Starting Your Company’s LinkedIn Strategy

LinkedIn can be the perfect launch pad for any B2B brand, but you’ll need to make sure your strategy is built around your audience, not your sales agenda. Create a powerful company presence through brand journalism, (taking the five ‘w’s into account):

1) Who: Who is your audience and what matters to them? When you’re a B2B usually your customers care about two things — making their business thrive and reaching more customers. Use your LinkedIn feed to share infographics, videos and articles on their customer group. Post Slideshare presentations on how they can make their brand more approachable to consumers. You can definitely post occasional news updates about your brand and how it’s making your vertical a better place, but remember who you’re talking to and what matters to them.

2) What: What features or benefits can you educate existing and future customers on that they may not be aware of? Don’t pitch these, but post questions… Did you know [insert your business here] supports/offers/provides [insert amazing product or service]? Use a presentation or video to let customers explore features and benefits, and get excited. Make sure the information comes from an educational place, trying to sell customers on LinkedIn with discounts and prices instantly downgrades your company presence to Spam.

3) When: Are  you seeing industry trends based on current events or the time of year? Share them in a timely manner, and try to keep your company ahead of the curve. Timely updates that sync with current events and how they’re affecting the economy, your industry and customers keep your company top-of-mind and present your business as an expert.

4) Where: Visiting industry trade shows and events? Let customers know where you’ll be with your booth number and locations for off-site customer events. Bring national events to your audience online by posting photos of clients and team members at the trade show.

5) Why: Make sure you know why your brand is on LinkedIn and what you’re looking to accomplish. If the focus is on recruiting, be sure to share updates about current employees and show what it’s like to work for your company. If the focus is on your customers, map out a few different types of posting strategies that will help you deliver relevant content that they’ll care about.

Remember, to get your updates trending, make sure you get buy-in from employees and company advocates. The more “likes” and shares you can reign in internally, the more exposure you’ll get to your target audience. Questions, thoughts? Share in the comments below!