- Effective strategies for LinkedIn Content Marketing
- Best practices for distributing content on LinkedIn
- How to master LinkedIn Content Marketing for business
Using LinkedIn for business can help you build your brand’s credibility and build meaningful connections with established industry professionals.
LinkedIn is a valuable platform that businesses should leverage. According to recent statistics, more than 30 million companies use LinkedIn and not just to recruit talent.
Besides hiring, LinkedIn is also used to:
- Network and build new connections
- Market products and services
- Sell goods
Using LinkedIn for business might appear daunting if you’re a new business owner. Deciphering the best times to share content, how to approach connections and what features to use can be overwhelming at first.
However, mastering content marketing on LinkedIn is simpler than you think. Regardless of the medium, these tips on how to execute a content marketing strategy on LinkedIn will strengthen your marketing toolkit and help you grow your online business.
#1 Share Content That is Relevant to Your Audience
Posting timely, relevant content is vital if you want to establish yourself as a trusted leader in your field.
For example, if you’re targeting sales professionals, you need to consider the topics they would find interesting. Don’t make your content all about your brand, share content that speaks to your audience’s needs and gives people a reason to engage.
Thought-provoking content targeted at the right audience will also help improve your company’s visibility.
#2 Engage With Your Audience
Ever heard of the saying: “Comments make content?”
Like most social media platforms, LinkedIn is about community and engagement. It’s easy to produce content and move on to the next topic, but content marketing isn’t a one-way street.
If you’ve got users commenting on your posts, interact with them, ask for feedback and spark discussion. Conversation can also lead to new post ideas that closely match your audience’s interests, needs and problems!
#3 Be Authentic
While social media and content marketing is about promotion, you can sell your brand without occupying a hard angle.
People gravitate towards brands with authentic voices. Why? Authentic content marketing shows that brands are invested in giving clients what they want and need, building trust and loyalty.
It’s easy to discern whether a brand is dishonest, so it’s essential to focus on catering to your audience’s interests rather than being overly pushy.
#4 Utilise Hashtags
Hashtags are commonly used to categorise content. However, they can also strengthen your marketing strategy by tapping into new audiences and industries.
You can use hashtags to reach people outside of your network who may be interested in the content you produce. Don’t get fixated on high numbers; three to five relevant hashtags would be enough to reach an audience likely to be interested in your LinkedIn content.
#5 Create Posts of Varying Length
Vary the length and type of your posts to keep content fresh and exciting for your network.
Short, bold posts are compelling but posting too many of these could make your business seem less authoritative. While long-form content can lead to longer dwelling time, you don’t want to be known as the business that only shares monologues as this could bore your audience.
Include short and long-form posts in your LinkedIn content marketing plan.
#6 Share Exclusive Content
While posting the same content across multiple platforms might seem like an effective strategy, sometimes limiting the scope to one social media channel is more powerful.
Provide your LinkedIn audience with exclusive content that they won’t be able to find elsewhere, which will also help you avoid torpedoing your followers with duplicate content.
#7 Observe and Adjust
Don’t be afraid to experiment with your content, especially if you’ve found that some of the posts you’ve published don’t get the level of attention you initially hoped.
Analysing your LinkedIn content marketing strategy and making the appropriate adjustments is key to success on the platform.
How to Distribute Your Content on LinkedIn
So, we’ve covered how to create valuable content that builds trust and credibility, but what’s the best way to share content on LinkedIn? And how will sharing content on LinkedIn benefit your business?
#1 Utilise the “LinkedIn Status Update” Feature
The LinkedIn Status Update feature is one of the best ways to maintain brand visibility on the social network, yet the tool is underutilised.
The feature is similar to Facebook and Twitter, allowing users to post a short message to share with their audience. The LinkedIn status update appears just below the professional headline at the top of your profile, and when used correctly, can pack a big punch.
Whenever you share an update, your message is broadcast to your entire network and can even be included in a weekly email circular from LinkedIn.
Tips for Sharing LinkedIn Status Updates
- Include links to interesting media and use attention-grabbing words to encourage readers to click through to the link.
- Mention a person, event, or situation relevant to your connections or industry.
- Share updates about events your company is involved in or that your employees have attended to encourage questions and direct messages about your brand’s involvement with the event.
What to Avoid When Sharing LinkedIn Status Updates
- Talking about non-industry related topics or personal information. Remember that LinkedIn is a professional platform, so your content needs to offer value and be relevant to your target audience.
- Spamming the network by exhausting the status update feature. To avoid annoying people, limit status updates to a couple of times a day.
- Posting about sensitive or controversial topics. Don’t use the tool to gossip about industry competitors or publish lies to impress – this will downgrade your credibility.
- Habitually pitch products or services. You will annoy your network and potentially damage relationships with connections.
- Don’t post when no one’s online. For example, a status update at 11.30pm on Friday is unlikely to get traction unless you have a global audience. Try to align your posting schedule with business working hours to boost visibility.
