Marketing

Why is Thought Leadership Content Important?

Thought leadership content is one of the greatest things your business can generate in terms of value. Done correctly, you could drastically increase your brand’s reputation as a thought leader in your industry. But why is this content so important for your business?

Thought leadership content is a crucial part of your marketing funnel because it helps you to attract and retain the right customers. When I was creating my client’s LinkedIn ad strategy, thought leadership was the first step in the marketing funnel.

Your thought leadership content should be based around topics that are relevant for your target audience and should provide them with information that they can’t find anywhere else. Thought leadership:

  • Helps build trust with your audience
  • Improves your brand’s reputation
  • Allows you to reach new audiences
  • Helps you stand out from the crowd

How to create thought leadership

Here are three steps to create thought leadership in your niche:

  • Create a persona for your ideal customer
  • Create a list of questions they might have about you or your product/service
  • Answer those questions using your expertise

Then, create the content by writing it down and publishing it, or recording a podcast. When you create thought leadership content, you’re essentially making yourself a resource. You have great ideas that no one has ever shared before. By sharing, you’ll be helping your ideal customers…which will make them more likely to buy from you.

You can use this content to demonstrate that you’re an authority on your topic, and it will also help you connect with potential customers by showing them that you understand their problems and can offer solutions.

Thought leadership content is one of the most important types of content you can create, because it helps you to stand out from your competitors and position yourself as the expert in your field.

Key characteristics of thought leadership

What makes content thought leadership, and not just generic content? Here’s differentiates thought leadership:

  • It isn’t generic
  • It has original insights and ideas
  • It answers the audience’s needs
  • It’s genuine
  • It’s created with purpose (besides selling)

Here’s a checklist to follow to ensure you’re creating thought leadership:

  • Is this content the first of it’s kind (not just repeated from hundreds of other blogs)?
  • Is your viewpoint unique, and possibly even unexpected?
  • Are you providing insights that others don’t have?
  • Are you providing direct recommendations?

If you answered you’ve checked every question off as “yes,” then you’ve got yourself a great topic to create thought leadership.

Does thought leadership lead to conversions?

Is thought leadership really that important? I’m telling you, yes—but I get it. You want to see the statistics.

For business-to-business (B2B) marketing, thought leadership led 57% of decision makers to purchase. Especially for B2B businesses, thought leadership content is king. However, it can (and should) still be used by business-to-consumer (B2C) content marketers.

Thought leadership needs to be written well

38% of senior executives were turned off by thought leadership content because it was difficult or boring to read. Since thought leadership content is so essential to developing your brand, you need to invest in a great writer.

I love creating thought leadership pieces—in fact, it’s my favorite way to spend the day. If you have ideas you want me to turn into great content, I’d be ecstatic to learn your unique viewpoints and create the content.

Set up a brief consultation

5 Tools to Streamline Marketing Efforts

Marketing is a key part of any business, but it’s easy to get bogged down in everything you have to do. Streamlining your marketing efforts is the best way to get more done in less time. There are many tools out there for digital marketers to streamline their efforts. So which ones should you use?

To help you avoid feeling overwhelmed, we’ve created this blog to share 5 tools to help you improve your ability to manage your workload. Marketing is hard, so let’s make it easier.

5 tools to streamline your marketing efforts

Here are 5 tools to decrease the amount of time you spend on marketing.

1. Project management tools

A project management tool can keep the whole team on track! It lets you create projects, assign tasks, and keep track of progress all in one place. The beauty is that you can customize this tool as little or as much as you want. You can choose from a bunch of different templates that might fit with your workflows, or you can build projects from scratch if you’d prefer.

Either way, a project management tool makes it easy to see what everyone’s working on at any given moment so they don’t have to spend time filling each other in on where they left off. It helps marketers easily manage their tasks, and alerts managers when they complete tasks.

Some common examples include Asana (my personal favorite), Monday.com, Trello, and Microsoft Teams (which also allows for video chatting). No matter which one you pick, it’s guaranteed to help teams collaborate. Plus, it helps individual marketing creators manage their own projects.

2. Google analytics

This tool allows marketers to track website traffic and analyze data which can be used for future marketing campaigns. It’s great for seeing how much traffic is coming from social media sites like Twitter or Facebook. It’s also great for finding out where people spend most of their time on your site, so that you can optimize it accordingly.

You can also use Google analytics to create ads. Using the tool, you will be able to optimize your ads for maximum ROI. Google analytics gives you advanced statistics on what your viewers are doing and how they are reacting to your ads. This is important because it helps you understand if your ad is working or not, so you can make adjustments to it that will make it more effective.

You can also use google analytics to target specific demographics. There are many different ways that you can use this feature, such as by age group or location. For example, if your ad is targeting people between the ages of 18-35 then you should focus on that age group because they are more likely to buy from you than someone who is older than 35 years old.

Aside from ads, you can use Google’s keyword ad planner tool to improve your ad strategy. This helps you determine whether or not you want to add certain keywords into your strategy. If the keyword has very little competition and a high search volume (meaning lots of people are searching for it), then it may be worth adding it to your strategy. If there are too many searches and not enough results, though, then it might not be worth paying for advertising on those terms.

Overall, Google’s tools will make your life much easier.

3. Social media management tools

When you’re creating social media content, the inspiration often comes in waves. You don’t want to be dragged down by the tedious process of constantly posting on social media manually.

Social media management tools allows you to access multiple social media accounts from one interface. It allows you to schedule posts in advance or even schedule them based on when your followers are online most often. The tool will automatically post your posts whenever you schedule them to go live.

Many social media scheduling tools also provide analytics related to your posts so that you can see what’s working (and what’s not). Good social media scheduling tools include Hootsuite and Buffer. Buffer has a great free option if you’re a small business owner on a tight budget.

4. Email platforms

Email tools are another great way to save time and automate the marketing process. Email platforms can help you save time by using pre-made templates that you can customize to fit your brand, so you don’t have to waste precious hours designing from scratch. These platforms allow you to create and send emails from one central dashboard.

Email platforms can also help marketers save time by making it easy to segment customers based on data such as purchase history and demographics, allowing marketers to send customized messages that will resonate with specific groups of customers. This makes marketing more effective because recipients are more likely to be interested in the offers being sent—and less likely to unsubscribe or delete them before even opening.

Marketers often have a huge to-do list, which means they need help getting things done efficiently and in an orderly manner. Email automation tools provide marketers with the ability to set up workflows that assign tasks to the proper team members, send out timely get their tasks done faster. These systems can save marketers hours every week!

Some great examples of email platforms include Mailchimp and Emma.

5. Design tools

Design tools cut down the time it takes to create eye-catching visuals.

There are lots of different options available, but my favorite is Canva. It’s a user-friendly platform with a drag-and-drop interface that makes designing everything from social media graphics to book covers insanely simple—even if you don’t have any design experience. You can choose from professionally designed templates and just swap out the text or upload your own images, all within minutes.

