- With 740 million active users,
LinkedIn has grown from a website for job seekers
to a complete social media platform that professionals use
even when they're not on the hunt.
That's why a comprehensive content strategy
on LinkedIn is crucial especially if your business is B2B.
What's up, it's Jamal from HubSpot.
In this video, I'm gonna teach you how to create
consistent and compelling content for LinkedIn
so that your company can attract business minded followers
and eventually customers.
If you find this video helpful, give it a like
and subscribe to the HubSpot YouTube channel.
And check out the links in the description
for tools that you can use
to start increasing your LinkedIn engagement today.
At its core, inbound marketing is about solving a problem
for your potential customers and a big part of that
is being where they are when they need help.
Hopefully not in a creepy way, like you're standing
over their shoulder, it's like safe distance
but like they know that you're there to help.
That's why LinkedIn is a critical tool
especially for B2B businesses.
After all, if someone is scrolling LinkedIn,
it means they're already in the business mindset.
It's a place where you can market your product or service
without competing with memes, was a little sad.
So I actually really love memes.
Let's talk about how to create content
that really works in the platform.
First, you just set up your LinkedIn business page.
This is a pretty straightforward process
that can be done in under an hour.
You'd find a link to our step by step instructions
in the description below.
LinkedIn recommends not skipping any sections
claiming that complete business pages get 30% more views.
Fully completing your business profile
also unlocks tools like Content Suggestions
which we'll talk about in just a minute.
LinkedIn has a rather creative method for letting you
invite people to follow your page while limiting spam.
Each page gets a hundred credits that can be used
to invite your personal LinkedIn contacts
to follow your page.
So a hundred is the most you can invite at once.
Every time someone accepts your invitation though,
you can get that credit back
and use that to invite somebody else.
Anyone with super admin or content admin roles
can invite their followers to your LinkedIn page.
So consider giving access to your salespeople,
marketing team and other top managers.
Anyone in your org who has a professional connection
that you want following your business page,
maybe just give it to me.
Who knows what I do with that power,
but I think the risk is exciting and worth it.
Just remember, you only get a hundred invite credits total
so you might need to spread them around strategically.
But before you invite anyone at all,
it's a good idea to build up some content.
This way, when someone receives the invite
and goes to your page,
there's actually something for them to see.
Imagine you're invited to a party,
you pull up, nobody's there.
But then the host is like, they're coming.
And you're like, I don't believe you, so I'm gonna leave.
So content.
In many ways you run your LinkedIn content
just the way you would run any other social media counter.
But some content works better on LinkedIn
than on other platforms.
For example, a quick infographic might be great
for Instagram, but an in-depth white paper analyzing
the same research could be better suited for LinkedIn.
Plus, LinkedIn has some great tools for creating content
that other platforms don't,
like the Content Suggestions tool.
You get to the Content Suggestion tool
by clicking on the Content tab of your business page.
From there, you'll be taken to a page that's just
three categories of content, Trending Articles,
Company News, and Employee Milestones.
Trending Articles is a list of content from other sources
that you might like to share with your followers.
You can filter the articles based on things like industry,
location, job function and seniority.
You could also articles that are trending
on all of LinkedIn with people who follow your page
or amongst employees of your company.
This is another way you can leverage your team's activity
on LinkedIn to support your business.
The Trending Articles come in very handy
if you follow what LinkedIn calls the 5-3-2 Rule.
This means that for every 10 posts,
five should be shared content,
three should be original content,
and two should be fun content
that gives your brand character.
Yeah!
(chuckles)
Break that out the club, you know what I'm saying?
The Trending Articles tool makes shared content a breeze
and it demonstrates engagement with your industry
as a whole, or bring valuable information to your followers.
Shared content can also include any posts
from the Company News tab of the Content Suggestion tool.
Company news is content others have created
that mentions your company.
This probably won't happen every day unless you work
for some mega brand like Apple or Netflix or Nike.
But, if you are lucky enough to get a lot of mentions,
be sure to bounce items about your company
with relevant content from the wider world.
The three in the 5-3-2 Rule is original content
that you create that adds value for your audience.
This can be explainer videos, product announcements
and any other content that helps your followers
solve a problem.
You can use LinkedIn's Articles tool
to create pieces of thought leadership
and you can use the SlideShare tool to share decks
and documents that you design for public consumption.
And the public is hungry, they'll just, they'll eat it up,
you know what I'm saying?
For more detail instructions on how to create content
for LinkedIn, you can download the HubSpot ebook.
How do you use LinkedIn for business and marketing?
There's a link in the description.
The final part of the 5-3-2 Rule, it's posting
two pieces of fun personal content that give your brand
character and a human touch.
This could be a funny meme related to your industry.
(upbeat music)
Or, maybe it's an employee announcement
that you wanna share with the world.
Remember that the Content Suggestion tool
has an Employee Milestones tab to remind you of things
like work anniversaries or promotion announcements.
This sort of content is great.
Not only because it helps humanize your brand
but it also encourages your employees to engage
with the content that you're posting.
Which is not only great for morale, it's also key for reads
since the average employee on LinkedIn has 10 times
the number of connections as their company has followers.
So, there you have it, the 5-3-2 Rule.
You might be wondering how often you need to post.
HubSpot research shows the optimum number of posts
per week on LinkedIn to be between two and five
with your best content sent out on Tuesday through Friday.
And you don't wanna post more than once a day
because the second post will just cannibalize
the reach of the first.
And obviously you wanna post during business hours.
So, that's not too bad.
One post a day, two to five days a week.
Is that all you need to do with LinkedIn?
No, there are plenty more places
to post content on LinkedIn.
You need to get serious about this, you're embarrassing me.
There are LinkedIn Groups which are well worth starting
if you can gather up like-minded customers
to talk about your brand and your industry.
Just be aware that this must be set up by a personal account
and not a business page.
Ideally, your users will set up their own groups
dedicated to your business
where your team can actively participate.
You can also make Product Pages which are sub pages
from your main business page.
And there's the Life Page which you should fill
with company photos, videos and testimonials
to attract the best talent.
You can even create custom pages that are displayed
to users based on their job function
or their language and location.
And then there are LinkedIn Nets
which can range from sponsored posts that reach users
outside of your business followers to target ads
that really deserve their own video.
And I promise we'll make that one sooner if you let us know
how much you like this video by clicking the thumbs up
or leave me a comment.
And be sure to subscribe so that you never miss a video
about LinkedIn or anything related to inbound marketing.
Now, if you'll excuse me,
I've got some super admin roles to go accept.
I'm very independent.
Until next time, come on,
who doesn't love LinkedIn ads baby?
That's just, that's cream, that's cream of the crop,
creme de la creme, creme of the cream.