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There is one stumbling point that we see businesses struggle with over and over again with LinkedIn: what should you post to the platform to generate leads?
It’s easy to get caught up in the vanity metrics of likes and comments, but if you’re not seeing an increase in warm leads from the platform, something isn’t quite right in your content marketing.
In this post, we’ll cover things to post on LinkedIn (and what you should definitely avoid) to get more warm leads every month.
Want to know what demographics you should be tracking on LinkedIn to boost your results? Check out our guide here to find out.
Why Post Regularly on LinkedIn?
The keyword here is regularly. It’s easy to drop a random post on LinkedIn once in a while, but showing up consistently is how you’ll see benefits.
Here are a couple of reasons why you should start posting regularly on LinkedIn if you’re not already.
Connections are notified when you publish a post on LinkedIn
Whenever you publish a post on LinkedIn, your first-degree connections get a notification. Even if they don’t click the notification to read the post, they’re still getting a reminder about your brand every single time.
Not to mention, when you post on a consistent schedule, your followers will begin to anticipate your posts and build trust with your brand.
Provides consistent value to ideal clients
When you give consistent value to your audience without the sales pitch, you build a strong foundation of trust. This not only positions your brand as a leader in your industry but also makes your product or service seem more trustworthy.
When you give value away for free in the form of LinkedIn content, your audience will be primed to buy when it comes time to make a buying decision.
Establishes you as an authority
Whether you’re sharing industry news or how-to videos, posting regularly establishes you as an expert in your niche.
Being able to share original content regularly shows you know what you’re talking about, and your audience can rely on you for helpful information.
After a while, once you are seen as an influencer in your niche, people will be willing to pay more for your services (which are seen as premium).
How LinkedIn Posts Can Help You in Generating Leads
So we know the importance of posting regularly to establish your brand as a leader in your field, but how does this translate into generating leads?
Reach a wider audience
Whenever a connection interacts with your LinkedIn post, it becomes visible to their first-degree connections. This opens up your content to an entirely new audience and expands your potential customer base with almost no additional marketing on your end.
Get featured on LinkedIn Pulse
If a post gets a lot of traffic and engagement, it might get featured on LinkedIn Pulse. This is a surefire way to expand your audience significantly and reach more people.
There’s also the possibility of being included in LinkedIn’s weekly email update which can skyrocket your brand awareness.
But getting this kind of feature doesn’t happen instantly. It takes consistency to build up your engagement to a point where your posts become share-worthy.
Funnel potential leads to your website
Not all of your LinkedIn posts should include a link off of the social platform (these tend to get less engagement since LinkedIn doesn’t want users leaving the site).
But having a link to blog content once in a while encourages users to visit your website. Using LinkedIn to funnel potential clients to your website encourages them to reach out and will show them the value you have to offer.
Determining What Type of Content is Right for Your Target Audience
The next question is, what piece of content will get the most engagement? There’s no easy answer to this since what works for one industry won’t work for another. But there are some things you can do to help determine what your target audience wants to see.
Conduct market research
You’ve probably already done market research when you were creating your product or services, but market research can also help with content creation.
Analyzing your audience on LinkedIn will help you understand what they want to see from you, what type of content will be most engaging, and how to create a content calendar that is well-received.
Use your LinkedIn analytics to find out more about your audience including:
- Location
- Demographics
- Industries
- Competition
Knowing this will help you hone your content, figure out the best style and voice, and get started with content that connects.
Understand audience pain points
Content marketing is all about understanding your audience’s pain points and offering easy solutions.
Whenever you’re creating content for LinkedIn ask yourself:
- What problem is my target audience struggling with?
- How can I provide an easy solution?
- What goals are my target customers trying to achieve?
LinkedIn users are looking for value, so if you can show them you understand a struggle they’re having and offer a solution, you’ll always have content to keep your audience engaged.
Check out the competition
When it comes to creating specific posts, competitor analysis will be useful. Although you don’t want to simply copy whatever your competitors are doing, you’ll be able to see what types of posts get the most engagement.
Scroll through their feed and make a note of the types of posts that get a lot of likes, comments, and shares. Maybe it’s video tutorials, industry updates, blog posts, or FAQs.
You’ll quickly see patterns in what type of content does well and this will give you a good place to get started with your own content creation.
