Many B2C companies have mastered using social media to engage with customers, but social media is a great resource for B2B businesses as well – driving traffic to your website and offering the potential for increased conversions. The best platform for B2B marketing is decidedly LinkedIn, with LinkedIn reporting, “80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn, and 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content.”
Why do B2B marketers prefer LinkedIn as a marketing platform?
1. Increased Website Traffic
Posting to social media is the best way to engage with other professionals, so LinkedIn is a perfect opportunity to share any content your business has created. By producing and sharing valuable content, you become a reliable source of information. LinkedIn reports that, for B2B companies, 46% of social media traffic to their sites comes from LinkedIn.
The more reliable you are, the more authority you gain within your sphere of influence. This will help increase your engagements and boost your profile.
Sharing your company’s original content, such as whitepapers, infographics, or blog posts creates opportunities to engage with your target audience and network with other professionals, while also promoting your services.
2. Marketing Services to Other Professionals
You can promote the services your business provides through both your personal and company profiles. Including your services within your content will allow you to share information about your company without coming off as an advertisement, thus providing your reader with valuable information instead of solely promoting a service. LinkedIn is not just a networking platform, it has become a place where businesses go to find valuable solutions to their needs.
You can also directly advertise your services through your company profile. Simply sharing posts about current services, specials, or promotions will help you connect with your target audience.
To boost your posts even higher, try LinkedIn Ads. By paying to promote your posts, you are much more likely to be seen by your target audience. The key is to aim your advertising at your target audience which can be based on your buyer persona. Avoid being too narrow with your audience; you want your ads to be seen by a variety of people who could be potential leads.
3. Valuable SEO
While sharing reliable content helps you engage with your audience, search engine optimizing your LinkedIn page and posts can increase your visibility.
You will first want to make sure your blog posts are optimized. Check out our guide on Optimizing Your Blog for Social Media Marketing to learn more! Read more about how to use imagery, social sharing buttons, and optimize HTML code.
Social media makes SEO pretty simple. Start with filling out your profile. Don’t be afraid to go into detail! The more thoroughly you fill out your profile, the more information you have on your page, the more likely you are to rank well in a search result.
While doing so, pay attention to keywords. Of course, your keywords have to be relevant to your business, but you want to do more than just fit in with the crowd in your industry. Figure out your competitive edge, what makes you different from other service providers, and create your own low-competition keywords.
Small tweaks as simple as changing the URL to be more clear, professional and unique to your business can also help boost your result ranking.
LinkedIn is a great platform for any B2B company looking to engage with other professionals and promote their services. Establishing your presence on social media is an important step in promoting and growing your business.
Editor’s Note: Originally published in 2018, this article has been edited and updated for content in 2021