Plus, you can use the same template over and over again, so you’ll never have to worry about spending hours designing graphics from scratch each time you want to promote a new blog post or product launch. You can also use the templates that Canva provides. It’s very specific: You can design anything from LinkedIn posts to marketing postcards on the tool.

Using these tools will cut down on the time it takes for you to design your ads, blog posts, and other content.

Embrace digitization

Sometimes it seems like the marketing team is one of the hardest working groups in any business. From tracking down leads to staying on top of social media trends and monitoring analytics, it can feel like there are a lot of obstacles to overcome when you work in marketing. But hopefully, this blog post helped you understand how to streamline your efforts to decrease time wasted on tedious tasks!

How the Best Marketing Designs are Made

Creating and designing marketing designs is difficult. It takes a lot of effort and patience in order to create professional and stunning designs, especially if you want to break out of the norm. This can be made even more challenging by a lack of resources or knowledge.

What’s the difference between an average marketing design, and a brilliant one? A good designer will tell you: It’s their ability to think like the audience. And I know you’re thinking that’s impossible—but guess what? It isn’t. Join me as I show you what makes a marketing design excellent.

The importance of great design

Everyone wants an original, inspiring, and compelling design for their marketing collateral. But it’s very difficult to achieve this. It may appear simple, but the process is challenging. There are many things to take into account when designing marketing collateral—a clever process behind it all.

Companies now need higher-quality design than ever before. It makes your brand appear more professional and trustworthy. After all, if you can’t design appealing marketing collateral, most consumers won’t take you too seriously. 60% of consumers avoid companies with unattractive logos.

Marketers know how important designs is as well. 64% of marketers claim that visual content is an essential aspect of their marketing strategy.

Design plays a role in both printed and digital marketing collateral, including:

  • Social media posts
  • Blogs
  • Emails
  • Websites
  • Ebooks
  • Informational postcards
  • Videos
  • Apps
  • Sell sheets
  • Promotional sheets
  • Pamphlets
  • Marketing mail

A clean, professional design is essential if you want to elevate your marketing strategies.

Consistency is key, but know when to break the “rules”

Consistency across fonts, colors, and other themes in your marketing designs makes your brand look more professional. It also makes it easier for people to remember you. If you’re constantly pushing out marketing designs that aren’t consistent, it can be disorienting.

Make decisions about your brand. What fonts, colors, and types of pictures do you want to use consistently? Are there any go-to designs or patterns your marketers should choose? On the opposite end, are there any choices designers should never make when it comes to your brand? Document your decisions so you can easily share it as new marketers join your team.

Don’t worry about being boring: For specific campaigns, it can be interesting to be bold and stray from your normal designs. For example, use a separate font or color for that campaign. It can create an exciting contrast that draws attention to the campaign. Keep in mind, this should only be done occasionally. But here are some tips:

  1. When planning your marketing design, the first thing you need to do is set clear goals for it. You should think about the following when setting your goals: who is this marketing campaign directed at? What action do I want my audience to take when they see this campaign?
  2. Next, you should do research on what other companies have done in the past with similar campaigns. This will help give you insight into how other companies have approached their marketing designs so that you can improve upon them for your own company’s designs.
  3. Pick a new font, color, and image-type for the campaign, all of which will be different than what your designers would usually do.

You may find that being bold for campaigns helps you reach new audiences and draw in more customers. But overall, being consistent is the way to go.

There’s no room for mistakes

Designing marketing materials that are going to make your business stand out requires extreme attention to detail. Avoid making any mistakes that could potentially hurt your brand and cause people to be turned off by what you have to offer.

Understand this: Mistakes are going to happen. But they need to get corrected before they get published. Even worse, before they get printed. Because once your marketing collateral is printed and handed out, there’s no going back. You want to avoid that forehead-slapping moment where you notice a mistake long after the content has been published or printed.

It’s important to not only have detail-oriented designers, but also have multiple pairs of eyes on the design before it gets finalized. Upper-level marketing management should be ensuring that every single detail is accurate. In marketing, every single detail is essential to nail. No mistakes make you look better and helps you gain trust with your audience, but it also helps you avoid missing any leads. For example, if you put the wrong email address, then that marketing content failed to bring you leads.

Common mistakes to avoid

When making marketing materials, we often miss the little things that can make all the difference in our final product. Here are some details to keep an eye out for:

Keep an eye on these small details and you’ll be well on your way to great marketing design!

Think of your audience first

Remember: The design is not for you. When you’re making a decision about what to do with your marketing campaign, don’t consider yourself first: Instead, think about whether what you’re doing will benefit the people who will be engaging with it.

If you keep your audience in mind when you’re designing, you’ll end up with a better design every time. So before you start designing anything, ask yourself: Who am I trying to reach with this? What are they interested in? How can I connect with them in a meaningful way? How can I make this experience easier for my consumers? This will help you make sure that your design speaks directly to your audience.

The more you put your audience first, the more likely they are to enjoy what they see and engage with it in a meaningful way. After all, at its heart, marketing is just a conversation between you and your audience. Be sure that conversation is friendly—and that it’s always focused on them!

A Marketing Guide to Hiring Freelance Writers

Writing. Editing. Proofreading. Blogging. Social media management.

Obviously, content creation and marketing is a must for any online business today. Unfortunately, the cost of hiring these services can get expensive. For example, you might accidentally hire too many writers that aren’t effective enough. Ineffective writers can’t get you the return on investment (ROI) you need.

That’s why it’s smart to consider freelance writers to not only handle the writing, editing, and proofreading, but also to get content creation off your plate entirely—so you have time to focus on the other aspects of your business.

Hiring freelance writers is a great way to help you create quality content for your marketing efforts.

Why hire a freelance writer?

If you’re running a marketing team, you know that high-quality content is essential. But with the enormous demand for fresh, original, high-quality content, it can be overwhelming to keep up with. That’s why great marketers everywhere are turning to freelance writers—to help them stay on top of the content game and ensure their company’s success.

But how do you find the right writer? How do you make sure they deliver what you need in a timely fashion? And how do you build a relationship that lasts? In this blog post, I’ll explain through all the basics of hiring freelance writers—from getting started to building long-term relationships.

The importance of finding the right freelancer

While some businesses have full-time marketers who specialize in content marketing, many small businesses do not. Freelancers are especially needed if you don’t have a marketing team.

When you decide to invest in quality content marketing and hire a freelance writer, you need to make sure you get a return on your investment (ROI).

Choosing the right writer is essential to ensuring your marketing goals are met.

You have a lot of options: Choose wisely

The freelance content marketing industry has been growing rapidly. 90% of marketers using content marketing plan to continue investing the same amount in the channel in 2022. With this type of growth, the market has become saturated with hundreds of new writers and marketers. It’s difficult to find the right candidate with so many options.

