Storytelling is an essential way to connect with your target audience because most of our thinking takes place in the subconscious, where logic and reasoning make little impact. It’s a given then that your audience’s mindset dramatically influences how well your story connects and engages. Fortunately for you, professional audiences are in the right mindset on LinkedIn. This is a channel where people expect to be taught, entertained, and inspired. Plus, on LinkedIn, your stories can blend the emotional and visual, inviting your audience to immerse themselves in a memorable experience.
It’s a powerful way to create an association with your brand with hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people. Imagine the impact you can have with each message you deliver as the owner of brand content shared on social!
Create a Content Roadmap
So how do you come up with and share the best stories on LinkedIn?
Step one: Set up your LinkedIn Page (more on that shortly).
Step two: Create a content strategy tied to your goals, outlining what you want to achieve through your time spent on LinkedIn (e.g., generate brand awareness or leads, establish your company as a thought leader). To succeed, you need to provide valuable content in exchange for member engagement, which starts by gaining a deep understanding of your audience. With this insight, you can tell a relatable story that grabs attention by tapping into your audience’s motivations and priorities.
Step three: Be relevant by figuring out what information draws in your audience, what topics interest them, what challenges they’re facing, what goals they’re trying to achieve.
Step four: Determine your social media goals, which may include:
- Showcasing your brand's thought leadership
- Building brand awareness through campaigns, posting about events your brand is attending and sharing photos to showcase events, company outings, etc.
- Generating leads (such as by promoting webinars, content downloads, etc.
If you’re on tap to impact metrics at every stage of the buying cycle, consider these potential goals:
- Increase interest/awareness by driving more LinkedIn Page subscribers, likes and comments on our content.
- Move potential buyers toward a decision by getting them to opt in to a list or sign up to download an asset.
- Encourage buyers to choose your solution by driving them to contact sales or schedule a demo.
Now you have a content roadmap representing the intersection of your audience’s interests and your goals, helping you define content that satisfies both your audience and company needs.
Make Your LinkedIn Page the Destination
A LinkedIn Page can help you keep your brand top of mind with the more than half a billion professionals on LinkedIn. It’s often one of the first pages LinkedIn members visit to learn about your company, giving you the chance to attract and interact with your audience.
Your posts will appear on your LinkedIn Page and in the news feed of each of your followers across all devices and platforms. You can catch the eye of prospective customers by featuring relevant and creative content (think eBooks, entertaining posts, and how-to content). By delivering useful content, you foster engagement and help your brand’s story spread fast.
Treat your LinkedIn Page as a dynamic marketing tool and the possibilities are nearly endless. Here are just a few of the ways to take advantage of it:
- Establish authentic connections with members by leveraging employee voices. Seamlessly reshare articles your employees are publishing on LinkedIn.
- Showcase the very best of your company. Instantly re-share the best mentions of your brand on LinkedIn.
- Highlight what makes your company unique. Post richer content, including white papers and other documents and seamlessly integrated videos.
- Establish thought leadership. Figure out what content your target audience cares about most using our Content Suggestions feature and then publish it.
- Drive more of the results you care about. Add a free button to your profile that can send traffic to your website, point people to a sales rep and more.
- Work in a way that works for you. Never miss a chance to engage your followers and grow your brand by posting to and updating your LinkedIn Page - and responding to comments - whether you're on mobile or desktop.
- Tap into the power of your creativity. For inspiration, check out these LinkedIn Page posts:
Represent Your Brand
You’re the voice of your brand in the social media realm and want to represent it well. Beyond understanding your company’s brand guidelines and putting your best foot forward, you can humanize and showcase the best of your brand on LinkedIn. When a member mentions your brand – whether through a customer testimonial or a video tagging your brand – you’ll be notified and can instantly re-share.
We also encourage you to stand out. If it fits with your brand’s identity, use humor and even take a contrarian viewpoint where fitting. If you can entertain while sharing knowledge, you’ll score big, greatly boosting the odds of your content being shared. Moreover, challenging a preconceived or widely held belief is a sure way to get your audience to engage!
Build Trust
Beyond achieving your marketing and company goals, nothing matters more than building trust with your audience. Remember: Your audience is going to base their business decisions on your content, so they need to trust the source. That’s where direct personal interaction and peer influence come into play.
While your LinkedIn Page is an invaluable conduit for connecting with potential and existing customers, your employees typically have 10x the reach of your LinkedIn Page. So amplify their voice to build trust for your brand.
Keep in mind that trust also hinges on content quality over quantity. According to Edelman, the quality of writing and visuals is the most important criteria for someone determining whether they trust a brand’s social media content.
We asked our seasoned team of LinkedIn social media managers why trust matters and how to build up a deep well of it. Here’s their advice:
“Find out what they are most interested in learning from your company and use creative forms of content to deliver that information. Engage with your followers and allow for opportunities for them to engage with your brand.” – Ismael Verduzco, former Social Media Manager at LinkedIn
“The more human and relatable you are in your tone and your ‘look and feel,’ the more your audience will likely feel that you are coming along with them on their journey and that you’re there to help them every step of the way. People see that and want to be a part of that type of feeling and movement. It naturally draws them in.” – Allie Brewer-Hay, Community Manager at LinkedIn
“When thinking about content to share, ask yourself, ‘What value will the audience get out of this?’ Or ‘Would I share this?’” – Page Williams, Sr. Marketing Manager at LinkedIn
“A community will gather around your brand and your content if you are: 1) helpful 2) human and 3) heartfelt (understanding, empathetic of the audience’s needs).” – Derrick Chung, Social Media Manager at LinkedIn
Ready to tell your brand story? Download The Social Media Manager's Guide to LinkedIn and get started!
