How to Develop an Effective LinkedIn Content Strategy 📈

 

Table of Contents

 

Introduction

Know Your Audience

  Determine Their Pain Points 

  Understand Their Interests

  Identify Their Goals

Set Content Goals 

  Brand Awareness  

  Lead Generation

  Thought Leadership

Develop a Content Calendar

  Mix Up Content Types

  Plan in Advance

  Be Consistent

Create Quality Content

  Offer Value

  Make it Relevant 

  Optimize for SEO

Promote and Distribute

  Share on LinkedIn

  Utilize Other Channels

  Repurpose Content

Analyze and Refine 

  Track Performance

  Monitor Engagement

  Continuously Improve

Conclusion

FAQs

 

Introduction to LinkedIn Content Strategy 📝

 

Developing an effective content strategy is absolutely essential for brands looking to maximize their presence on LinkedIn in 2023 and beyond. With over 850 million members, LinkedIn provides an unparalleled opportunity to reach and engage with influential professionals and decision-makers across every industry imaginable.

 

However, simply posting random content whenever you feel like it will not help you cut through the noise and achieve your goals on LinkedIn. You need a strategic, data-driven approach to creating and distributing content optimized specifically for the LinkedIn platform and audience.

 

This comprehensive guide will walk you through the key steps and best practices for developing a winning LinkedIn content strategy. We'll cover crucial topics like:

 

- Understanding your target audience and what content resonates with them

- Setting measurable goals for your LinkedIn presence 

- Crafting a content calendar and editorial plan

- Creating high-quality, valuable content tailored for the LinkedIn feed

- Optimizing and promoting your content for maximum visibility

- Analyzing performance and refining your strategy over time

 

By investing the time upfront to develop a thoughtful LinkedIn content strategy and executing it consistently, you can establish your brand as an industry leader, engage your target audience, generate high-quality leads, and support your larger business goals through content marketing on LinkedIn.

 

Let's dive in!

 

Know Your Audience Inside and Out

 

The foundational step in developing any successful content marketing strategy is understanding exactly who you are creating content for. You absolutely need to get crystal clear on your target audience(s) on LinkedIn in order to create content that truly resonates with their pain points, interests, goals, and preferences.

 

Many brands mistakenly think of LinkedIn as just a platform for reaching other businesses (B2B). While this is a major use case, there are also over 450 million LinkedIn members outside of the business world, representing a diverse range of demographics, interests, and needs waiting to be reached.

 

Take the time to profile your ideal customers or clients across LinkedIn. Analyze their demographics, roles, industries, interests, and more. Think beyond just their job titles to understand what motivates them as professionals but also as human beings. The more you can empathize with your audience and create content tailored just for them, the better results you will see.

 

Here are some key areas to investigate about your target LinkedIn audience:

 

Determine Their Pain Points and Challenges

 

What are the biggest pain points, problems, frustrations, roadblocks, and challenges your audience faces in their work and lives? What issues keep them up at night? What long-standing problems do they need help overcoming?

 

For example, an HR leader may be struggling to hire top talent in a competitive labor market. A marketing pro may be overwhelmed trying to master the latest software and strategies. Really dig into the deeper issues your audience faces within their roles, not just surface-level annoyances.

 

This allows you to create content that directly speaks to your audience's core needs and desire for solutions. Position your brand as the one who truly understands their frustrations and can provide the answers they seek.

 

Understand Their Interests and Passions

 

Look beyond just someone's job title and responsibilities to understand their wider interests, passions, hobbies, and desires. What topics, trends, and ideas get them excited both in and out of the office?

 

For instance, finance executives likely have interests outside of just accounting best practices, like fitness, travel, or fine dining. Tech professionals may be passionate about pop culture, gadgets, or games in their personal lives.

 

Tap into these interests to create content they not only find useful but interesting and enjoyable to consume. This will help your content stand out from the drier, purely functional content that saturates LinkedIn.

 

Identify Their Professional Goals and Aspirations

 

What are your audience's short and long-term professional objectives, dreams, and aspirations? What goals are they striving to achieve this year, and over the next 5-10 years in their careers?

