Maximising LinkedIn Free for B2B Businesses
Do you use LinkedIn effectively or shy away from it because you don’t know what to do, or even personally dislike social media?
This post is specifically aimed at founders / CEOs / GMs etc of B2B companies and is meant as an easy starter-guide to get you going.
If you are trying to grow your business, LinkedIn might be an important tool for your target audience.
I have been known to tell people:
“I don’t care what you think!” 🤭
It’s not altogether as rude as it looks or sounds (honest!) What I really mean is, you personally might not like social media generally, or LinkedIn specifically, but if it is somewhere that your prospects and customers hang out, then you need to be there.
LinkedIn is the largest business network globally, with over 1 billion members and 67 million companies. It’s an important platform for B2B businesses as it’s where our customers and prospects are.
In New Zealand, 2.3 million members use LinkedIn, a surprisingly large chunk of our population. The user base is dominated by millennials, those born between 1981-1996, who are expected to make up 75% of the workforce by 2025.
LinkedIn can help your company to build relationships, create brand awareness and build thought-leadership positioning through quality content.
It might be time to build it into your strategy.
You can go all-in and use the paid premium LinkedIn subscriptions, but in my experience, there’s a lot of mileage that can be made with the free version, especially if you are new to this.
I thought I’d share some tips on getting started, including:
Setting up your personal and company profiles and when to use each
Building your network
What to post
How to amplify
Set up Your Personal Profile
Let’s start with you.
Your profile is your first impression to the business world.
Make sure you have an up to date and professional headshot photo
Add a headline - this can be your job title, but doesn’t have to be. You can add more than one thing, be a role and / or your passion
If you work for a company, ensure you have listed this in your experience and it is connected
Upload a relevant, eye-catching banner. This is prime real estate and can be related to what you do, the organisation you work for, a key message you want to communicate. It can be striking to provide your team with a standard template
If you have colleagues or team members - ask them to go through the same checklist.
Build Your Network
There are three main reasons to build your personal network on LinkedIn:
When you share content it is only useful if people see it - you need connections and followers for this
It can help with brand building and leadership positioning
You can use it for sales activity, relationship building and business development
How many people do you meet each week at events, for client and prospect meetings? Ensure you are connected on LinkedIn.
Who are you meeting with in the next week? Can you connect prior to a meeting?
In a previous job where I met lots of people each week, I had a reminder in my diary on a Friday to go through LinkedIn and connect with everyone I’d met during the week and to send connections to those I was meeting the following week.
You can also connect with those who you have known for ages but don’t have a LinkedIn connection with.
One of the annoying things about LinkedIn is that they recently severely limited the personalised messages you can send within the free version - only 5 per month. They are clearly trying to force us to upgrade. I find this irritating, but if you are known to the person offline, I think it is OK to send a connection request with no note.
Set up Your Company Profile
Now it’s time to do the same for your company page.
Some of these are the same as your personal profile.
Upload your logo
Upload an eye-catching banner - a great branding opportunity
Add a headline - this is the one line elevator pitch, short and sharp
Include a brief description of what you do, for who and why you are different - this is your extended (not long) elevator pitch
Don’t forget to link your website
When to Set Up a Company Page Versus Your Personal Profile?
Sometimes people ask me why they need a company page on LinkedIn.
Your personal profile is best for:
Your personal relationships and connections. We connect with other humans, so this is important especially if your business relies on personal relationships and direct engagement
Thought leadership positioning, sharing insights and building your personal brand
A company page is good for:
Building branding for your organisation beyond YOU. If you have a company that you want to build equity in, that does not (or should not) simply rely on your personal relationships, you should have a separate page
Credibility-building. A bit like a website, this says ‘we exist and are credible’. This only works if the page is active and maintained!
You can also use it to showing specific products or services (as opposed to the overall company)
If you have a team, a company page is a place for everyone’s content and relevant ideas to be brought together to further build your company profile, brand and credibility. This is especially important for keeping the value within the sphere of the company, rather than having a lone-wolf building their own brand equity which they can take with them if they move on. That’s a more detailed conversation than I’m going into here though ;)
Employment branding and recruitment
What to Post
Content is only valuable if people see it, so you will need followers and connections.
Followers - one way traffic, the ‘follower’ sees your posts & updates but you don’t see theirs; messaging may only be allowed by the person setting the follow button
Connections - more of a relationship, you see each other’s updates and can message directly
Post regularly with relevant content. I suggest when you are getting started, it’s good to aim for at least one post a week. Have a consistent tone of voice for you or your company (they may be the same, or very different).
As a general rule of thumb think about the 80/20 rule: 80% valuable content, only 20% should be overtly promotional.
Lots of people complain that LinkedIn has gone a bit Facebook-esq in terms of being too overly social compared with professional, so think about where you might want to sit on this principle. Having said that, (somewhat depressingly to me as a marketer), you can spend hours finessing a really high quality piece of content which may get a few interactions, then post a photo of you having beers with clients, or out on the hills thinking about a work challenge and Bob’s Your Uncle…. the feeds go nuts! So…I think there’s a couple of lessons there:
Mix in human-interest with professional content
Even if you aren’t getting many interactions with some posts - people are watching
As my mantra is always to think strategically with any marketing activity, identify your key messages or content themes first. ALWAYS think about your audience and what would provide value for them.