Tips for finding the best freelancers

Hiring a content marketer should be easy—but it’s not.

Knowing what you want and knowing how to find it are two different things, and if you’ve ever been burned by a freelance writer who didn’t write “in your voice,” or just didn’t have the experience you needed, you know that finding the right person can be a real challenge.

So how do you know if a freelance content marketer is right for you? Start with these 4 questions:

  1. Have they ever written about your industry before?
  2. Do they understand your company’s mission, vision, and values?
  3. Will they take the time to learn about your target demographic?
  4. Are they willing to put in the work to make sure their writing is perfect for you?

If the answer is yes to all four of these questions, then you’ve probably got a winner on your hands! That doesn’t mean every freelancer will be a great fit—but these questions can help you weed through the writers.

Key qualities to look for

The best freelance writers are reliable, communicative, and innovative. They can adapt their tone as needed and work with minimal supervision. Lastly, they should be able to consistently deliver high-quality work on time, even in the face of tight deadlines.

Where to look

Ultimately, scrolling on Fiverr or Upwork for hours can waste your time. But there are a lot of freelancers hanging around online in these places:

  • Facebook freelance writing groups
  • In certain hashtags on LinkedIn, such as #freelancewriter (or YOU could post with those hashtags)
  • Specialized slack channels

No matter what avenues you find your freelancers, make sure you have a streamlined process to manage them.

Develop a strategy before hiring freelance writers

Freelance content marketing is a great way to bring in fresh ideas and help you get your brand name out there. But before you hire someone, it’s important to have a strategy.

First, make sure your company has a clear mission and vision. Know what you want to accomplish. Once you know that, form a strategy around how to accomplish it. Are you looking for long-term followers? Do you want to build up an email list? Or do you just want people to go to your website?

Now that you’ve established those two things, it’s time to find a freelance writer who can deliver the content necessary for your strategy. It’s important that the writer knows what your goals are.

Plus, you’ll want to develop a strategy to quickly create and sign contracts, pay writers, and manage freelancers (for example, using a Project Management System).

How can you manage freelance writers?

The best way to manage a team of freelancers is by creating a consistent communication flow. You should also make sure that your writers have all the information they need for their assignments before assigning the work to them.

For example, use Asana or Monday.com to manage your freelance projects. Both of these platforms are intuitive and easy to use. Your freelance writers will have their own accounts, and they’ll be notified when you assign projects. You’ll be notified when they complete their projects. It’s a win-win!

To keep your team manageable, don’t hire more freelancers than you need. At the same time, you should have more than one. That way, you have a safety net if one of your writers has an emergency and suddenly can’t make a deadline.

Building long-term relationships with freelancers

The longer freelance writers stay with your organization, the better. For one, you don’t have to waste money looking for candidates, and you don’t miss deadlines in the interim. You’ll also avoid repetitive onboarding processes. Plus, the longer a freelance writer stays with you, the better they will know how to effectively market your business.

Here’s how to build healthy long-term relationships with freelancers:

  1. Communicate: Freelancers have a lot of clients to complete projects for, so the earlier you can get their assignments to them, the better. Many freelancers implement rush fees for last-minute assignments.
  2. Pay them in a timely manner: The less often you’re late with paying your freelancers, the more likely they will be to truly value you as a client. Oftentimes, they’ll even prioritize you over clients who often pay late.
  3. Pay them well: If you start your freelancers out at super low rates, don’t be surprised if they’re all dropping your projects very quickly. To build long-term relationships, offer a valuable rate.
  4. Reward loyal freelancers: If your freelancers aren’t asking already, they probably prefer to see increases in their rates. Especially after a year, it’s smart to compensate them more. Otherwise, your writers will likely start looking for clients elsewhere.
  5. Express your gratitude: As a freelancer, sometimes we don’t know if our clients are happy with our work. Especially in an environment where sometimes, very little communication takes place, it can be hard to know if our clients are truly happy with us. Take a minute to validate your freelancers every now and then if you’re grateful for their work.

Building healthy, long-term relationships with freelancers will increase their loyalty to you, and make them more effective at marketing your business.

Looking for a trustworthy freelancer?

If you can’t deliver content fast enough on your own or don’t have the resources in-house, hiring freelance writers is a great way to make sure your company can keep up with demand for new content.

If you’re looking for a freelance content writer, feel free to reach out to me! I’ll reach out to you as soon as possible.

8 Traits to Look for When Hiring a Content Marketer

The field of content marketing is growing at a rapid pace. It is becoming essential to the success of most companies. It’s no surprise that professional content marketing jobs are now growing steadily in number.

That being said, hiring a content marketer should not be taken lightly. A bad hire can cost a large amount of money, and set the company back by quite a bit. Plus, it can make your business look unprofessional.

With this guide, you will know what to look for when hiring someone to be your content marketer.

Why hire a content marketer?

A good content marketer will make all the difference to your business, and will likely do so over time. They’ll help you build a solid community that is engaged with your business. Plus, they’ll help you save time and avoid dealing with marketing tasks. Marketers will also help you establish yourself as a thought leader. And, perhaps most importantly for businesses, they’ll help you increase your revenue.

8 traits to look for when hiring a content marketer

Whether you’re hiring a freelance or full-time content marketer, here are the traits to look in candidates:

1. Honest

Honesty is, of course, an essential trait in any potential workplace partner. If you want to know that someone has your best interests at heart, you need to be able to trust them.

With marketers, this characteristic takes on added importance because the work they do holds such great sway over the success of your business. When it comes right down to it, honesty and integrity are what will drive a writer or marketer toward finding the best solution for your business’s unique situation—not just trying to make themself look good.

On top of all this, an honest person is just easier to work with. They won’t leave you hanging when something goes wrong. Instead, they will take full responsibility for their part and learn from their mistakes, so those same problems don’t happen again in the future.

2. Trustworthiness

A content marketer has to be someone you can trust. You need to feel confident that they’ll deliver the work in a timely and professional manner, and that they will respect copyright laws. You should also feel secure knowing that your content marketer won’t do anything with your company name or product names without going through you first.

When hiring a marketer, take note of whether or not they have strong communication skills (whether it be through email, phone calls, or face-to-face meetings), and make sure they respond promptly to emails, texts, and phone calls. They’ll make sure all your deliverables are on time, and if they can’t make the deadline, they’ll communicate with you, so you’re not left surprised.

3. Clear communicator

The ideal content marketer is both persuasive and clear. In other words, someone who knows how to say just enough to get the job done, but not so much that it feels awkward or robotic.

The most successful content marketers are those who know how to express themselves in such a way that their ideas stick with the reader long after they’ve read them. They have a natural rhythm, pace, and ease when communicating. Not only does this make their messages easier to absorb and understand, it also makes them more memorable for future readers.

