Campaign success has a different meaning to a B2B business. While most D2C count their success via engagement metrics, conversion, and ROI take the cake in every B2B marketing discussion.
This is why B2B marketers and businesses are apprehensive about experimenting and putting themselves out there more, unlike their D2C counterparts. But the time to go out there boldly is now. And that means pushing the boundaries on every platform including social media.
Whenever we think of B2B social media campaigns, everyone turns to LinkedIn. From a recruiting platform, it has become the largest B2B lead generation platform over the past few years.
So if you are looking for a place to up your game, this is it. We’ve put together some of the most effective LinkedIn content ideas for you.
Before we dive into what we mean by upping the game on LinkedIn, let us explore the potential LinkedIn holds for a B2B campaign.
The B2B world is changing. Think about it for a second :
Five years ago, how would you approach selling a software product to large multinational corporations? You would organize a sales team, work on cold calling, network to reach the CEOs, and wait for your efforts to take you to the customers’ door. It is a lot of waiting and hoping.
Now, what are your options?
You can formulate a marketing plan that makes the customers come to you, yes! Studies tell us that 67% of the buyer’s journey in B2B sales is now digital. Which means, your digital marketing efforts seriously pay off for brand awareness, building trust, and even conversions.
Yes, conversions. Because the B2B buying process has changed. B2B customers want self-checkout processes that allow them to complete the purchase with no or minimal assistance.
While these statements bring out the need for a strong digital strategy, the reason behind LinkedIn is actually that this is a platform where your target audience hangs out. Right from CEOs/CFOs of Fortune 500 companies to SaaS entrepreneurs, they are all here and active. Hubspot studies show us that 33% of B2B decision makers use LinkedIn for researching products.
You need LinkedIn to build brand awareness, engage your audience, establish trust, and be present when your ideal customer is looking for recommendations. Especially when the B2B buyer cycles are becoming longer and more complicated.
Understanding the changing need in times and adapting to them is the mark of a smart marketer. LinkedIn is right at the forefront of B2B marketing, so jump in feet first with the LinkedIn content ideas and strategies we detail out so that you land safely.
Thought leadership, social proof, and informational content are the buzzwords in B2B marketing. They have been deciding and molding many content strategies over the past few years. But you need something extra when you are going live on LinkedIn. You have to blend with the customer’s expectations while also surprising and delighting them.
If you think we are going off-center by suggesting you stray from the tested formats, we have news for you.
The Cannes Lion International Festival of Creativity has shown that B2B marketers have been running creative campaigns and delighting customers for a long time. Even though the B2B marketing category was debuting at the festival, the featured campaigns soon became the talk of the town.
LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky pointed to a future driven by greater creative advertising, and “creatification” in his keynote presentation at the event.
“The next twenty years will be about the ‘Creatification’ of a new generation of tech businesses,” Roslansky observed.
Your B2B LinkedIn strategy must account for the fact that :
A lot of people incorporate LinkedIn into their marketing strategy, start company pages, conduct outreach via Inmail. But they rarely do anything to further their marketing objectives. LinkedIn has 800 million members and 30 million companies have an established presence on the platform.
Having a branded LinkedIn page is the first step. But posting once in a while, for the sake of it, is not going to cut it anymore. So what do you do? How do you stand out and ensure that you reach your target audience while garnering engagement as well? By having the right strategy and coming up with the best LinkedIn content ideas for engagement.
One of the most effective LinkedIn content ideas is to post content that educates your audience.
We discussed how B2B buyers’ journeys have changed significantly. And this begins even before a customer starts interacting or being aware of your brand. Studies show us that the average B2B buying cycle is between 6 to 12 months, which is a long period. D2C buying cycles on the other hand are quite shorter.
During this cycle, it is important that the customer
By prioritizing informational content, you can catch the customer’s attention, gain their trust, and slowly convert them by pushing them down the sales funnel. Gartner calls this approach the sense-making approach.
Breaking down complex and jargon-filled information on an easy-to-access platform humanizes your marketing efforts while reducing friction between your product and the customers.
LinkedIn is also a platform that takes easy to long-form content with options to create :
Carousel posts allow you to repurpose your pdf guides into swipeable posts that generate 3x clicks when compared to other content on LinkedIn.
Adding variety should be one of your main areas of focus when choosing LinkedIn content ideas. Including webinars is one way to do that.
B2B sales involve at least 5-10 decision-makers and your marketing efforts can only be successful if it turns your brand into a familiar one among 50% of them. Studies show us that B2B buyers turn to product demos, webinars, demonstrations, and such content to understand product options.
The advantage of creating and promoting webinars on LinkedIn is that it can serve as a qualified lead-generation tool for your business. Customers who sign up for the webinar or request a recording are expressing a clear interest in your product.
Webinars on LinkedIn also help boost the reach of your brand, especially if you are collaborating with an industry expert, peer, or influencer. Brand awareness can be a major challenge for B2B companies, so leverage webinars to break that hurdle.
If you are wondering why we are batting so hard for webinars, we have another reason for it. The B2B industry hinged heavily on networking events prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. But, it also came to a halt suddenly. Webinars can help you bring the energy of networking and peer-to-peer interaction with the convenience of digital marketing.
Cool, right?
Everyone talks a lot about thought leadership on LinkedIn. It is everywhere so much that you might start hating the word if you scroll through the platform for a week continuously. But there is a lack of clarity on what exactly this term means.
Are customers looking for motivational speeches, TED Talks, or hero stories? No. They want honest, painful, and never-told-before stories that can show them what your brand means to you without the frills. LinkedIn is a professional network and your customers will respect you more if you can show the pain you took building the brand.
So, replace the cliche stories with
These stories are important specifically if you have a Gen Z or Millennial audience base. They care more about values, work culture, ethics, and authenticity than knowing if you can give them a discount.
LinkedIn can be a hard nut to track, but if you get it right, the world is your oyster. So leave the cliches behind and up your game to achieve great B2B success. Remember that like most other platforms LinkedIn too is maneuvering toward an increased emphasis on graphics. After all, we are visual creatures!
So, right when you start building your LinkedIn strategy ensure that strong on-brand graphics are part of the plan. Creating consistent-looking graphics for different social media platforms and remembering the specifications for these designs can all feel like a challenge. And that’s okay. You can always outsource social media design to a professional design team or choose an unlimited design service to do your job.
