Photo of author

by Karl

LinkedIn Engagement: How to Engage Your Professional Audience

Home / Content Marketing / LinkedIn Engagement: How to Engage Your Professional Audience
linkedin engagement audience

LinkedIn Engagement: How to Engage Your Professional Audience

Home / Content Marketing / LinkedIn Engagement: How to Engage Your Professional Audience
linkedin engagement audience
Dreamgrow is reader-supported. When buying products through links on the site, we may earn a commission (at no extra cost to you).

A recent(ish) report by TrackMaven shows that B2B brands are increasingly finding their niche on more casual, less business-oriented social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, and even Pinterest. But what happened to LinkedIn – the ultimate social hub for B2B marketing?

Turns out that even though B2B companies have 36 times more followers on LinkedIn compared to Instagram, they get 20 times more engagement on Instagram than on LinkedIn. Even logistics brands that perform best on LinkedIn sport an engagement ratio of only 2.48 interactions per post per 1,000 followers.

Trackmaven b2b engagement

Engagement is no doubt one of the main goals of social media marketing. 50% of LinkedIn members are more likely to buy from companies when they have engaged in their social channels. (Source: LinkedIn Marketing Solutions) So, do the low LinkedIn engagement rates mean B2B industries should pack their bags and say goodbye to LinkedIn?

Hell no!

LinkedIn as a network is growing. According to their website it had 562 million members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide and the latest nuber of linkedin monthly active users is 106 million.

Not only that, they've recently launched their own learning platform – LinkedIn Learning.

So, as a B2B brand, you are faced with a situation where heaps of people came to your party, but no one is dancing. This doesn’t mean you should shut the lights – it means you should change the music instead.

And that music is your content.

Here are 3 steps to increase LinkedIn engagement through a renewed content strategy. Unlock the potential of LinkedIn and get the party started!

1. Personas: who are you talking to?

The first step towards higher engagement is finding out who you are interacting with. Only then can you create content that people will notice and read on their LinkedIn feed. Focus on the wants, likes, and behavior of your audience, and they will reward you with their LinkedIn engagement through likes, shares, and comments.

Anonymous-audience

The common mistake B2B brands make is to write too formal and impersonal posts. The LinkedIn audience is usually seen as businesses with long, rigorous decision-making funnels and high rationale. And professional posts are seen to build trust and authority in B2B marketing. But communication happens between people, not between soul-less entities!

According to Forbes most global business decision makers are always ON, regardless of time or location. Thus, it is important to understand their emotional attitudes and personal interests. If a CEO is browsing LinkedIn during his son's soccer game, he might be still thinking of work, but his attention span is a lot shorter. So, you want to know the guy better to really get to him, in and out of office.

  • Start with LinkedIn Analytics to get a detailed demographic data about your followers. See their position in the company, level or seniority, industry and country of origin. You can also compare your follower growth to similar brands and identify posts that drive the greatest LinkedIn engagement.

Linkedin analytics demographics

  • For in-depth knowledge about your audience perform interviews. Ask open ended questions, encourage discussions and use that information to create detailed personas. Specific profiles of your followers combining demographic and behavioral data, help you build engagement and generate leads. Marketing Land has a great post on creating a persona-based content strategy.

Persona based content strategy

2. Why should they care?

Your audience consists of individuals, not institutions. The writer Dale Carnegie has said:

“When dealing with people, remember that you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”

Even in business-to-business!

Studies show that emotions play a significant part of B2B buying decisions. In fact, they account for 50% of the buying decision and not around 5% as the former point of view suggests. So B2B decision-making has become high stakes, personalized, and charged with emotion.

rational vs emotional b2b
Source: B2B International

So create content that would stand out from all the dry and boring ones. Publish articles on LinkedIn that makes people feel something! There is nothing more powerful than sparking emotion in your audience. Studies reveal that emotional campaigns can outperform rational ones by a whopping 100%.

emotional vs rational campaigns
Source: Neuromarketing

No, LinkedIn is still not the platform for ‘#sushinight #yolo’-type of posts like Instagram. Research shows:

  • 60% of LinkedIn members are interested in industry insights
  • 53% are interested in company news
  • 43% are interested in new products and services

But there are ways how to bring your informative content to life! A good example is an IT security firm Sophos who publishes industry-related news to LinkedIn in a fun and personalized way through their Naked Security blog:

LinkedIn content sophos

Check out a slide deck for more tips on how to create content in “boring” industries!