#2 Publish Articles on LinkedIn
The LinkedIn Publishing Platform allows members and administrators to publish long-form content on the network and is an excellent way for businesses to expand their reach significantly.
What are the Benefits of Using the LinkedIn Publishing Platform?
- It helps you reach relevant audiences, and open two-way dialogue as LinkedIn is a community of like-minded professionals looking or sharing their industry expertise.
- Boost brand awareness and demonstrate industry authority as connections are notified each time you publish a piece.
- Increases exposure and encourages new relationships by creating the opportunity for your business to tap into new audiences via shares, hashtags and comments.
Tips for Publishing Articles on LinkedIn
- Understand the needs and wants of your target audience to help you publish valuable, readable content.
- Brainstorm topics and develop compelling titles to encourage your audience to click through.
- Create a content calendar, arrange the topics according to event or seasonality, and then write. If you need help writing effective long-form content, take a read of our guide on How to Improve Blog Post Engagement.
- Include eye-catching graphics and a compelling cover image to help your article stand out in news feeds.
#3 Publish Video Content
Video content has become extremely popular in the last few years, with more people preferring filmed footage to more traditional forms of content.
Whether you’re a seasoned video marketer or an amateur videographer, you should leverage LinkedIn for your video content and use it to help boost your brand. To publish a video, simply head to the status box and upload the file, or if you’d prefer to interact with your audience, you can now use LinkedIn Live.
What are the Benefits of Publishing Videos on LinkedIn?
- Promote products or services more engagingly. For example, you could use LinkedIn Live for product demonstrations or for Q&As to help build audience interest in what your brand offers.
- Appeal to a wider, relevant audience by serving the most enjoyed form of content.
- Increase exposure by posting diversified content. LinkedIn may notify your followers by email or pop-ups in the news feed when you post new content or launch a live stream.
- Creating co-branding opportunities as video is the perfect medium to team up with other industry professionals and tag affiliated influencers to promote your content. Those involved will be more inclined to share your post, too, as it benefits them, thus allowing your content to reach a wider audience.
- Pique the interest of your connections and increase your following by sharing content that encourages your audience to share, like or comment. Although it’s unclear whether a video has an algorithmic advantage on LinkedIn, they are highly prevalent in news feeds.
Tips For Publishing Video Content on LinkedIn
- Invest in quality recording equipment and space so that your videos appear professional.
- Plan! People can tell if your videos lack thought, so brainstorm ideas before you produce anything to ensure your content can be scalably created on your budget and will offer value to users.
- Optimise for mobile by ensuring the video is high quality, has a small file size to prevent slow loading times and can be oriented to fit a smaller screen.
- Keep video content short to keep your audience engaged. Recent research has shown that the human attention span is shorter than a goldfish, so keeping your video content short will increase dwell time.
Best Practices For an Effective LinkedIn Content Marketing Strategy
With LinkedIn fast becoming the primary social media platform for business, here are several best practises to follow to ensure you achieve optimal results.
Plan Content Strategy in Advance
Incorporate LinkedIn posts into your broader content strategy and use tools such as Sprout Social and Buffer to schedule posts in advance.
To achieve optimal results, start by understanding your audience – their pain points, concerns and needs – then brainstorm topics that you think would be valuable to your readership. You can also share external articles where relevant, which could help you build connections with other businesses and brands on LinkedIn.
Organise your content via a calendar to help you stay organised and highlight important days in your industry, e.g. mental health awareness day if you support a charity that raises funds for this cause or operate within the mental health sector.
Having a plan will reduce the possibility of error and save time, money, and resources.
Determine Your Frequency Strategy
As a general rule of thumb, you should between 1-5 times a day on LinkedIn, with recent statistics showing that brands that post once a month generate six times more followers than those who keep a lower profile.
Frequency is an integral part of an effective LinkedIn marketing strategy. The goal is to determine how often to post without overwhelming or frustrating your audience.
If you’re wondering how to strike a balance between how often to share content and what type of posts to publish, here are some guidelines that we’ve seen work:
- LinkedIn Status Update: 2-3 times a day
- Articles: 1-2 times a week
However, remember that nuances can vary depending on the industry, so what works for one business may not work for you. We recommend testing a few different schedules over several months to see what works best for your business.
Leverage Content Creation Templates
You wouldn’t build a house without laying down the foundation, and the same goes for content.
You can’t create content without a well-thought-out plan, even more so in the fast-changing digital world where content consumption needs are changing every minute. A content creation template could help you streamline the writing process and achieve your marketing goals.
An effective content creation template removes the guesswork by covering all elements, including:
- Thorough research
- Ideation
- Writing
- Editing
- Publishing
There are several content creation templates available on the net for free. Utilise a template that closely aligns with your content goals and use that to help strengthen your LinkedIn strategy.
We’ve also written an excellent beginner’s guide on LinkedIn Advertising which you may find very handy when building your brand awareness on the best digital business platform available.
