How to Use LinkedIn in Your Content Marketing Strategy

Social media marketing is a core part of B2B content marketing. Utilized by 83 percent of marketers, it’s the most widely used content marketing distribution tactic.

And what’s the most powerful social channel? By far, it’s LinkedIn for B2B content marketing.

LinkedIn has built up a reputation as ‘the’ social media site for B2B. It has been the top used B2B platform for years and is rated as the most effective social media platform by 63 percent of B2B marketers.

This isn’t a social media site with which you want to take a half-baked approach. LinkedIn stands out because it offers more than engagement and brand awareness. This is the platform from which unshakable professional and business reputations are built upon.

Is your organization harnessing the full potential of LinkedIn for content marketing?

3 BENEFITS OF LINKEDIN FOR B2B CONTENT MARKETING

LinkedIn offers unique advantages that you aren’t going to find on other social media platforms.

Targeted audience for better-qualified leads

When you are marketing for business products and services, there is no better network to use to connect with your potential leads. The best part about LinkedIn here is that you have access to every level of companies’ organizational structure and every size business, from Fortune 500 CEOs to the innovative and inspired heads of start-up companies.

61 million LinkedIn users are senior level influencers and 40 million are decision makers. Whomever your specific target buyers are, as long as you plan your LinkedIn strategy correctly – creating content that directly speaks to them – you’ll be able to get your content in front of the eyes of the people you need to grow your business.

LinkedIn can establish thought leadership and brand trust

Publish provocative, insightful or groundbreaking articles or videos on LinkedIn as part of your content strategy to score big in the thought leadership department. Unlike the content you may post on your own website, your email newsletters, or other channels, your LinkedIn content has the chance to be endorsed by other reputable professionals and business leaders in your industry when they comment on or like or share your post.

It is itself a resource to help you create better content

LinkedIn is more than a platform for publishing content. It’s also a resource you can use to help improve your content creation. You can access a lot of worthwhile research that other organizations are sharing. Follow the research firms in your industry to learn when new studies are published.

Click here to view: https://www.dhirubhai.net/showcase/deloitte-insights/

You can also connect with or follow other thought leaders in your industry to make sure you are up-to-date on the latest news in your organization’s niche.

WHAT CONTENT SHOULD YOU PUBLISH OR POST ON LINKEDIN?

There are different ways you can use LinkedIn within your overall content marketing strategy.

Post Articles and Updates

The meat and potatoes of your content strategy on LinkedIn will probably be to publish articles directly on LinkedIn and posts that link back to your website blog articles.

Just like the long-form blog posts on your website, you can create thought-provoking pieces on LinkedIn that offer value to readers and that demonstrate the knowledge and expertise of your organization.

You’ll also probably notice your LinkedIn articles garner a lot of views, which is great for building brand awareness. Make sure your articles are unique – not just high-quality but they need to stand out and offer something that other similar content on the web doesn’t. Master this, and your posts will get shared by other LinkedIn users and you’re going to garner more followers.

What about publishing an article on both your blog and LinkedIn? Will that count as duplicate content and become penalized by Google, or could the LinkedIn article push down your blog article in search results?

In practice, what most people are seeing is that publishing your content both on a social media site and on your blog isn’t creating a problem. LinkedIn articles, can, however, cannibalize (rank higher on search engines) your website’s content.

What’s the solution? Your blog articles should be the priority when creating written content but having a handful (or more over time) of high-quality, original LinkedIn articles published is an excellent way to build your thought leadership profile. For some fields, the extra traffic on LinkedIn may be worth it. For example, for authors and speakers, all that LinkedIn traffic can translate directly into business growth.

You can share your blog articles on your LinkedIn page as shared posts, drawing more traffic back to your website. The LinkedIn-published articles then work indirectly to increase traffic. When people enjoy your LinkedIn articles, they are more likely to view your profile page and then click on one of your shared posts that leads back to your site.

Video marketing on LinkedIn

Videos are excellent for telling your brand’s story. LinkedIn has been working on their video marketing possibilities, making a few changes with native video over the past year to help users engage with their target audience using visual content as well as written.

When you create a promotional video as part of LinkedIn Sponsored Content, it sits directly on the news feed as a standalone post, making it easy for people to see.

Click here to view: https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/blog/linkedin-news/2018/linkedin-goes-all-in-on-b2b-video

With a call to action button on the video post, you can generate more leads, getting people to register for an event, download content, or take any other action.

You can also post organic native video on your Company Page on LinkedIn, featuring products, company culture, news, and events.

Click here to view: https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6362768800445722624/

PLANNING FOR LINKEDIN SUCCESS

To get the most out of this platform, walk into LinkedIn with a clear objective and a plan for how to get there. What do you want to get out of your content publishing and activity on LinkedIn – more leads, increased traffic to your website, better-targeted engagement, more authority in your field?

What measurable goals are you going to set? What is your target timeline for your LinkedIn specific goals?

How does LinkedIn fit into your entire content strategy?

• Are you using it to build up interest about your in-person events, to announce registration information, and to publish repurposed content from your event?
• Is it funneling your audience towards your email subscriber list on your website?
• Are you announcing your white papers, eBooks, and other downloadables to your LinkedIn followers through your status updates?
• Are you interacting with other thought leaders in your industry on LinkedIn to build more trust and interest in your brand and your content?

There are countless ways you can use LinkedIn to make your B2B content marketing strategy that much more dynamic, connected, and worthwhile to your target audience. Focus on using the features that work for your organization’s content strategy and you’ll see serious results.