Content marketers should be:

  1. A strong writer and editor: Content marketers need to have solid writing skills, and they should also be able to edit their own work and the work of others.
  2. A good listener: Content marketers need to be able to listen carefully in order to fully understand a brief or project so they can make high-quality content that meets your needs.

Communication is a huge part of marketing. If a content marketer is an engaging person, they’ll be able to successfully communicate their ideas effectively in written or spoken form without sounding contrived or robotic—which will benefit your company in the long run!

4. Excellent project management skills

If you want to hire a content marketer, it’s important they know how to manage projects. Someone skilled at this will be able to help determine what a project needs, and work with you to create an action plan. They’ll also be able to follow through on the plan, and make sure that everyone is aligned with the right expectations.

One of the most important skills you should be looking for in a candidate is project management. An excellent content marketer must be able to effectively plan, coordinate, and execute projects. They’ll need to know how to allocate resources and budget efficiently, but also effectively communicate their operational needs with stakeholders and team members, so that everyone is on the same page.

If you’re hiring someone who has worked at an agency or freelance before, this will likely be one of the first things they mention in their resume or portfolio. They’ll be able to walk you through projects they’ve managed from start-to-finish, so pay close attention to what they say about how they organized a successful project.

5. Takes initiative

You want content marketing candidates who are comfortable taking initiative. This means they’re able to get things done without being told, they’re willing to take on new projects, and they seek out new opportunities. A candidate who is always waiting for someone else to do something isn’t going to be able to make much progress as a content marketer.

Can this person meet deadlines? Can he or she stay motivated and produce high-quality work even when the assignment is a short, unglamorous one? The ability to do this kind of work day in and day out will be fundamental for the person you ultimately hire.

Having someone who can think critically and act decisively is key to ensuring that projects get done efficiently and effectively.

6. Collaborative, yet independent

Everyone likes working with self-motivated people who don’t need constant handholding. If content marketers are going to succeed at their jobs and become valuable contributors, they have to have an innate drive that propels them forward without any prompting from above.

However, although your content marketers need to be independent, they also need to be able to collaborate. Content marketing is a group effort—it doesn’t usually happen in a vacuum, and there’s a lot of cross-departmental collaboration that needs to happen throughout the process.

7. Creativity

Content marketing is all about telling interesting stories, and you need people who can really think outside of the box to do that. Look for candidates who have branched out from typical content marketing formats and tried something different.

Content marketers need to be able to produce fresh content that is engaging and inspiring. People who are in these roles need to be extremely creative!

8. Curiosity and authenticity

It’s essential for content marketers to be curious about the world around them—they should be able to take random interests and connect them back to brand messaging or core values in ways that are natural yet still feel authentic. Readers can sniff out a brand that’s not being real a mile away.

Content marketers need to be curious people who are eager to find new ways to express your brand authentically. They should be willing and excited to sit down with your brand to understand your values, goals, and visions. They should be understanding of the fact that oftentimes, the best stories come from asking questions.

Most importantly: Choose someone you trust

Be sure to consider these traits from the outset to help you find the content marketer who is right for your brand. Make sure that the person you hire is talented and dependable. The right person will also be someone who understands your business and prospects, someone who’s detail-oriented, and organized. It’s also helpful to find an expert who can work quickly while maintaining high-quality standards.

Good luck finding the best content marketer for your brand! If you would like to work with me, please leave your information below. 👇🏼

Social Media: How to Implement Creative B2B Marketing Ideas

If you run a small business, it’s important to find creative ways to attract new customers. But coming up with new ideas can be challenging. A lot of the time, marketing and advertising ideas come in waves. You’ll get a good idea and then nothing much else for a little while—and then another one hits you out of the blue.

Creative marketing is the most effective way to reach your audience and enhance your results. Creative ideas are also a great way to provide a fresh approach for your existing marketing campaigns. But what about when those creative juices stop flowing?

Everyone (who is involved in social media anyway) gets stuck with a creative block now and then. This blog post is designed to give you great ideas for marketing on social media.

Get inspired to get creative on social media

Social media is an incredible and effective tool for building your business. It can be used to market anything with the right techniques and strategies involved. 89% of business-to-business (B2B) companies view social media as a top content distribution channel. 96% of B2B content marketers use LinkedIn, and 82% use Twitter.

Being creative on social media can be tricky. You need a unique way of approaching content, an engaging manner with potential customers and hosts, inventive design, and positive interactions with followers. Through this blog post, we’ll take a look at different ways to be innovative with this type of marketing. We’ll cover the fundamentals of creative marketing and provide you with many ideas for increasing traffic and brand awareness.

Content should be about customers, not your business

Before we dive in, I just want to be clear: Content, especially on social media, should be centered on your customers, not your business. It should be created to improve the lives of your consumers.

Ask yourself: What kind of content will provide value to your customers? What kind of content will help them feel an emotional connection with your brand?

Identify your audience

First things first: what are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to reach out to potential customers? Do they already know about your product/service? It’s essential that you know who your target market is before creating content for them–otherwise there’s no point in creating social media posts at all.

Make sure your posts speak directly towards your audience (and not just general people who might be interested).

Start building your plan

You want to use social media creatively. You want to build a story that your audience wants to follow, and you want to build a brand that will make them fall in love with you.

But where do you start?

First, consider how much time you have. If you’re trying to do this all by yourself, it’s going to be tough to become the next Twitter sensation. So think about how much time you can realistically dedicate to this. If you’re aiming for something big, like a huge campaign across multiple platforms or a web series, consider hiring some help.

When you know how often you can consistently post, build a content calendar you can use to plan and organize your posts. Content calendars are great tools for managing your social media content. Although they are most commonly associated with blog posts and articles, you can use them to plan out any type of content.

Focus on the types of content you want to create, but also make sure to include holidays and events that may be important for your brand. You don’t want to overwhelm your audience with too many messages at once, so be realistic about how much information they can process in one post or one day.

A simple Google Spreadsheet is an effective way to plan out your marketing content. Include the following columns:

  • What type of content you’ll publish (video, infographic, etc.)
  • The topic or theme of the piece
  • Which social media channel it will be posted to
  • Who will write it/create designs (if you’re outsourcing)
  • When it’s due
  • Publication date and time

A calendar doesn’t have to be a spreadsheet or a wall calendar—you can just make a note in your phone or sticky notes on your computer. The point is to keep yourself accountable to your goals.

Content calendars can help you and your team stay organized, always know what to publish next, and create posts in advance when you have extra time. Plus, they let you see your editorial schedule at a glance, so you can keep track of the frequency with which you are publishing content on each channel.

B2B social media content ideas

Prioritize the most important messages you want to send. By identifying these messages, you can make sure they are included in your posts and that they are consistent and cohesive.