 

For example, some may be looking for a promotion, wanting to deepen their skills in a certain area, hoping to transition into a new field altogether, or aiming to start their own business someday.

 

Understanding these goals will allow you to create helpful, forward-thinking content tailored to their objectives. You can provide tips and guidance to assist them, establishing your brand as a trusted partner in their personal development.

 

Analyze Their LinkedIn Activity

 

Study how your audience actively engages on LinkedIn by checking their profiles, posts, comments, and the types of content they share or react to. This provides direct insight into what resonates versus what gets ignored.

 

Look at their LinkedIn Groups memberships, hashtag usage, and the kinds of brands or influencers they follow. Use LinkedIn analytics to view aggregate demographic data.

 

This will help you craft content using the terminology and topics already connecting with your audience, speaking their language.

 

Set Measurable Goals for Your LinkedIn Content

 

With your target audience(s) and their needs clearly defined through research, the next step is to set specific goals for what you aim to achieve through your LinkedIn content strategy.

 

This will shape the overall positioning, tone, topics, and formats of the content you produce. It will guide your approach to promotion. Most importantly, defining your goals will allow you to accurately measure the success and ROI of your efforts.

 

Consider setting both overarching goals for your full LinkedIn strategy as well as smaller campaign-specific goals for initiatives like launching a new product.

 

Here are some of the most common goal types to consider:

 

Increase Brand Awareness and Recognition

 

For newer brands or those looking to enter new markets, increasing general brand awareness and recognition is often the primary goal. 

 

This means utilizing content to get your brand, products, services, thought leadership, and experts in front of your target audience consistently. The aim is recognition and familiarity versus an immediate sale.

 

Awareness-driving content often focuses on topics and keywords your audience is actively searching for in your industry, acting as a helpful informational resource. This indirectly builds awareness of your knowledge and credibility.

 

Generate High-Quality Leads

 

Many brands use LinkedIn content as a key component of their lead generation strategy. This means publishing valuable, relevant content with the goal of capturing and nurturing leads through to a sale.

 

Posts, articles, videos, and other content drive traffic back to landing pages where visitors can be captured as leads via gated offers like downloads, webinars, or free trials in exchange for contact information.

 

Quality over quantity is key here. Focus on leads that match your ideal customer profile, not just any random visitors.

 

Establish Thought Leadership

 

Thought leadership content is all about positioning your company and its experts as trusted authorities on the topics that matter most to your industry.

 

Rather than directly promoting your brand, thought leadership acts as unbiased industry analysis, insider perspectives, predictions, and advice that your audience genuinely finds educational and enriching.

 

This strategy establishes trust and credibility over time, cementing your status as a leader versus just another company touting products.

 

Support Recruitment and Hiring

 

Attracting and retaining top talent is crucial for any company. While dedicated recruitment marketing tactics are ideal, your regular LinkedIn content presence still provides passive exposure of your employer brand to relevant professionals.

 

Sharing company culture content, behind-the-scenes glimpses, employee spotlights, career growth tips, and job openings allows you to organically reach and engage talent prospects already engaged with your brand.

 

Drive Event Attendance

 

Major conferences, seminars, webinars, and other in-person or virtual events represent huge investments. Content marketing gives you a platform to extensively promote these events and persuade your audience to attend.

 

Dedicated event promotion content will encourage event registration, while recaps and highlights after the fact allow you to extend your investment.

 

Cultivate Loyalty and Advocacy

 

Lastly, content allows you to nurture existing customers and partners into loyal advocates for your brand. Consistently providing value builds familiarity and trust over time.

 

Loyal followers often become brand evangelists, actively promoting you via shares, referrals, and recommendations. This provides powerful word-of-mouth marketing.

 

Develop an Editorial Content Calendar and Strategy

 

With your goals defined, next you need to map out an editorial calendar and content plan to organize and guide your content creation and distribution on LinkedIn.

 

Mix Up Content Types and Formats

 

Your content calendar should include a wide mix of different content formats, lengths, and styles tailored to each stage of the buyer's journey.

