Wondering how to create a LinkedIn content marketing strategy? Not sure what to post?
In this article, we’ll talk about successful content marketing and will help you to implement a LinkedIn content marketing strategy that works.
Why LinkedIn Is a Good Social Media Platform For Content Marketing
The creation of valuable content in order to attract, engage, and build a relationship with your target audience is the foundation of content marketing.
Offering content that gives value and solve problems to your audience not only boosts conversions, but also builds customer loyalty.
LinkedIn is the most suitable channel for B2B, and when you share great LinkedIn content, the algorithm of the platform tries to reinforce your connection with anyone who sees that content. And it does that, even if they are distant connections.
It is critical to remember that the majority of LinkedIn users are constantly looking for new content to educate and compare themselves with. This mindset also affects the publication’s content’s length, the most appropriate subject, and nature—instructional and informative.
How To Create a LinkedIn Content Marketing Strategy
There are several aspects we have to take into consideration, yet it all begins setting goals and smart objectives.
1. Setting clear goals
One of the mistakes some companies do is to just set vague and generic goals. Goals drive the direction, but then you need to break the goal down into more specific, measurable objectives in order to get results.
Here are some common LinkedIn goals:
- Brand awareness
- Lead generation
- Increase sign-ups
- Build community
- Getting more customers
2. Identifying metrics to analyze results
Once you set your goals, and your smart objectives, you can start thinking about the metrics.
What are the most common metrics? There are 3 main groups:
- Metrics that measure notoriety – such as followers, reach, website visits, etc.
- Metrics that measure engagement—like comments, reactions, and so on.
- Metrics that measure conversions—such as sign-ups, sales, leads…
3. Defining your target audience
Who do you want to attract and engage on your LinkedIn Page? This is important since we have to create content that fulfills that audience’s needs.
When your audience comments, take advantage and engage with them. One great way to do this is by asking questions.
Knowing our goals, and smart objectives, the metrics that will help us to evaluate the achievement of them, and our target, we are ready to elaborate the editorial strategy.
4. Outlining the editorial strategy
The editorial strategy should contain not only the content you are going to publish, but also the social communication plan.
First, we brainstorm the main topics, and we will divide them into categories. We do that in order to schedule posts on different categories throughout the month.
Then we set the frequency and timing of publication.
In general, LinkedIn users are most active from Tuesday to Thursday right before and after work (7-8 am and 5-6pm). At noon is also a good time. However, we recommend you to test what are the best days and times.
5. Type of content
We dive in to the core of the content marketing strategy: finding the best content-type fit.
What are the main content types supported by LinkedIn:
- LinkedIn’s statuses. You can post text-only, image-only, or both combined. It’s a great way to large reach.
With a status, you can share documents (pdf, words, PowerPoint files…) allowing you to build authority.
You can also leverage the benefits of video content. It’s perfect for storytelling, but time-consuming if you have to produce them.
- LinkedIn’s articles are the best way to share long-form content on LinkedIn.
Although it’s content that get indexed by Google and other search engines, it has limited features and analytics. It can require promotion to reach purposes.
If you are publishing regularly, you may turn them into a newsletter.
Remember to be creative.
6. Content to share
In order to find your sweet spot, think of content you can create, content your audience likes and needs, and content that allows you to qualify your audience.
Depending on your objectives, here are some content opportunities you can create:
Brand awareness:
- Company news
- Blog posts
- Infographics
- How-to content
Lead generation:
- EBooks
- White papers
- Case studies
Event registration:
- Case studies
- Industry articles
Related Content: What to share your LinkedIn company page
Free Tools to schedule LinkedIn posts
In order to save time and keep posting consistently, you might consider scheduling your LinkedIn posts.
Here we are sharing some of the free tools you can start using right now:
- Inlytics offers a free-tier of 3 posts per month. This tool is focused on LinkedIn and its analytics.
- Buffer is a well-known tool. You can schedule 60 posts/ month with the free plan.
- Publer, with a generous free-tier, allowing you to schedule up to 10 posts per month.
LinkedIn Posts Best Practices
We want to share with you a few tips that will help you maximize your LinkedIn content efforts.
- Engage with your audience. Take any opportunity to promote conversation.
- Use hashtags to categorize your content. LinkedIn recommends using 3 hashtags per post.
- Be authentic. Remember the 80/20 rule. Use only 20% of your content to promote your company.
- Be consistent to build trust.
- Offer exclusive content for LinkedIn users.
- Avoid being a spammer.
- Leverage your content by sponsoring them.
Conclusion
Creating a successful content marketing strategy requires a long-time commitment to create and deliver valuable content to your audience.
The above step-by-step process will help you to be more efficient and build momentum, so your efforts are ultimately paid off.