Test and tweak
Overall, the best way to figure out what your audience is interested in is to just start posting. Some posts will do well, others will get hardly any engagement at all – don’t let that stop you from posting.
Keep track of your analytics and you’ll begin to see patterns in what your audience is interested in. Once you’ve figured out themes, you can create more content they want to see.
Think of LinkedIn as one giant experiment in lead generation. Consistently test and tweak until you get the formula just right.
Things You Absolutely Should Post on LinkedIn
There are a few different post types that consistently do well on LinkedIn. Although you’ll need to tweak the delivery to your audience and industry, these are a great place to start when creating a consistent content calendar.
Industry-Adjacent content
Whether you’re a marketing company or an investment consultant, posting content from your industry vertical alone gets tedious.
Your audience won’t always be ready to buy, and so it’s important to keep them interested until they are.
An easy way to do this is to share industry-adjacent content. This means news, updates, and informational content from niches relating to your business, but not directly in your niche.
Diversifying your content this way keeps your LinkedIn page fresh and interesting while showing your audience you are a trusted source of information.
Research the latest trends
An analysis from Buzzsumo studied over 10 million headlines shared on LinkedIn and found “industry trends” were one of the most shared types of content.
Your audience uses LinkedIn to stay up to date with the latest industry news, so being a reliable source of information in your industry is key to growing your audience and establishing yourself as an expert.
Keep up to date with industry trends, news, and updates, and share these weekly with your following.
Although this doesn’t promote your product or service, it will help your brand become an influencer, and leads will quickly follow.
Tips, tricks, and how-tos
Educational content is a must on LinkedIn. This is the best way to give value to your audience and keep them coming back to you for information.
Users engage with lists, best practices, and how-to guides, so add this type of content to your calendar to boost engagement and grow your following.
Videos and presentations
Video content is huge on social media, especially LinkedIn. It’s an easy and quick way for users to digest content and it shows you are willing to give value to your audience.
Creating short how-to videos, Q&A style videos, or informative presentations will get high engagement. And if you don’t have your own video content to share yet, share industry-related content from other users to get started.
Industry predictions
In the B2B market, every business is looking ahead to the future and wants to know how to prepare for whatever that may bring.
Because of this, reliable industry predictions are incredibly popular to share on LinkedIn. Whether this is based on a recent research paper or your own anecdotal evidence, share your predictions and encourage conversation around the predictions.
Since they are predictions, you don’t have to be right or wrong. But the conversation will spark engagement around your LinkedIn post and build up your audience.
Lessons learned
Whatever industry you’re in, audiences love to hear about the failures as well as the success. So make sure to share the lessons you’ve learned in a way that offers value and honesty.
Not only does this humanize your brand, but it also helps your audience relate to your brand more and get useful tips on how to avoid any potential pitfalls they might also face.
Things to Avoid Posting on LinkedIn
When it comes to what you can’t post on LinkedIn, there are a few things you should steer clear of altogether.
1. Controversial content
LinkedIn is a great place to spark discourse and get different points of view on industry topics. But this doesn’t mean you should be polarizing in your posts.
Remember, LinkedIn really isn’t like other social networks, it’s a professional network. People don’t want to do business with people who are overly controversial or unpleasant in what they post online.
If there’s a chance a client could come down on the opposing side of a controversial topic, it’s best to avoid it completely.
2. Sales pitch posts
Years ago, it was rare to see sales pitches littering LinkedIn. It was geared towards networking and industry updates.
Now, promotions and sales pitches clog up LinkedIn. And users have become blind to them (even annoyed when they are persistent).
There’s an art to promoting your business on LinkedIn. It should be through offering value, answering questions, and giving informative content to your network.
Constant sales pitches will quickly lose followers and make your brand seem unprofessional and even spammy.
3. Personal posts
People love to see the people behind the brand, and so some personal content can be useful. However, when it comes to LinkedIn in particular, you should still keep this as professional as possible.
There’s a drastic difference between sharing updates about the staff in your firm and posting selfies from a holiday.
Platforms like Facebook and Instagram are more geared towards personal content. However, LinkedIn should focus on professional content and aim to give value each time.