 

For example:

 

- **Articles**: In-depth articles, guides, and how-tos generally aimed at middle or bottom-of-funnel users looking for deep information. Ideal for thought leadership.

 

- **Short posts**: Quick tips, fun facts, stats, questions, or polls for top-of-funnel followers looking for fast bites. Can spark significant engagement.

 

- **Videos**: Demo videos, animated explainers, webinar recordings, interviews with leaders, etc. Help simplify complex topics through visuals.

 

- **Images**: Infographics, photos, illustrations, and other visuals to catch attention in the feed and convey key data quickly.

 

- **Live video**: LinkedIn Live video and streamed events allow real-time engagement and natural interaction with audiences.

 

- **Presentations**: Turning existing slide decks into videos or shareable posts repurposes assets into new formats.

 

- **Q&As**: Curated or live Q&A sessions with leaders build engagement and trust.

 

Mixing up your content types keeps your audience engaged across their journey while also catering to different learning styles.

 

Plan and Ideate Content in Advance

 

Ideally, you want to map out the wide variety of content you intend to create and publish over a 3-6 month period. This allows time for proper ideation, research, creation, revision, and approval processes.

 

Identify key topics, formats, angles, and themes ahead of each month to have time to develop solid content. Don't just randomly brainstorm what to post the day before.

 

You can maintain flexibility to swap in trending topics or new content as needed, but advanced planning prevents scrambling for ideas.

 

Maintain a Consistent Publishing Schedule

 

Once planned, map out your content on a calendar to maintain consistent publishing intervals. This allows your audience to know exactly what to expect.

 

For example, you may aim to publish:

 

- 2 Articles per week

- 1 Video per week

- 1 Live video or event per month

- Daily short posts 

 

The exact cadence depends on your resources and audience's appetite. But pick a schedule that provides a steady stream of content without lulls or overloaded bursts.

 

Balance Promotional Content Carefully

 

While you want much of your content to be educational rather than directly promotional, it is ok to mix in moderate promotion.

 

For example, you may share:

 

- New product announcements/launches

- Content offers like checklists or e-books

- Webinar or event announcements

- Promotional contests, discounts, or giveaways

- Job openings

- Company culture and work anniversary posts

 

Just ensure overly promotional posts do not overwhelm your educational content. Follow LinkedIn's 3:1 rule: share 3rd party or original content for every 1 promotional piece.

 

Create Quality, Value-Driven Content

 

You've set your strategy, goals, and creative calendar. Now it's time to actually roll up your sleeves and produce amazing content optimized specifically for LinkedIn and its professional audience.

 

Follow these core principles and best practices when crafting content:

 

Offer Tangible Value to Your Audience

 

Above all else, ensure every piece of content you create offers true value to your target audience. It should educate them, inspire them, entertain them, save them time, solve a problem, or enrich their professional or personal lives in some way.

 

If your content does not provide any tangible value, it will not resonate or be shared. Avoid focusing solely on ego-driven motives like promoting your brand, product, or achievements. Provide the audience with content they want first and your motives second.

 

Tightly Align Content to Your Audience's Needs

 

As discussed in the audience research section, you absolutely must keep your content hyper-targeted to topics directly related to your audience's core needs, pain points, interests, and goals.

 

Do not stray into content solely about your brand or generic topics just because they are loosely related to your industry. There must be a tight fit between audience needs and your content focus. Otherwise, you will lose relevance and engagement.

 

Optimize Content for LinkedIn's Algorithm

 

You need to not only provide value to your human audience but also optimize content for LinkedIn's algorithm to maximize organic reach and surfaces.

 

This includes tactics like:

 

- Writing clear, descriptive headlines with keywords

- Putting key terms in headings and opening paragraphs

- Including keywords in image titles, alt text, captions, and video metadata

- Structuring posts with full sentences and paragraphs

- Using relevant hashtags sparingly

- Linking back to your LinkedIn profile or other pages

 

Quality content combined with thoughtful SEO will help your content get discovered.

