Using LinkedIn for B2B Marketing

Lauren Owens - January 8, 2015

For many B2B marketers, LinkedIn is the social network with the most potential for building brand awareness and driving traffic. But many businesses are not taking full advantage of the network. If you’re one of them, read on. In this post we’ll look at six best-bet tactics for marketing your business to other businesses on LinkedIn.

Building a Well-Branded “Home” On LinkedIn

The Company Page is a company’s “home” on LinkedIn. To succeed, it should be well-branded and regularly updated with a combination of company news and industry insights.

To “brand” your Company page, use a 646 x 223 banner image and descriptive “about” content that accurately and succinctly describes your business.

Using Showcase Pages

Showcase pages are ideal for larger organizations with separate divisions that naturally have different audiences. For example, Microsoft has showcase pages for their various software packages because these products cater to different audiences who might require different information.

Showcase pages build unique audiences, and therefore must be updated separate of the main Company Page. So, if you’re struggling to keep your main company page updated, this option is probably not the best for you right now. But, if you want to build connections with a distinct part of your company’s wider audience, Showcase Pages can be a great tool.

Making Page Updates

Much of the power of using LinkedIn for B2B marketing lies in LinkedIn’s captive audience. This audience is active during business hours, Monday through Friday. This is when you should post updates.

Your Page Updates should offer value to your current audience, and your ideal audience. This is the same type of industry news and insights you might offer on your blog or in your newsletter, so posting links to this content is a great start. If you don’t have enough content to regularly “feed” your LinkedIn Company Page, look to industry blogs and business news and share links to the news and information your audience would find valuable.

Establishing Experts

LinkedIn is the place for your industry experts to shine. Thanks to the LinkedIn Publishing Platform, which enables users to publish long form posts, your experts have a new place to demonstrate their expertise.

To use the platform effectively, strategically choose the personnel you want to establish as thought leaders. This could be members of your executive staff, or department heads. It’s a bonus if these individuals have large networks of their own, and publish thought leadership in other venues. But don’t be held back if your experts are just getting started. Everybody starts somewhere!

Building Your Network Organically

Everyone hates when strangers try to connect on LinkedIn, so don’t be that person. Instead, connect with people you encounter in your everyday work-life. This could be new or potential clients, or people you meet at trade shows. To encourage people to seek you out, you can include your personal LinkedIn URL on your business cards. Of course, you can also link to your company’s LinkedIn page from your website, email signatures and email marketing collateral.

Advertising on LinkedIn

Of course, there are paid options for engaging the LinkedIn audience. LinkedIn enables advertisers to host text ads, video ads, and text with video ads. It also offers the ability to host “sponsored updates,” which is the Facebook equivalent of a “boosted” post.

With the exception of sponsored updates, LinkedIn ads are not as prominently displayed as those on other networks. But with the right targeting and messaging, LinkedIn ads can and do work. If your audience is heavily B2B and you haven’t yet built up a large following on LinkedIn, these paid options can be a great way to drive traffic and get noticed.