employees share content from their own company 14 times more than other content on LinkedIn. 
•  Over 30 million companies are on LinkedIn.

   

Can’t believe what you just read? Well, it is true and it’s time to act. 

Now that I’ve piqued your interest, here is how to get started on your B2B marketing strategy for LinkedIn.

•  Identify your audience.

This is the first step for any marketing strategy. LinkedIn offers a nifty tool called Website Demographics. You can use it to understand your target audience better. This tool shows the professional traits of your website’s visitors and what kind of professionals are going through your content. You can then use this information to plan your engagement goals.

•  Build your brand persona.

Your LinkedIn profile and business profile will have its own voice. This will entice like-minded users to engage with your content. The tone you set for your content will decide how many people engage with your content and the quality of leads your content generates.

Which is why, setting a buyer persona will provide you valuable insights into customer behaviour and how they engage with your content on LinkedIn. A buyer persona will help you develop highly targeted content.

•  Optimise your LinkedIn profile

Just like you dress to impress, your profile should be accurately complete to be effective. You can optimise your profile and your business page profile by:

•  Adding images of your workplace, employees, and culture.
•  Updating key employee details.
• Uploading logo and header images.
•  Creating content that is approachable and human to readers.

   

•  Create value adding content

What you post plays a big part in the kind of leads you will get. How? By improving engagement, creating hype, spreading word of mouth, and increasing brand exposure.

On the flip side, posting content that doesn’t add value does more harm than good. Whilst posting a humorous picture once in a while is great, just don’t make it a standard practice.

Some content that LinkedIn readers gobble include:

•  Use of the Publishing feature to create lengthy content pieces that help you reach audiences outside your network.
•  Posting regular status updates that are crisp, sweet, and to the point.
•  Content that isn’t too sales-y and focuses on topics that complement your brand image.
•  Video content that enjoys a higher engagement rate – as much as a 75% share average.
•  Content with insider information (not proprietary or confidential commercial information, but useful tips) to resolve common issues faced by businesses and customers in your industry.

   

So, there you go. Start using LinkedIn today to create stronger connections and receive better leads – without spending a single penny on marketing. And when you find your engagement rates going up, you can also give the LinkedIn ads a try.