 

Adopt a Conversational, Human Writing Voice

 

The days of overly formal, corporate-speak content are over. Today's LinkedIn audience expects a much more conversational, down-to-earth writing voice.

 

Write in first and second-person language, utilizing "I" and "you." Avoid stiff or intimidating vocabulary. Imagine you are simply speaking to a colleague.

 

Inject humor, personality, real-world examples, and your brand's unique voice into content to craft engaging stories versus dry text.

 

Include Rich Media for Variety

 

While text-based articles and posts make up the bulk of content, strategically incorporate other rich media for visual variety:

 

- **Photos**: High-quality photos of products, office culture, team headshots, and real-world usage scenarios. But avoid blatant stock imagery.

 

- **Charts/Graphs**: Use visual charts or graphs to convey complex data, statistics, and trends simply and quickly.

 

- **Illustrations**: Hand drawn illustrations and iconography stand out versus generic stock photos.

 

- **Videos**: Short animated videos, demos, testimonials, or employee interviews help simplify and humanize your brand.

 

Keep Posts Concise, Scannable, and Actionable

 

LinkedIn is not the place for drawn-out thought pieces or long-winded prose. The attention span is short.

 

Use concise paragraphs focused on a single idea each. Break up long blocks of text generously with whitespace using subheads, lists, and other formatting.

 

Include clear takeaways, action steps, or calls-to-action so each piece provides real value.

 

Repurpose Existing Assets

 

Before creating something totally new, look at existing content assets you can repurpose or update for LinkedIn. For example:

 

- Turning blog posts into short LinkedIn posts

- Creating snippets or highlights from long-form content

- Sharing slides from an existing presentation as images

- Recording video or audio versions of articles

 

Repurposing saves time while extending the lifespan of assets.

 

Promote and Distribute Your Content for Maximum Views

 

Creating awesome content is only half the battle. You also need to actively promote and distribute each piece of content to maximize its reach and engagement across networks. This visibility is the only way to achieve your goals.

 

Share Content Natively in the LinkedIn Feed

 

This may seem obvious, but be sure to natively share, post, and promote newly created content directly within your LinkedIn Company Page feed.

 

- Upload articles and videos directly to LinkedIn rather than only linking externally.

- Post regularly with varied content types like articles, images, videos, and text updates.

- Engage with your audience by liking and responding to their comments on your posts. Have real conversations to build community.

- Ask followers to share your content with their own networks for wider reach.

 

Repurpose Content to Other Channels

 

Amplify your reach by repurposing content across your website, blog, email newsletters, external social media networks like Twitter and Facebook, paid ads, and any other channels available to you.

 

Wherever possible, link back to the original, hosted version on LinkedIn to drive traffic and engagement metrics.

 

Promote Across Paid Advertising Channels

 

While organic promotion is free, also leverage paid advertising to boost content distribution beyond just those who actively follow your brand.

 

- Use LinkedIn's self-serve ad platform to promote content to specific audiences.

- Run retargeting ads on other sites to reconnect with LinkedIn visitors.

- Promote content in highly-targeted external newsletters.

- Buy sponsored content placements on industry media sites.

- Promote content offers via paid search ads.

 

The boost in visibility can be well worth the minimal paid promotion cost.

 

Pitch Content to Relevant LinkedIn Groups

 

Actively participate and post content in LinkedIn Groups centered around topics relevant to your content and audience. Groups provide built-in communities of engaged professionals.

 

Comment on discussions and post updates pitching your content to group members. Ensure content closely aligns with each group's rules and topics first. Post sparingly enough to add value but not overwhelm groups with spammy pitches.

 

Partner with Industry Influencers

 

Identify LinkedIn thought leaders, experts, and influencers in your space. Reach out to gauge their interest in co-creating content, co-hosting a webinar, participating in a video interview, or allowing contributed guest posts.

 

This provides a credible external perspective for your audience while expanding your reach to new networks. Ensure there is strong alignment on topics and tone first.

 

Present at Industry Events

 

Look for opportunities to present at relevant industry conferences, meetups, webinars, and virtual events. These let you showcase helpful content directly to audiences likely interested in your brand.