That’s not to say you can’t be relatable and show the face behind your brand. But if you’re going to share a photo of your cat, make sure you link it back to something your audience wants to read about.
Tips to Make Your Content Stand Out
In a sea of content on Linkedin, your content needs to stand out to get noticed. You could write the most captivating blog post ever written but if your audience isn’t clicking on it, there’s no way to convert users into leads.
Here are some tips to make your content stand out so it gets noticed and helps generate warm leads.
Create an intriguing headline
Whether you’re writing about trends in the stock market or building rockets to get to Mars, you need a captivating headline to draw attention.
Make sure it’s simple, clear, and sparks interest (remember, you have a LinkedIn post character limit of 300). This could be asking a question, hinting at the answer to a trending topic, or sparking humor.
If you’ve got a solid LinkedIn post that isn’t getting the attention you thought it would try changing up the headline to boost engagement.
Create content that sparks conversation
Treat your audience like people you’d meet on the street. You wouldn’t just walk up to someone, show them an interesting headline and then run away. You’d ask their opinion, answer their questions, and have a conversation.
It’s the same for LinkedIn. For every post, encourage conversation by asking questions, encouraging opinions, and conversing with comments left. All of this will help boost engagement and help your content stand out.
Tell your personal brand story
No matter how ordinary your brand story may seem to you, it’s incredibly interesting to your audience. People like to know how brands started, and weaving your story into your posts helps you stand out from the competition.
It’s easy for posts to become robotic on LinkedIn, but by adding a human touch of a brand story, you’re giving a different level to your content that many competitors will miss entirely.
Use high-quality images (not stock photos!)
Did you know that LinkedIn posts with graphics get an average of 57,000 views, whereas posts without graphics get just 6,000?
Graphics drastically help posts stand out and the more original the graphics, the better. Many companies use the same generic-looking stock photos on Linkedin. (How many times have you seen a team sitting around a table in an office smiling over paperwork?)
If you have branded graphics or high-resolution images you have the rights to, these will help your posts stand out even more.
Lower the reading level
Although LinkedIn is a professional platform for business owners, entrepreneurs, and everyone in between, a lower reading level is still best.
Your network is probably filled with smart, well-educated people, a 5th- or 6th-grade reading level is easy to comprehend and digest – which is what people want when they’re scrolling through social media.
Even on LinkedIn, people switch off when they’re online. So a complex article filled with difficult words is going to be too much effort for most users to bother reading. Keep it simple to attract more readers.
Examples of Good LinkedIn Posts
Want to see everything we’ve talked about in this post in action? Let’s look at a couple of well-written LinkedIn posts that got great results.
This post is great because it starts with a catchy headline that promises to let you in on a money-making secret… and then immediately flips the script.
This keeps readers interested and stands out from the crowd.
Not only that but after calling out an industry standard that the writer doesn’t agree with, it goes on to give valuable advice that their audience can use.
Within the post, it links to their business (but not in a salesy way) and has a relevant hashtag to help it boost in rankings – a couple extra winning touches.
This post is great because it talks about a brand new industry trend that is potentially going to be a game-changer (a future prediction), and links to an article that offers tons of value.
This helps solidify the brand as a valuable resource for industry and company news and shows they are willing to go the extra mile to give their audience help and resources.
This post is great because it’s something totally different and sparks humor. The post talks about how they approached strangers and used DMs they got as opening pitches.
The DMs were obviously terrible sales pitches so they were even more ridiculous in real life. But this experiment allowed them to talk about their area of knowledge (marketing) and capture the attention of readers with a different kind of post.
Start Generating Leads
When it comes to social media, LinkedIn is one of the best platforms for B2B businesses. It’s a direct line to potential customers and allows you to showcase your brand to help stay top of mind with those leads.
Creating a consistent, relevant content calendar is the first step in building an audience and generating leads.
Once you’ve started building up that network, it’s time to follow up and convert those leads into paying customers.
To do that, you need targeted, customized outreach that nurtures leads and gets them ready to speak to your sales team.
Already reaching your target audience with your awesome posts? Reach out to them with Zopto, and boost your lead gen process.
Is it OK to post everyday on LinkedIn?
Yes, it’s okay to post every day on LinkedIn as long as your content is valuable and relevant. Over-posting, however, could potentially lead to lower engagement.
