The LinkedIn career network offers a lot for B2B content marketing: Generate leads, announce events, discuss specialist topics and company news. And – soon – stories. It’s just the wrong place for crude self-promotion.
There are some good reasons for companies to be active on Linkedin with their B2B content marketing too. The platform has 14 million business users in German-speaking countries alone. There are 675 million members worldwide. With the right content, not only leads can be generated on the business platform. Companies can also announce events, recruit employees or communicate their products here. As with other networks, the company page on LinkedIn is something like the base camp for companies’ content strategies. The Hessian online shop Lampenwelt uses this page, for example, to present the company and its employees, to advertise job offers and to highlight sponsored content. All other content of the lighting specialist can also be found centrally there: the presentation of new brand partnerships, for example, or the in-house print magazine and insights into internal employee events. Companies can also share documents such as PowerPoint presentations or white papers in PDF format via the company website. This makes it easy to distribute case studies, instructions or longer specialist articles.
Companies with a particularly wide range of offers can also use so-called “focus pages”. These can be dedicated to a specific line of business or a product group of the company. BMW, for example, operates a focus page for the Mini and exclusively stages this product in images and videos. Google dedicates its own focus page to its advertising product “Google Ads” and publishes there, among other things, news about its advertising editor or partner program. While company pages bundle all information, focus pages address selected target groups more specifically. There are no direct costs for either the company or the focus pages, apart of course from the effort involved in creating and maintaining the content. Linkedin advises companies to plan an hour a day for this.
Profiling yourself with specialist articles
Anyone who expands their content marketing strategy for LinkedIn should link their company page with the profiles of their employees and their content: First of all, the employees should be found on the company page in the “People” section. As soon as the employees select their employer from a list provided by LinkedIn in their profile, they appear there automatically. In addition, they can refer to the company page in their profile details and thus ensure additional visibility and reach of the company. Employees are particularly effective as corporate influencers and, due to the multiplier effect, an essential success factor for content marketing on LinkedIn.
The publishing function is particularly interesting in this context. With it, users can publish content as articles that are too long and far-reaching for a normal posting. Expertise, experience reports and industry trends are suitable topics for this. Specialist content helps, for example, to position yourself as an authority in a field of knowledge. Experience reports, in turn, create trust and enable you to establish yourself as an experienced and reliable contact person for a topic. And anyone who reports on industry trends is perceived as an innovative pioneer of new developments. However, only people can publish articles, not companies. It is all the more important to involve your employees as brand ambassadors in the content marketing strategy.
Above all, activity pays off: every year, Linkedin publishes a list of members who have initiated the most successful discussions in German-speaking countries. Among them are entrepreneurs, founders, authors, lawyers and consultants. In addition to this list of the 25 “Top Voices”, the LinkedIn editorial team regularly compiles a list of the ten top influencers. Last year, for example, the founder and investor Frank Thelen, ex-soccer player Philipp Lahm and the former Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche were among them. But not everyone has to be an influencer or opinion maker right away. Often it is enough to exchange ideas with other experts and advance industry topics to bring yourself or your company into play as a competent contact person. An environment that is well suited to are Linkedin groups. In addition to very sharp topics, cross-sector content such as leadership, recruiting or management can also be discussed there.
Establish groups and fill topics
Since companies cannot set up groups, employees have to do so. Employees can also join existing groups. In the Linkedin group “Online Marketing in Germany”, for example, more than 2,000 members discuss current industry topics. The US pharmaceutical company Pfizer, on the other hand, operates its own group that revolves around work, job opportunities and company news at Pfizer. “From a marketing point of view, it is advisable to found groups,” says Ritchie Pettauer, independent content marketing consultant from Vienna. The reason: group founders are allowed to send a notification to all group members every seven days. “That keeps the activity high and can advance your own topics,” says Pettauer. For example, companies can use the notifications to bring up new topics or to recapitulate content. A company attracts additional attention when it adds and links its group to the company page as a “Featured Group”. Pfizer has also done this with his group, in which almost 20,000 experts are now exchanging ideas.
However, groups cannot be presented on the homepage of a company page, but only on the “About us” subpage. That is a small flaw. It is therefore important that the employees bring the groups into conversation with their postings, for example by referring to ongoing group discussions. In order for other LinkedIn users to share the content, companies should refrain from clumsy self-promotion. Instead, it is important to communicate authentically, promote interactions and offer added value to the community. In order to live up to this claim on LinkedIn, companies should continuously review their positioning and, if necessary, readjust it. Because the best content marketing strategy is ineffective if essential prerequisites are missing
SSI reveals weak points
The Social Selling Index (SSI) is an evaluation tool that helps users assess how well or how badly they are doing in their industry. The SSI is therefore not linked to specific sales, but describes the correct approach to a business by establishing contacts, networks and content marketing. The SSI is available to all accounts. The index shows a value between 0 and 100, is updated daily and consists of four components: professional branding, finding the right people, arousing interest and building relationships. Each component contributes a maximum of 25 points to the index value. In this way you can see at a glance in which areas there is room for improvement.