 

Record presentations to repurpose into shareable social content after the event.

 

Send Content in Email Nurture Campaigns

 

Share new articles, videos, and other content across your email marketing programs. Send to both existing contacts and paid cold email leads.

 

Integrate content into drip campaigns focused around specific topics to nurture contacts based on their interests and goals.

 

Incorporate into Paid Campaign Landing Pages

 

Display relevant content assets like articles, ebooks, or videos directly on paid campaign landing pages and in nurture sequences. This builds confidence by showcasing your expertise before asking for a lead conversion.

 

Publish Content in External Industry Media

 

Actively pitch and distribute content to trade publications, magazines, websites, and other media outlets that cover your industry. Securing coverage greatly amplifies credibility and reach.

 

Offer to contribute guest posts or exclusive tips to build relationships with editors and writers.

 

Discuss and Share Content Socially

 

Share content recaps, quotes, key stats, or eye-catching visuals from articles across your personal social media channels. This spreads brand awareness socially while directing traffic back to full content.

 

Reply and discuss content with others who engage to continue the conversation and increase touchpoints.

 

Create Snackable Companion Content

 

Generate companion derivative content that offers quick recaps of key ideas and insights from your in-depth content. For example:

 

- Short social videos discussing content themes

- Infographic visuals condensing data into key stats 

- Blog post summaries and key takeaways

- Checklists or worksheets with action steps

- Quizzes testing knowledge retention

 

These "snackable" versions allow quick consumption for busy audiences while promoting your original content.

 

Analyze Performance and Continuously Refine Content

 

The work doesn't stop once you've created and distributed a single piece of content. You need to closely monitor the performance and engagement of each piece of content on an ongoing basis.

 

Regular analysis provides the insights needed to continually refine and improve your LinkedIn content strategy over time.

 

Track Performance Against KPIs

 

Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) aligned to your goals for each piece of content. For example:

 

- **Impressions and reach**: How many people did the content potentially reach?

 

- **Clicks**: How many unique clicks did the headline or preview generate?

 

- **Click-through-rate**: What % of impressions clicked? Higher is better.

 

- **Engagement rate**: What % of reach engaged through reactions, comments, shares etc?

 

- **Leads generated**: How many new leads did a piece directly convert?

 

- **Cost per lead**: What was the total cost to generate each conversion?

 

Monitor trends across topics, formats, headlines, promotion channels, and other factors that influence performance. Compare to benchmarks.

 

Measure Real-World Business Impact

 

Look beyond vanity metrics to how content tangibly impacts real business results. For example, monitor:

 

- **Website traffic referrals**: How much is LinkedIn content driving site visitors?

 

- **Sales influenced**: What % of won deals can be tied back to certain content?

 

- **Talent applications**: Does employer brand content attract more applicants?

 

Connect your content promotion and social analytics to real pipelines and revenue.

 

Review Engagement Quality and Follower Sentiment

 

Rather than just the quantity of reactions, study the quality of comments your content receives. Look for genuine conversations, questions, feedback, and suggestions. This qualitatively indicates how content truly resonates.

 

Social listening also reveals overall follower sentiment - are they delighted and engaged or indifferent?

 

Monitor Competitors and Industry Benchmarks

 

Regularly audit competitors' LinkedIn content strategies. Analyze their posting cadence, topics, formats, engagement levels, and thought leadership.

 

This competitive research shows what's working well in your industry versus what may be falling flat or commoditized.

 

Continuously Optimize and Improve

 

Use insights gained from the metrics, conversations, and competitor analysis to identify issues and opportunities to optimize your strategy.

 

Brainstorm new topics, formats, angles, promotion channels, and other creative ideas to continuously improve results. Test hypotheses through experimentation and iteration.

 

Analyze, learn, and refine your approach, never standing still. This agility sets great brands apart.

 

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

 

Developing an effective content strategy tailored specifically for LinkedIn requires upfront planning, creativity, promotion, and constant optimization. But brands that invest the work required to master LinkedIn content reap huge benefits.