Often I find people struggle to think about what to post, so I’ve got a few suggestions here to get you started:
Sharing blogs, whitepapers and news items from your website
Some of these might be new, but don’t forget to reshare old content that’s still relevant
Conference / event attending
This is an easy one to say “I’m here” but is more compelling to add your thoughts and reflections about highlights, what you have learned, what you disagreed with etc
Customer questions
What topics are your customers and prospects struggling with - write a brief answer to add value to the audience
How-to guides
Simple guides on a topic; you can create as a blog which you then share, or write as a short post
Case studies, testimonials, success stories
Great if you have them on your website, but if you don’t have a full case study using a quote or phrase and a photo is a lovely way of getting a message across
With your clients
You will often need permission for this one, but don’t assume you know their answer - a well done post should celebrate and profile-build both parties
Your team
This can be great for showing your culture to both clients, prospects and prospective employees
Introducing team members - this can be new team members and / or doing a spotlight on a specific person or team
Team activities
Insights and thought leadership
This can be your own content, which can be in-depth eg a whitepaper, or something lighter such as your reflections on a topic
Third-party reports & insights can also be shared in entirety, or highlighting a specific point
In my experience, once you start brainstorming topics, there is a wealth of opportunities both for quick LinkedIn posts and more in-depth content.
Tips 💡
Here are some quick tips for making the most of your posts:
Include images or video
@ mention relevant people / organisations
Use emojis and other ways of breaking up the post & making it easier to read - LinkedIn post’s formatting is super limited
Use the … 3 buttons at the top of the post to pin post to top of your profile and to share with your team
Build Connections
When you start you’ll have zero followers, so you need to invite people to follow your company page. Only do this step once you have some content on the page to make it interesting and engaging for people to visit.
You will need Admin access for this.
Go into Admin access
On the bottom of the left hand menu bar select Invite to Follow
You’ll see all your personal connections
Check the box and send invite. Don’t over-think it, don’t spend time working out who and why….you will be surprised by the number who will follow your page
On the free LinkedIn there is a monthly limit on invites, so I suggest you make a start and just schedule this into your monthly plan (or get someone to do it on your behalf). If you have a team, you can share admin access with them to go through the same exercise.
Me Versus My Company?
To post something as you personally, or on your company page is a conversation I often have with clients.
It’s an easy answer if you have a bigger organisation with regular content being produced from marketing.
If you are a smaller organisation, especially with a founder/owner it can sometimes seem confusing if you should post content yourself or as the ‘company.’
There is no black and white ‘right’ answer here, but I’d suggest:
If you are trying to build the profile of the organisation away from the founder, then the initial post should be on the Company Page
If you are trying to build credibility of an individual as a thought leader then the initial post should be from the person
If it is clearly a personal opinion, then this should also be from the individual
However, once you have posted on one page you can go in and reshare through the other page profile.
How to Amplify
Finally (as I could go on and on and on!!), here are some quick definitions of those little icons under a post. Likes, shares, and comments signal to LinkedIn’s algorithms that content is good as it keeps people on the platform longer; with reposting and comments are the things you want to encourage most. Once you have posted, encourage people (including your team) to jump on and interact as a way of boosting your post and keeping it visible for longer.
You can also use these when you are interacting with other people’s content, a good way to build a relationship with them.
Like (etc) - shares in your feed to others (without your comments), but is pretty lame in my book
Comment - profiles your knowledge and interest; encourages others to interact; keeps the conversation going with a wider audience
Repost - takes the original post to all your followers immediately
Repost with your thoughts – allows you to add a comment or share to a group, this is a great way of adding in a ‘value-add’ message and perspective
Send - personal & private message, good for hand-picked contacts who you are building a relationship with
Take Action
If you are looking to grow a B2B business, LinkedIn should be part of your toolbox. This is hopefully a good starter to get you going and explain some of the foundations.
I’m all about strategic marketing being effectively executed - ie take action!! Don’t just read this and think about doing something. Commit to the first 3 actions you need to get started:
My action
My action
My action
If you find you still need some help, get in touch:
Quick questions - please shout out directly
Show you: LinkedIn Getting Started workshop - 2 hour hands-on to help you and your team get set up and build confidence
Done for you - talk with me for:
LinkedIn set-up, including setting up new, or giving love to existing pages
Posting plan so you know what to post
Social media posting - regular posting on your social media feed
Get In Touch
I provide leadership, support and direction for growing Kiwi tech and innovation companies as a ‘virtual’ (remotely) or 'fractional' (part-time) Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) - an affordable way to get senior thinking and direction for businesses.
If you could do with some help to grow your business, get in touch
Helen Shorthouse
Virtual / Fractional Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)