3. How to increase your LinkedIn engagement?

First of all, consistent timing and structure for your content ensure that your audience sees your posts regularly. Through that, they can recognize your brand and know what to expect when they choose to follow you. Content creator Kevan Lee from Buffer Social goes so far as to say that quality is the commodity and consistency is the key!

When to post?

Timing is everything. Famous psychologist Daniel Kahneman reveals in his book “Thinking Fast and Slow” that even judges whose decisions should be based on facts, rejected more parole requests just before lunch due to lower blood sugar levels. That's why your content needs to appear in your followers feed when they are the most receptive to it.

According to HubSpot the perfect time to post to LinkedIn is (surprise-surprise!) during office hours. The best times are from 7:30-8:30 a.m., 12 p.m. and 5-6 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

And the ultimate winning hour in LinkedIn engagement is between 10 and 11 a.m. on Tuesdays! Data from over 14 million users collected by AddThis shows that posting within that hour generates the most clicks and shares.

LinkedIn best time to post

So if you don't want your content to be “overruled,” use these statistics and nail your timing.

How often to post?

There is also a sweet spot for posting frequency. Some believe that the more content you share, the more prospects see you, and raising brand awareness will automatically boost your sales. Yet, studies show that too much communication can be harmful to relationships. High frequency will make customers less interested in you. So, aim for quality, not quantity!

Buffer Social suggests that the recommended frequency varies across platforms. While you can post to Pinterest up to 5 times a day, and twice to Facebook, limit your LinkedIn posts to once a day. 20 posts per month allows you to reach 60% of your audience! So, publish one quality post every workday to boost your LinkedIn engagement rates.

LinkedIn post frequency

What to post?

There are many models to help you build your content strategy. We used the Content Marketing Pyramid to give you an idea how to publish diverse content that will maximize your engagement:

  • Relevant information – the basis of your content strategy. Find out what your audience wants to read and cover those topics in order to win their hearts. Don’t stop with industry insights. Be opinionated or political, take a standpoint, have a soul. Here's how Google does it:

LinkedIn relevant content google

LinkedIn relevant content google

  • Teach how to do something – practical tips are a valuable content type. It is a good way to be perceived selfless and provide utility to your audience.

LinkedIn teach content HP

HP provides helpful content on team building and motivation.

  • Inspire – people want to be inspired. What could be better than helping someone to reach their potential and be great in what they do.

LinkedIn inspiring content Alibaba

Alibaba, the biggest B2B portal in the world, posts plenty of inspirational content on LinkedIn.

  • Entertain – Use both original and curated content to entertain your audience once in a while. But keep in mind your fun content should not contradict your brand.

Adweek magazine posts lightweight entertaining content to LinkedIn.

LinkedIn entertaining content adweek

LinkedIn entertaining content sophos

And here's Sophos again, rocking entertaining content as usual.

How?

Present your content in an attractive way. Like it or not, books are judged by their covers. It’s even more true in the digital world where people will skip your content if it doesn’t catch their eye. According to QuickSprout:

  • Videos result in 75% higher share rate
  • Images boost engagement in average of 98%

See our post on how to get free images to illustrate your LinkedIn posts!

free image sites

Free Images for Blogs and Marketing (46 sites)

Also, don't forget to include a call to action with a link. According to LinkedIn, links drive twice the engagement.

To wrap it up

The growing popularity of Instagram and Pinterest among B2B industries shows that the brands have started to take themselves less seriously. Thus, LinkedIn shouldn’t be taken too seriously either.

Woman relax

Breathe new life into your LinkedIn platform and make your content more relevant to your audience. Business people do have a pulse and unique personalities outside their offices. Experiment with different types of content, use visuals, post strategically, and measure results. Whatever you do, don’t be boring! And LinkedIn engagement will come your way.

_______________________
Photo credits Visualhunt

Recomended Readings