 

To recap, here are the key steps covered in this guide:

 

- **Know your audience** - Research both professional and personal demographics, interests, goals, and pain points.

 

- **Set measurable goals** - Consider awareness, leads, thought leadership, recruitment, events, and other targets.

 

- **Map out an editorial calendar** - Plan a variety of content types and topics in advance. Maintain a consistent schedule.

 

- **Create quality, value-driven content** - Focus on helping your audience versus ego-driven promotion. Provide utility and entertainment.

 

- **Promote across channels** - Share content socially on LinkedIn but also via email, ads, media, influencers, events, and more.

 

- **Analyze and refine continually** - Track engagement, leads, competitive intelligence, and real business impact to optimize efforts.

 

With a strategic, audience-focused approach, you can cut through the noise on LinkedIn and build an engaging presence that positions your brand as a true leader in your space.

 

Now focus on executing this strategy consistently, and you will reap the benefits for your brand.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

How often should I post content on LinkedIn with a branded Company Page?

 

Posting 1-2 times per day is best for active engagement, according to LinkedIn. But 2-3 times per week can also perform well. Avoid posting less than weekly. Consistency is key, so post on a set schedule based on your team's resources.

 

What types of content typically perform best on LinkedIn for B2B brands?

 

Thought leadership content like data reports, tips, how-tos, and expert advice often resonate best with LinkedIn's professional audience. Educational articles, videos, and visual content get high engagement. Avoid overly promotional posts - instead aim to provide value.

 

How can I make sure my LinkedIn content stands out from competitors?

 

Focus on providing truly unique insider perspectives vs. just commentary any brand could provide. Get personal by featuring real employees, behind-the-scenes videos, and customer testimonials. Experiment with new formats like polls, quizzes, and live video Q&As. Custom graphics and visuals also help content pop versus competitors.

 

What should I include in a strong LinkedIn post headline?

 

Effective headlines clearly convey the core promise/benefit of your content to catch your audience’s attention - think “5 Tips to __” or “How to __”. Use keywords but avoid overly promotional language. Keep headlines under 60 characters so they don’t get cut off. Ask questions and highlight numbers to boost clicks.

 

How can I repurpose my existing content into new LinkedIn formats?

 

Turn blog posts into short LinkedIn articles. Record existing presentations or webinars as video clips. Create visual quotes or key stats from articles. Interview your blog post author on video about the content. The key is to recreate long-form content in snackable formats ideal for the LinkedIn feed.

 

What metrics should I track to determine the success of my LinkedIn content strategy?

 

Track impressions, reach, clicks, click-through rate, engagement rate, reactions, shares, comments, leads generated, cost per lead, website traffic referrals, and real business impact. Compare performance by topic, format, headline style, and more to optimize efforts.

 

Should I use LinkedIn’s automated targeting or create custom audiences for my content campaigns?

 

Start with LinkedIn’s automatic targeting by title, industry, etc to gain traction. But over time, build custom audiences using pixel tracking or contact file uploads for greater personalization. Layer these custom segments on top of LinkedIn’s targeting for powerful segmentation.

 

What tools can I use to manage a consistent content calendar and publishing cadence on LinkedIn?

 

Tools like Loomly, Buffer, and Hootsuite allow you to plan, schedule, recycle, and manage your LinkedIn content pipeline all in one dashboard. These save time over LinkedIn's native platform alone. Just maintain capability to create truly custom content versus only social media management.

 

Should I try promoting content through LinkedIn ads or focus solely on organic reach?

 

Once you have an established organic following, experiment with LinkedIn Sponsored Content and Text Ads to further boost content views. The increased reach can be well worth the small ad investment if targeted carefully. But don't rely solely on ads without an engaged organic audience.

 

How can I encourage others to share my LinkedIn content posts to expand reach?

 

Directly ask others to share your content in the post copy and engage with those who do. Share content previews across your other social channels directing followers back to the full post on LinkedIn. Highlight relevant hashtags and audiences in post copy to increase visibility in feeds. Offer a small incentive for substantial shares.

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