To implement creative marketing ideas, you need to plan and execute with your team. Here are some helpful tips on how to make the most of your strategies:

1. Get inspired by other B2B brands

If you want to cultivate a creative environment in your office, you need to set aside time each day for brainstorming sessions. A great way to get started is by asking your team members to share their favorite posts from other B2B brands on social media. Then, take some time to discuss the elements that made them creative and interesting.

2. Tell stories

Storytelling is a great way to use social media creatively. People love stories, and they can help create engaging content online while also building your brand identity and personality. For example, if you’re a pet food company, consider telling the story of how you got started or why it’s important for your business to be cruelty-free. These kinds of stories will engage people on an emotional level and attract new customers who are interested in what you have to say.

3. Share updates

Another way that companies use social media creatively is by sharing updates from their business. Update people on what’s new with your business. Whether it’s a product launch, an upcoming event, or something else entirely, keep people up-to-date so they know why they should care about you!

4. Create multiple pieces of content from one event or piece of research.

One way to get more mileage out of your content is by repurposing it into other formats. For example, if you publish a blog post about an industry study you’ve done, turn it into an infographic, a SlideShare presentation, and a video as well.

5. Make use of humor

Make use of humor and storytelling.

Humor is critical for effective content marketing—especially when it comes to making your brand seem human. Humor can help make the topic more interesting or entertaining for the reader (and therefore more memorable). Humor can also help keep your audience engaged while they read through long-form blog posts or other material that requires their undivided attention.

Places to find inspiration

If you don’t have any ideas for content yet, don’t worry! There are lots of places you can look for inspiration: Pinterest boards and Instagram accounts dedicated to specific topics like food, fashion, or art; DIY blogs; magazines. Just spend some time browsing around and jotting down ideas as they come to you—don’t worry about whether they seem like good ones right away.

The goal at this stage should just be getting all those random thoughts out on paper so you have a place where they’re not cluttering up your brain anymore!

Use tools like Google Trends or Google Keyword Planner to see what people are searching for online. Search for keywords related to your product or service and take note of the topics that come up in the search results. Then, create content around those popular keywords and topics.

Make it a conversation

Use social media to create a dialogue between you and your customers. Post engaging questions on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or other platforms and ask for feedback from customers and fans. You can also use social media as a way to gauge customer sentiment about certain products or services by posting polls and surveys on these platforms.

Plan an effective way to measure success

Make sure you establish clear goals and track the performance of each individual marketing social media campaign. The more clear you are on your goals, the easier it will be for you to evaluate how effective the campaign is.

Have an overarching goal in mind and keep track of the metrics that help you achieve it. Then apply the lessons learned to new creative marketing ideas and goals you have in the future.

Ultimately, the best way to improve your marketing strategy is by testing and experimenting. Try different things and measure their effectiveness. And remember, experimentation means making mistakes—take note of your mistakes and you’ll be on your way to finding out what works best for you.

Struggling to Develop Your Marketing Personality? Here’s What To Do

Voice and tone are fundamental parts of your brand identity, but they often get left out of the branding process. When you create a logo, color palette, or style guide, those are tangible assets that you can share with others. But how do you explain in words what your brand’s voice is?

For marketers, having a company voice and tone is critical. Prospective customers online don’t want to read a long list of benefits or features. They want to see what type of people you are as an organization. That’s where your tone and voice comes into play.

Having a clear, consistent tone will enhance and enrich the customer experience. Having a consistent personality can help build trust with your customers and improve your brand. It allows your customers to build a rapport with your business, which then leads to more conversions and sales.

Stand out with a strong brand personality

In the Sprout Social Index™, consumers were asked why some brands stand out. 33% said a distinct personality is what makes brands stand out. Also, 40% said memorable content, and 32% said compelling storytelling, both of which rely on a strong brand voice.

More and more companies are recognizing the importance of establishing and maintaining their brand voice—which is essentially the personality and tone of your business. Brands should have a unique, recognizable voice that is communicated through marketing initiatives, as well as through social media and various business interactions.

The most successful brands are ones that communicate with their customers in a way that resonates clearly and distinctly with their target audience. These are often perceived as being genuine businesses that are trustworthy, tangible, relatable, friendly, agile, accessible, inclusive, and adaptive.

Your company’s voice is the personality behind your communications, like a friend you can always rely on. It’s the voice that shows up in your blog posts and newsletters, in your tweets and Facebook posts, in your customer service emails and live chat scripts. It’s what makes you sound like you—whatever that happens to be.

Differentiate yourself from the digital chatter

Your company needs a voice—a personality—to be memorable. Brand voice and tone are an extension of your brand personality and key to developing a clear marketing message. They are the words you use to convey your message and how you say them.

But how do you create these basic elements? How do you describe the voice that represents your business? Building a brand personality is no easy feat. In this article, I will reveal some tips to help you to create a personalized approach that reflects your business as a whole.

Separate yourself from your brand

With blog writing you will have a personal voice and tone, but with an official company blog you have to blend your own personality in with the business or organization’s personality. You have to be informative and entertaining, while still being aligned with the goals of the business. There shouldn’t be any confusion about who is talking: You or your company.

Creating a brand personality

Creating a brand voice is about deciding what your company sounds like and being consistent with it. It’s not just what you say, but how you say it. Every word, sentence, and paragraph has to be written “in the voice of” your brand.

During the development process, you should consider questions such as:

  • The first step in creating your brand voice is to define your audience. Who are you talking to? What do they care about? How do I want them to feel when they interact with me?
  • What words do I want my brand associated with? When someone hears my brand name, what adjectives should come to mind?

Answering these questions will help you determine what language to use, whether that means using slang or industry jargon or staying totally professional.

Once you have defined your audience, take some time to get inspired. Think about other brands you admire and whose voices you enjoy reading or listening to. How do they communicate? What sets their communications apart from the rest?

Write down some adjectives that describe your brand’s personality. Are you fun and quirky, formal and serious, warm and welcoming? Or are you somewhere else entirely? To get you started with brainstorming, here’s a list of common voice and tone traits that you can use:

  • Friendly
  • Professional
  • Formal
  • Informal
  • Cheeky
  • Sarcastic
  • Authoritative
  • Approachable
  • Direct
  • Empathetic
  • Energetic
  • Casual
  • Witty
  • Conversational

There are no wrong answers here! These adjectives will become the basis for your new brand personality. Once you have the main traits in mind, you can begin the process of implementing them across all communications.

Audit your current messaging

If you need some inspiration on what your brand personality should be, take a look at your current communications. Examine your newsletters, blog posts, social media posts, and even internal messaging. What personality traits do your top-performing pieces of content have in common?

In contrast, what posts did people react negatively to, or not engage with? Try to note what personality your marketing content had in these instances, so you know what to avoid doing.

Make sure to grab examples from all communications to get a great overview of your current voice. Use past examples of successful brand personalities to inform your future content marketing.