The first index component, brand building, plays an important role in purchasing decisions. Because if you are perceived as a brand or a professional, you are trusted by potential customers. According to Linkedin, 92 percent of B2B work-Buy buyers with sales professionals if they are known as thought leaders in the industry. As a second component, the index focuses on finding the right contacts – after all, it is of little use to present your content to the wrong target groups. To find these people, Linkedin offers a search function with many filters. With a paid membership, there are also advanced search filters. Companies can even use them to browse the profiles of third-level contacts, for example. “Arousing interest through insights” is the third factor in the index. This is about posting content that triggers reactions. The idea behind it: Anyone who posts real novelties and insights can position themselves as a trustworthy source of information and in return learn more quickly about important information from others.
SSI reveals weak points
The Social Selling Index (SSI) is an evaluation tool that helps users assess how well or how badly they are doing in their industry. The SSI is therefore not linked to specific sales, but describes the correct approach to a business by establishing contacts, networks and content marketing. The SSI is available to all accounts. The index shows a value between 0 and 100, is updated daily and consists of four components: professional branding, finding the right people, arousing interest and building relationships. Each component contributes a maximum of 25 points to the index value. In this way you can see at a glance in which areas there is room for improvement.
The first index component, brand building, plays an important role in purchasing decisions. Because if you are perceived as a brand or a professional, you are trusted by potential customers. According to Linkedin, 92 percent of B2B work-Buy buyers with sales professionals if they are known as thought leaders in the industry. As a second component, the index focuses on finding the right contacts – after all, it is of little use to present your content to the wrong target groups. To find these people, Linkedin offers a search function with many filters. With a paid membership, there are also advanced search filters. Companies can even use them to browse the profiles of third-level contacts, for example. “Arousing interest through insights” is the third factor in the index. This is about posting content that triggers reactions. The idea behind it: Anyone who posts real novelties and insights can position themselves as a trustworthy source of information and in return learn more quickly about important information from others.
There are two content formats that are of particular interest to content marketers: “Sponsored Content” and “Direct Sponsored Content”. The difference: Sponsored content is tied to the company website, but can address additional users in addition to the followers of the website. With the “Direct Sponsored Content” format, companies can share content directly in the feed without having to appear on the company website. Industry news, company news, case studies and striking statistics are suitable for both forms of sponsored content. Image ads, video ads and interactive carousel ads are available as advertising formats. And another tip: the landing page can be provided with a lead form for lead generation. If a user then clicks on an ad, a form appears which is already filled in with the details of the member from the LinkedIn profile – including the name, contact information, position, job title and location of the interested party. This means that the conversion goal is only a click away. Paid advertising placements are therefore very suitable for flanking organic content.
The next level: Linkedin stories
In the near future, another tool could give content marketing on Linkedin a new boost: Linkedin stories. Some selected LinkedIn employees are currently testing the feature internally. The possible uses are still unclear. But food photos are unlikely to be found in future stories. Content that contributes to the employer brand is more likely. Finally, Linkedin is also a recruiting platform. “The approach to LinkedIn stories will be different than to Snapchat or Instagram,” says Linda Grützmann, project manager for social media at Constructiv in Bremen. The digital agency also looks after numerous customers in content marketing and has had very good experiences with stories in other networks. “So far, a lot of content has been produced and consumed on LinkedIn, However, there is still comparatively little interaction and communication, ”says Grützmann. If LinkedIn stories now offer more reaction and interaction options in the future, customers and companies could exchange ideas better. From Grützmann’s point of view, this would be an important step in the right direction.
Ritchie Pettauer also sees this development as positive: “The new stories are a very interesting format for content marketing, as they are suitable for live reporting.” In addition, it is to be expected that there will be only a few users at the start – and thus little competition. From Pettauer’s point of view, the chance of being perceived as a first mover with his stories is therefore very good. In the medium term, he sees the potential of the new content format primarily in trying out topics and testing their potential for interaction. But until then, content marketers have to be patient, because a roll-out date is not yet known. It could be a few more months before a beta version of the new stories comes onto the market.
Conclusion
For content marketers, LinkedIn already offers effective formats to draw attention to providers and offers. Generating leads, announcing events, discussing specialist topics and company news: a lot is possible. Employees can also be easily integrated and used as reach multipliers for topics and content. But the interaction and presentation options can be expanded. The new story feature is intended to meet this need. A smart move by the platform, because the stories are not only suitable for addressing the target groups that are coming up and offering them a familiar environment. The new content format is also easy to plan and can ensure a lot of interactions. This means that the career network should remain an attractive address for B2B content