by Sam Carney
As LinkedIn has evolved, opportunities to share content have increased, and with a growing, interested audience to market your services to, the site really should be an integral part of your content strategy.
We all know that LinkedIn is the social network for professionals, and a valuable tool for recruiters across the world. What you might not have realised, however, is the potential of the platform when it comes to content marketing.
As LinkedIn has evolved, opportunities to share content have increased, and with a growing, interested audience to market your services to, the site really should be an integral part of your content strategy.
How does LinkedIn differ from other platforms, such as Facebook, when it comes to publishing content? Well, for starters, posting cat memes and sharing photos of your dinner is actively discouraged. Quality content is placed on a pedestal, as Andrea Fryear of Ceros notes: “members are more likely to share professional content that builds their professional brands, strengthens their professional networks, or helps them sell to their networks. Marketing content will be shared more if it fulfils these needs.”
Here’s our complete guide to getting the most out of LinkedIn:
Content types
When planning your content marketing strategy on LinkedIn, it’s important to think about what you want to share, and what your goals are. This will dictate the eventual guise your content takes – do you stay short, or do you go long?
Short status updates
The easiest way to penetrate your audience’s consciousness is through the LinkedIn status update. Updates are shared with your network, and when someone likes your status, it is disseminated among their followers too. Status updates are a great way for you to release the latest company news, link to content published elsewhere and offer your reaction to news pieces or blog posts in your industry. Hubspot recommend posting a status two to three times a day – just enough to establish yourself among your connections, without coming across as too ‘spammy’.
LinkedIn even offer a handy guide, informing you how you can get the most engagement out of your status updates. These tips include encouraging your audience to get in touch or comment via a call to action, posting regularly (“Companies that post 20 times a month, on average, reach 60% of their followers with 1 or more updates”, the guide says) and implementing different ways to monitor performance. What better way is there to provoke comment than this example from Network Sunday?
Long form posts
The other main form of content found on LinkedIn is the long form post. LinkedIn has evolved from a professional networking site to become a bona fide publishing platform and, with 414 million users, your content could get a lot of traction if those in your industry pick up on it and decide to share. Long form posts can act as both a content creation and a content redistribution tool, according to Jayson DeMers of Forbes, as users can publish fresh content or choose to repurpose their existing blog posts to reach a new, interested audience.
Longer posts, if implemented correctly, are beneficial as they portray you or your company as ‘thought leaders’, eager to share your knowledge and benefit from the experiences of others in your industry. Your connections will receive a notification when you publish a post via Pulse, so it’s easy to see how a well-written piece that adds value to the conversation can quickly spread like wildfire. Hubspot recommends publishing in this manner once or twice a week, for maximum effect.
One particularly good Pulse example comes from Shane Snow, co-founder of Contently. In this article, Snow discusses the importance of building a business’s story by delving into the background of Hollywood heartthrob Ryan Gosling. Now, whether the post spread (over 400,000 views and 3,000 likes to date) due to the link with the star of The Notebook or because of its powerful message (“the more personal a story we share, the closer it can bring people to us”) isn’t clear, but it shows the potential ‘thinking outside of the box’ can deliver – it’s a good post, with a tangible example and a valuable takeaway for the audience. And that is, ultimately, what you’re looking for.
Content distribution channels
Once you’ve decided on the form your content is going to take, you’ll need to choose the optimal channel through which to distribute it. There are five common options:
Personal profile
As a business owner, you’ll ideally have two presences on LinkedIn: a personal profile, through which you can establish yourself as an experienced and knowledgeable figure in your sector, and a business page, which represents your brand and also unlocks extra features, such as sponsored updates. The majority of your content should be published through your personal account, but remember to cross-promote posts and updates from the business, your employees and others in your industry for maximum effect.
Business page
Storytelling is a buzzword in content marketing at the moment, and a LinkedIn company page provides you with the perfect opportunity to get your message across. You can connect with employees and encourage them to share your company material, post job opportunities and update your connections with ‘news from the factory floor’.
IT firm TEKsystems are a good example to follow. They are prompt at interacting with users via the comment section on their posts, while the firm’s content contributors are encouraged to respond to feedback via their personal accounts, helping to expel the traditional image of companies being ‘faceless.’
Luke Brynley-Jones, founder of Our Social Times, says “94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to share content, making it the most popular B2B social media platform.” With this statistic in mind, it would be madness for your business not to be present in some way.
LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn Groups are places where those in your industry can interact, make contact and establish themselves as thought leaders in their sector. While some of the content you share may be irrelevant to a percentage of your followers, distributing as a participant of a special interest group ensures that you’re preaching to an audience who are interested in what you or your business has to say. Digital Marketing and B2B Marketing are among the most popular groups, with tens of thousands of members, but joining a smaller group, such as LinkedIn Business Strategists, could also be beneficial, as your content is less likely to get lost among all the noise.
LinkedIn Pulse
Pulse is LinkedIn’s publishing platform and is the channel to use if you wish to distribute longer content and reach a wider audience. Some of the world’s most influential people post through Pulse – even Bill Gates uses it! Quality content posted through this medium can invade the newsfeeds of thousands and help start a conversation, with you or your business right at the centre.
Sponsored updates
Sponsored updates are only available on business profiles, but they allow you to target your audience precisely. Try your posts organically on LinkedIn before you pay to use this platform, and use content that has gained the most traction. Use LinkedIn’s aforementioned guide to tailor your updates in the most effective way and this article from Adstage form inspiration from good examples of sponsored updates in the past.
Finding a balance
Like any successful content marketing strategy, you will have to find a balance between these five channels, a need recognised by Post Planner’s Rebekah Radice, who implores you to “stay top of mind by consistently sharing relevant content to your LinkedIn page and taking advantage of expanded reach through LinkedIn Pulse. And don’t forget to cross-promote within your LinkedIn Groups and via your personal profile.”
How you approach content marketing on LinkedIn will depend on your particular niche, the identity of your audience and, perhaps most importantly, the story you want to get across. For us, Jason A Miller’s quote, which can be roughly paraphrased as ‘users spend their time on Facebook and see their time on LinkedIn as an investment’, rings true, so ensure you’re always offering them something valuable, and work from there.
Image courtesy of Nan Palmero
Sam Carney
Sam is a freelance journalist who has been working as a copywriter and proofreader since graduating from Lancaster University in 2014. Sam mainly writes about sports, in particular football, and has been published by the Guardian, Manchester United and the Manchester Evening News. In his spare time, he likes to read, travel to new places, go on walks to the Lake District and attend live music events.