Also, remember: Content isn’t dead. Once you’ve settled in on your new brand voice, you can audit all your content. Go through older pieces of content to make sure they fit within this new set of guidelines, and change them if they don’t.

Keep a consistent personality, even with multiple marketers

Brands want to create a unique voice to better connect with customers and potential clients. But the process of creating a new voice can be complicated, especially when you’re working within an organization that has a marketing team or multiple teams responsible for marketing content, websites, and social media.

A consistently recognizable voice is important to building your brand. It’s the way your customers, clients, or reviewers talk about you (or don’t). Every single marketer on your team needs to be on board with your brand personality.

Drive consistency with documentation

The more people who join your marketing team, the less consistent your voice can become. To avoid this, it’s important to have a voice and tone guide to help marketers understand the brand voice and tone by just reading the document.

If you haven’t already created a document that defines your brand voice, t’s time to get started. The standard structure of such a document includes:

  • An introduction to the brand, what it stands for, its mission, and its values.
  • A definition of voice, tone, and personality.
  • An explanation of how to use these elements in marketing materials.
  • A list of words that are “on brand”—those that should be used when writing copy or other materials.
  • A list of go-to phrases.
  • A section on what not to do—examples of language that should never be used because it doesn’t align with the brand identity.
  • Punctuation and grammar: List the rules for punctuation and grammar for your company.
  • Capitalization: List capitalization standards for your company.

While creating this document, keep in mind that marketers need to skim it easily. Avoid making content marketers sit through a lengthy training session or read a novel-length document. Narrow it down the specifics and most important aspects of your brand to make your marketers more productive and efficient.

Brand personality traits may vary depending on your audience

If you have a few different audiences, keep in mind that you may need to change your brand personality when you’re talking to each different audience. For example, your company may be have a blend of business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) content. If that’s the case, you can change your brand voice, tone, and personality. Then, segment each piece of marketing content for your specific audiences.

Review and change as needed

Once you have the main traits in mind, you can begin the process of implementing them across all communications. However, adaptation is key in marketing. Just because you decided on a brand personality, doesn’t mean it’s automatically effective.

A truly effective brand personality is based on real-world audience research—and it evolves along with your business. The research and the fine-tuning is continuous. Analyze your metrics, see what’s resonating with your audience, and change as needed!

Why Empathy is the Backbone of Marketing

If you’re marketing a product or service, it’s essential to understand your audience before you start. This is an often overlooked area by businesses, who tend to focus on their own wants and needs. Empathy is the most crucial element to successful marketing. Even when you’re not interacting face-to-face, empathy is vital if you want your marketing efforts to pay off.

If you have no empathy for your prospective customers, it won’t matter how great your product or service is. You won’t see the potential in how they could benefit from your services. Sure, you can make big gains and profit with a strict focus on what you want and need, but if your business is to continue thriving into the future, then empathy is key. Developing empathy for your customers is a vital part of creating marketing that speaks to your unique audience.

Marketing isn’t easy. It’s a balance of speaking to the right people at the right time, and doing so in a way that captivates and connects. The emotional connection that leads to a sale should never be neglected.

What is empathy?

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. It’s one of those basic human qualities that all humans possess, at least to some degree. Empathy is defined as the ability to know or imagine what another person is thinking or feeling. To be empathetic, you have to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and feel that person’s pain and happiness. At the same time, these feelings have nothing to do with your own individual emotions.

How to have empathy: Know your audience

One of the most important parts of empathy as a marketer is knowing your customers. How do they spend their day? What are their lives like? Where are they looking for information?

If you don’t know, ask them. Run surveys, create polls, and use social media to start a dialogue. If you have the resources, commission some market research, or set up focus groups. The more you know about your audience, the better equipped you will be to understand them and create content that resonates with them—not just on an emotional level, but also a practical one.

If, for example, you know your customers live in an area with poor mobile internet service, it’s probably not a great idea to push lots of video on social media. And if they have a long and painful commute every day, it’s probably best to avoid posting marketing content at inappropriate times—like during rush hour.

Create a detailed buyer persona to kickstart your marketing journey. If you’re unsure what they want, then you should do some research to figure that out. If they are hurting in a particular area, then help them address it with the solution that you offer.

Empathy is more than just person-to-person

At its core, empathy is about understanding someone else’s experience. Empathy is the ultimate building block of marketing. As marketers, we use empathy to understand the customer experience and identify opportunities for improvement.

A lot of people think of empathy as just being between two people, but it can be built into your entire user experience. It can be the foundation of your organization. For example, making your website and content easier to access for people with visual disabilities.

It’s easy to get lost in the technical aspects of digital marketing—the where, how, and when— and lose sight of why we do what we do: Helping our customers make informed decisions about how to solve problems. To do that, we need to think of how we can make their lives easier, every single step of the way.

Empathy leads to better marketing

Marketing strategies need to have empathy at its core in order for it to succeed. In the field of marketing, empathy is a powerful tool. It helps you understand your customers, their pain points, and what motivates them to make a purchase.

At its core, marketing is about communicating with people. Even in cases where it’s not a “people-to-person” interaction—for example, if you’re posting a message to a corporate Twitter account or Facebook page—you have to understand that you’re communicating with other people. And if you don’t have an empathetic view of your audience, you don’t really have any idea what impact your message might have on them.

The goal is to create marketing that speaks to your audience in a way that matters and makes tangible improvements to the lives of your customers.

A lack of empathy can destroy your brand

A lack of empathy can be damaging to your brand, especially in the age of social media where people aren’t afraid to share their experiences—good or bad—with others. If your customer care team is rude to a customer, don’t be surprised if they share it in the reviews or on social media. Since 93% of customers read online reviews before buying a product, this can make or break a purchase.

Plus, as marketers, be careful you’re not lacking empathy on social media. For example, on International Women’s Day in 2021, Burger King tweeted: “Women belong in the kitchen.”

USA Today wrote, “Burger King’s attempt to highlight gender disparity in the restaurant industry with a provocative tweet appears to have backfired.” Burger King approached the issue in a way that perpetuates harmful stereotypes against women.

They tried to convey their point in the following tweets in the thread, but on Twitter, the first tweet will be seen the most. People were easily able to take this tweet, and forgo the rest of the thread. Perhaps a more effective approach would have been combining the tweets into one, but I don’t even know if that would have saved Burger King.

Empathy on social media: Nail your responses

Social media has created a new conversation dynamic. No longer do brands communicate only to their customers; they communicate with them. This means that how you listen and how you respond directly affects your brand and how it’s perceived.

Empathy takes many forms, from listening to responding to being proactive in sensitive situations. Here are some best practices for showing empathy with your social media marketing:

1. Listening

Responding to customer comments with thoughtful answers or retweets shows that you’re an active part of the conversation. It also helps inform your content strategy, because when you know what people are talking about, you can join their conversations and build stronger relationships with them.

