Say it louder with LinkedIn.

22nd March 2024

An IDC survey discovered that 75% of B2B buyers use social media to make purchasing decisions.

If you are being honest, how does your social media presence stack up? Are you making the most of marketing your business across the right platforms?

Which social platform is best for business?

Every business is different, and just so, every marketing strategy should be too. When it comes to social media marketing, you should take the time to consider where your audience sits.

Whilst, for many businesses, there is still justification for utilising Instagram and Facebook to advertise a brand, LinkedIn is rapidly moving through the ranks. I have seen a huge shift over the past few years, in the value of LinkedIn, when its usage is applied to marketing strategies.

Once only the playground of business leaders and recruiters, it has become a platform where individuals are actively encouraged to nurture a personal brand and where decision-makers are searching for potential partners to support their own businesses.

So, why the rise in popularity?

LinkedIn knows its place. It focuses solely on the world of business, and whilst this started as a very corporate place to hang out, thankfully,  as the world of business has changed to accept more freelancers, creatives, online businesses and entrepreneurs, Linkedin has loosened up.

For those who have been on LinkedIn as long as I have, you too will certainly have noticed the shift. It is friendlier, more supportive and more open than it used to be.

In fact, much of the time I find more people giving honest and candid narratives of their work life (and home life too) than I find on any other platform. I see less negativity in the comments than in places like Instagram and TikTok, and instead, there is a sense of camaraderie. Of course, some of this comes from choosing your connections wisely. 

More and more people are dabbling or actively using LinkedIn. Users hit 1 billion in 2023. Whilst the majority share still lies with the US, UK users are increasing steadily; in January 2024, there were around 39.7 million LinkedIn users in the United Kingdom, up from 39.2 million in November 2023.

The key to unlocking organic growth on social

Let’s rely on the adage –  people buy from people. It’s a fact. 
When it comes to social media, organic traffic (that’s the interactions, engagement and clicks that you don’t pay for) is getting harder to come by. Interestingly, 40% of LinkedIn visitors organically engage with a business page every week.  Whilst unfortunately,  I don’t have the data for a direct comparison to Facebook, I can tell you that as of July 2023, the average engagement rate of an organic Facebook post ranges from 2.58% down to just 1.52%.

And this is exactly where your opportunity lies; in your people. According to LinkedIn’s ‘Official Guide to Employee Advocacy’,  employees will have 10x more connections than a company page has followers. With that in mind, it makes sense.  Encourage them to share your company updates and their own insights, and you will receive more exposure.

In addition, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, people are 3x more likely to trust company information shared by an employee than that shared by a CEO. (Best I stop bothering then!). 

Insightful articles and opinions are key

As has been the case for a while, creating informative articles and opinion-led blogs that support your company’s viewpoint and showcase expertise does not only prove to Google that you deserve a nice spot in the rankings, but arguably more importantly, that great bespoke content helps to engage with real-life people. And we love those connections.

Again, it helps to have your own team all sharing the same message, as the click-through rate (CTR) on a piece of content shows to be 2x higher when shared by an employee, versus when shared by the company itself.

As an added bonus, we are seeing more and more content posted to LinkedIn showing up in the search engines too, which is a winner for pulling traffic back towards your website. 

Yet, despite this, only 3% of employees share content about their company, so it can’t make too much of a difference, can it? Hold up. It turns out that those meagre shares are responsible for driving a 30% increase in the total engagement a company sees. What!

It’s a huge missed opportunity for businesses, particularly lovely local ones that thrive from authentic connections. 

I hear you. It begs the question, why are more people not sharing company content?  I have the answer to that…

Encouraging your team to use LinkedIn 

We run LinkedIn workshops, both from our Norwich-based studio and out and about in clients’ workplaces. We begin by asking teams why they don’t share more about themselves (or their place of work) on LinkedIn.

In my experience, business owners tend to think it is due to the employees not wanting to align themselves publicly with the business. As a result, they often don’t like to ask it of their teams, but this is never the answer we are presented with.

It actually almost always comes down to one thing. Confidence.

People are scared. Of sharing the wrong thing. Of doing it the wrong way. Of saying the wrong thing. Sometimes, they have never even set foot in the world of LinkedIn and they just don’t know where to start.

With a little help and guidance though, we witness a huge uplift in organic engagement for the teams we work alongside, often leading to conversions and always contributing to increased brand awareness. 

The figures really do speak for themselves; salespeople who regularly share relevant content are 45% more likely to exceed their targets. Plus, leads developed through employee social marketing convert more frequently than others and socially engaged companies are 57% more likely to see increased sales leads.

It is great for the employees themselves too, with LinkedIn allowing them to develop their personal brand, show their skills and showcase their portfolios, kind of like an electronic CV if we are going all 90s about it.

Of course though, as with all successful strategies, there should be some rules in place. You can’t just start posting willy-nilly and expect to see an increase in enquiries.

Our workshops are designed to support you and your employees to build their confidence with LinkedIn. We help to set up pages and profiles, offer simple dos and don’ts, align your employees’ personal pages with your brand’s voice and teach you some trade secrets of course. And yes, as always, we bring the biscuits.

So if you are looking to extend your reach and connect with the right audience, it’s probably time to get to grips with LinkedIn.

Ps. If you are interested in reading more, lots of my data came from The Official Guide to Employee Advocacy.

What will it be, your place or ours?

To arrange a LinkedIn training workshop for your team, get in touch.

It is easiest over the phone as we love a natter, but if not our handy form below will help you connect with the right person this end.