2. Responding

When someone mentions your brand on social media, they expect a response—especially if they’re contacting you with a question or complaint. Not responding makes it seem like you don’t care about your customers, which could diminish customer loyalty and damage your business.

How you respond and interact on social media is just as important as what you post.

Another example: Don’t market during devastating world events

As marketers, we must see the big picture and empathize with our customers’ situations beyond the product itself. We need to look at the world through their eyes and perspectives. What happens if an unexpected event disrupts their normal lives? Our products can become insignificant at these times, but our brand’s response can be remembered forever.

Empathy isn’t always so obvious. It’s not just listening to what customers want or what they say they want. It’s also thinking about what they need and the times when they need it most.

One way to use empathy in marketing is by keeping up with current events. If something major and unfortunate happens in the world, it’s important to acknowledge this event even if it means putting aside your normal marketing plan for a few days. This ensures that people don’t feel like they’re being marketed to during a sensitive time. It helps build trust between your brand and its customers.

Use empathy for successful marketing

You want your customers to trust you, and the best way to build that trust is by showing them you understand how they feel. Empathy helps you see the potential customer, and how to provide a valuable service to them.

As much as you believe in your own product, it’s going to take more than that. Convincing someone else to purchase something is going to take a journey into their mind and seeing what they need, before you can provide it to them.

Empathy is the backbone of marketing. And it all starts with deep observation, thinking about every part of your business from the perspective of your consumer and ensuring that you never lose sight of why your customers are buying from you in the first place.

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Your Ultimate Guide: B2B Marketing on LinkedIn

In my personal opinion, LinkedIn is an extremely underrated platform for content marketing.

LinkedIn is all about building professional connections. It’s a great place to catch people where they’re already planning on doing business. The popular social media platform’s new slogan is: “Do business where business is done.” And it’s honestly the truth.

Many consumers browse Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest with no intent to talk about business or work. They just want to enjoy and be entertained. Business owners that do extremely well on those platforms are often business-to-consumer (B2C) or direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketers.

That’s not to say that these platforms can’t be used for B2B marketing as well, but LinkedIn definitely takes first-place in the realm of B2B.

LinkedIn for B2B Marketing

LinkedIn is a great place to meet professionals where they are. Plus, they already expect to talk about business on the platform. If you specialize in B2B marketing, you will find this post helpful.

Plus, if you’re a freelance business owner providing content marketing, you need to market to businesses. When we market our services, we are performing B2B marketing. Personally, I leverage LinkedIn for my own content marketing services. The truth is: Most of my clients have come from LinkedIn.

I apply to freelance writing and marketing positions, and they call me. But I hope to elevate my LinkedIn personal brand and content marketing to the point that it’s a lead generation strategy for me. Obviously it takes time, effort, and consistency, so it may be some time before I see a return on my time investment. In my opinion, it’s so worth it.

Whether you’re working a 9-5 as a B2B social media marketer, or you’re marketing your own freelance business on LinkedIn, keep reading to learn my top tips, how to gain traction on the platform, and content ideas to start off with.

Why LinkedIn matters for B2B marketing

You might be thinking, is LinkedIn that important for B2B marketing? And if it is important, how influential is it really?

Here are some quick stats:

Clearly, LinkedIn is a viable channel to grow your audience on if you’re marketing to people who make business purchasing decisions.

Now that you know just how effective LinkedIn is, let’s dive into my tips on how to leverage the platform to its fullest extent.

To start out: conversions are more important than engagement

I heard this recently, and it really stuck with me. Conversions are more important than engagement.

Of course engagement is important. Of course it is! It boosts your content so more people see it. Plus, there’s an element of social proof when it comes to getting likes, comments, and shares on your post.

But what’s more important is that you’re engaging the right audience, and you’re converting them into sales. Conversions are the most important part of the LinkedIn game.

If you’re speaking to the wrong group, you could get 20,000 likes, but no one will buy. It’s essential to hone in on who exactly you’re talking to.

For example, in my freelance business, I aim to get hired by clients who need B2B content marketing services. That being said, I share relevant content to help them on their journey (as it relates to my services). The goal is: If I keep engaging and helping them, I’m building up trust. And one day, when they need a content marketer, they might think, “Oh, Katie’s been sharing a lot about this topic. Let me see if I can hire her.”

You might see other freelance marketers who are writing content for other freelancers. And that’s completely appropriate in some cases, for example:

  • You’re selling products to other freelancers
  • You’re trying to build your email list, and targeting freelancers
  • You’re aiming to connect with a community of freelancers

These are some cases where it does make sense to create content for other freelancers. But if you want businesses to buy your services, don’t create any content for other freelancers. It dilutes your message and makes it seem like you’re not sure who you’re talking to. These types of content definitely get a lot of traction and engagement, but at the end of the day, you want conversions.

But remember, while conversions ARE important: Posting on LinkedIn is not meant to be a quick sale. It’s about nurturing your audience and building that relationship and trust.

With B2B marketing, that can take a lot longer. These are more expensive decisions that could have business repercussions if they make they make a mistake. That’s why continually posting helpful, relevant content for your ideal audience is key. Over time, it builds trust, and when they need you, they’ll seek you out.

So don’t get discouraged if you aren’t seeing many likes or interactions on your LinkedIn account. Especially if you’re working on your client’s account, you may feel pressure to get likes and comments. But discuss with your client that while engagement is certainly amazing, conversions are the primary goal.

Give it a few months of consistent posting, and if you’re still not seeing increasing engagement, be honest with how you can create more helpful, specialized content for your audience.

The main goals of LinkedIn B2B marketing are:

  • Build trust
  • Nurture relationships with your audience
  • Provide value

Thinking about LinkedIn marketing with this framework, let’s move forward.

Quick case study

I just said not to get discouraged if you don’t see engagement at first, and that’s still true. Yet at the end of the day, of course engagement is amazing. Mainly because the more engagement you have, the more you will grow your audience. When people interact with your post (whether that be liking it, commenting, or clicking “read more”), LinkedIn shows more people your content. When you get your content in front of more relevant prospective clients, it increases the amount of chances you have to make a conversion.

I recently took over posting on LinkedIn for one of my clients, and we’ve seen amazing success in the first month. The increase in engagement we’ve seen so quickly has been insane. Check out an inside peek:

Plus, we’re seeing very high-quality new followers. Our most recent followers have job titles that showcase authority, and they’re very specific to my client’s niche.

Now, let’s look at how I grew our engagement.

Tips to create effective B2B LinkedIn posts

1. Create high-quality images

LinkedIn posts with images get 2x higher engagement than other posts.

Of course, what is marketing without A/B testing? It’s definitely worth it to test your own audience. See if posts without pictures do better than posts with pictures. But for the most part, I recommend creating quality images that are engaging, interesting, unique, and branded. You can do this on Canva. They have LinkedIn templates that will create the perfect size photo for the platform. The templates are great places to generate ideas, and you can change the colors to match your brand’s colors.

2. Be consistent

Companies that post weekly on LinkedIn see a 2 times higher engagement rate. Plus, companies with pages that are complete and active benefit from 5 times more page views. The more consistent you are with your marketing on LinkedIn, the better. Plus, take time to fill out the profile sections.

By filling out all these sections and being consistent in posting, you can increase your engagement and follower rates. People don’t want to follow silent pages, so continuously show up (even if you’re not seeing increasing engagement yet).

3. Provide value

One of my clients recently shared a post that made me question myself. She asked, “Are you adding to the noise, or are you adding value?” The truth is: There’s so much noise in marketing. Everyone wants to jump in on content marketing (and clearly, it works, so that’s understandable). But to differentiate your brand, truly provide value that is relevant to YOUR audience. If it’s not relevant to your audience, don’t post it.

All the content you post needs to be driven by the purpose of providing value to your prospective clients.

4. Be as specific as possible

I was writing social media posts for one of my clients, and she pointed out that I wrote “environmental constraints.” She told me to be more specific. What constraints? I worded it way too vaguely. As a person with an environmental studies degree, I didn’t realize how general I was being.

Another recent example: I was writing posts for a client about an event they had coming up. I was tasked to write 3 posts about the event. At first, I was trying to squeeze way too much information into each post: Their booth number, the fact that my client was speaking at the event, a chance to win a gift card… it was just too much.

I sat back for a few days and thought about it. I realized it would be so much more effective if I used each post to dive into one specific aspect of the event. Here’s how I structured it:

  • Post #1: Introduction to the event
  • Post #2: Highlighting client and the fact that he is speaking at the event
  • Post #3: Describing that attendees can win a gift card if they do an online demo (and providing that link)

Poetry isn’t the same as social media (obviously). However, it can provide some excellent lessons when applied to social media marketing. Poems are similar to posts: You get way less time to pack a punch. Here are some quotes about poetry you can apply to social media posts (from Stephen Guppy’s Writing and Workshopping Poetry: A Constructive Introduction):

  • “Scrape away any verbiage that isn’t absolutely necessary and sculpt what you have left.”
  • “Poets try to go ‘down’ the abstraction ladder by choosing the most concrete and specific words. Never say ‘tree’ when you mean ‘elm.'”

Always be specific. Challenge yourself to really hone in on one particular aspect of your brand.

5. Don’t share links often

LinkedIn doesn’t highlight posts that have links in them, because they don’t want you taking their consumers off their platform. Essentially, when you’re sharing links, you’re driving consumers off their platform and to your site. LinkedIn doesn’t want that, plain and simple.

Of course, share links once in a while. But the key here is that it should be once in a while. Definitely avoid sharing a link in every single post. If you absolutely need to share an abundance of blog content, consider creating the content on LinkedIn’s blogging platform. Keep in mind: this feature is only available to PEOPLE, not brands. From a brand perspective, you could have the CEO share the blog on their profile, and share it to the business profile.

Sharing blog posts won’t bring your website traction, but LinkedIn will be more likely to show it to your audience.

Just based on my own personal research, when we shared a LinkedIn post that had a blog linked to it, we saw a 66% reduction in impressions. Email is truly the best platform to share blogs, not LinkedIn (or any social media, for that matter).

Again, of course share your blogs, and include links that drive your audience to do what you want them to do (for example, a demo). But this should be rare. For example, have 3 pieces of content that are meant purely for brand building (with no links). Then, have 1 piece of content that leads your audience to a blog post or links to a demo.

When you do share links, expect engagement and impressions to decrease dramatically in comparison to other posts.

6. Don’t forget to include relevant hashtags

I always forget hashtags when I’m writing LinkedIn posts, but they’re definitely helpful! Try a mix of niche and non-specific hashtags to see what performs best. Hashtags are amazing to help new people find your account. They attract people who are interested in the topics you’re sharing about.

7. Not every post needs a call-to-action (CTA)

If your client or boss tells you every post needs a CTA, then include it. But in my personal opinion, and if you have the freedom to do so, don’t include a CTA every time. And when you do, don’t be afraid to mix it up. For example, you can say, “Did we miss anything? Comment below.” Or you could write, “Any thoughts? Please comment!”

Just driving engagement is a great CTA. But another way to have a useful CTA (without a link) is to offer something valuable (perhaps an eBook or discount code), and ask your audience to email you to receive it.

Again, you don’t always need a CTA. In my opinion, not having one is great. A mix of posts that have one and posts that don’t is my favorite way to approach it.

8. Schedule your posts

Scheduling your posts is just easier, plain and simple. It allows you to plan weeks worth of content in a day. A great paid option for this is Hootsuite. But if you’re a freelancer looking for a free option, turn to Buffer.

Now that you know my tops B2B marketing tips for LinkedIn, here are some hacks to make the process easier. ⬇️

LinkedIn B2B marketing hacks

1. To save time, recycle blog content (without linking to the blog)

Content marketing takes so much time, right? We all would like to cut back on how much time we’re spending on marketing. But chances are, you or your client has an excellent archive of blogs. Even if you have already shared all your blogs on your LinkedIn, not many people have seen the post or clicked on it.

Pick one great statistic or one great section that you can highlight. The key here: Do not link the blog.

This is such an easy way to recycle great content that not enough people have seen anyways. Plus, it’s easy and saves time.

2. Plan content by picking weekly themes

One of the best ways to have a cohesive identity on LinkedIn is by picking weekly themes. For example, this week I’ve been posting all about social media marketing (that’s what inspired this blog post, actually). In the past, I’ve focused on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tips and blogging.

Just pick a theme, and focus on it for the week. This makes the process so much easier, from coming up with topic ideas, to executing them.

Quick LinkedIn content ideas

Here are some quick LinkedIn content ideas to help you to hit the ground running, whether that be for your freelance business or your company. Try sharing:

  • An interesting statistic
  • Industry news or trends
  • An answer to a common question
  • Provide a helpful tip
  • Share about an employee or CEO
  • Reveal behind-the-scenes: for example, your desk set up, what you’re working on, how you’re working on it
  • Post about top tools that would help your audience
  • Share a client testimonial

The most important aspect: Focus on your audience

Too many brands focus on themselves. The truth is: Consumers don’t care about your brand. They care about their problems, and finding solutions to their problems. Focus on your audience and providing value to them, and they are more likely to buy.

Of course, a personable CEO highlight or client testimonial is great to throw in once in a while. But the main purpose of marketing on LinkedIn is to build trust and provide value. Contribute something!

While looking at competitors is important, they might not be following the best practices. Focus on your own strategy, and if you follow the tips in this blog post, it will pay off in the end. You may need to be patient to see growth, but you will if you’re consistent.

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