On a recent flight, I finally got a chance to read “Stupider People Have Done It” by the fabulous Jay Schwedelson. I was surprised to learn how big a part LinkedIn plays in Jay’s marketing strategy after it literally saved his business during COVID.
But it was this line that surprised me most: “YOUR COMPANY’S LINKEDIN PAGE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR WEBSITE“. 👀
Most B2B businesses spend a lot of time thinking about what their website says about them. Fewer stop to consider what their LinkedIn Company Page is saying or, maybe more importantly, not saying.
At the end of the day, B2B buyers check both during their research.
I don’t often read anything positive about LinkedIn Company Pages, so I wanted to continue this conversation in this week’s episode of Social Media for B2B Growth Podcast.
Your LinkedIn Company Page Is Sending Signals Whether You Like It or Not
I’ve called this the ghost town effect for years.
Someone hears about your business, searches your business name, finds your website and then looks you up on LinkedIn. Your website naturally tells them you’re brilliant. That’s what websites are designed to do.
LinkedIn gives them something different. They can see whether your business appears active, whether people engage with you and whether there’s evidence that something is actually happening behind the logo.
A neglected Page can raise questions you never intended it to:
- Is this business still active?
- Does anyone actually work here?
- Are they keeping up with their industry?
- Why haven’t they posted in months?
- Why does everything here feel so disconnected from the company I saw on the website?
That’s why you shouldn’t judge Company Page activity only by clicks, impressions, or leads. Trust signals and negative signals are also much harder to track in a dashboard.
👉 Not every person who visits your Page will follow it, click through or fill in a form. Some will just leave with a stronger or weaker impression of your business.
Brand Guidelines Shouldn't Make Your Content Invisible
One of the biggest obstacles I see inside B2B organisations is the tension between brand guidelines and social media.
The marketing team wants consistency. I understand that. But consistency can become so rigid that everything starts to look like a corporate template rather than something designed for a social feed.
Then B2B marketers wonder why nobody stops scrolling. Hint: it’s not the LinkedIn algorithm’s fault.
Social media still needs to feel social. That doesn’t mean throwing your brand guidelines out the window. It means creating enough flexibility to show the reality behind the brand.
As Jay put it:
“The brand these days is humanity.”
Behind-the-scenes content is one of the easiest ways to do this. Give them access to something they wouldn’t normally see.
- Show the factory floor.
- Show how the product gets made.
- Take people into the lab, the warehouse or the development process.
- Give us a glimpse into the support teams, e.g., customer service, quality, engineering, etc
This is especially valuable as AI makes it easier for every organisation to produce more polished, generic content.
👉 Brand guidelines should help people recognise you. They shouldn’t make every post so predictable that people stop noticing you.
Your People Are the Part Competitors Can't Copy
Products can look similar. Services can be copied. Competitors can adopt similar technology and even imitate your content. I strongly believe people are the real differentiator in every business.
They bring experience, expertise, opinions, stories and relationships that can’t come from a corporate logo.
Showing the people behind the business can give buyers a much clearer sense of who they’re dealing with, what the organisation knows and what makes the business different from everyone else offering something similar.
This doesn’t mean every employee needs to become a LinkedIn creator. It can be much simpler. Bring your people into the content.
- Let them explain what they know.
- Show the work they do,
- The problems they solve
- The unique perspectives they bring.
For B2B brands especially, far more interesting content often sits inside the business than marketers realise. The challenge is getting beyond the polished corporate layer and making more of that expertise visible.
👉 Your competitors might be able to copy what you sell. They can’t copy the people who make your business what it is.
Company Page + People Is the Stronger LinkedIn Strategy
The Power of Two is about making your Company Page and your people work together, not running them as two separate LinkedIn strategies.
A practical way to do that is to identify the people inside your business who already have expertise, credibility or personality worth putting in front of your audience. Jay described this as creating “internal stars”, and I think that’s exactly the right way to look at it.
You don’t need every employee creating content. Start with a smaller group and use the Page to help make their expertise visible.
That could look like:
- Featuring employees in Company Page posts and videos
- Building posts around their expertise, ideas or customer insights
- Tagging them so they can add their own perspective in the comments
- Using collaborative posts where it makes sense
- Giving them Company Page content they can build on or share with their own point of view
- Gradually supporting those who want to create their own content
The Page becomes the cheer squad, putting your people in the spotlight and giving them opportunities to participate. Your people then bring the personality, experience and relationships that the Company Page can’t create on its own.
That’s The Power of Two in practice.
👉 Instead of asking, “Should we focus on the Company Page or employees?” ask: Who are the people inside our business that our audience should know, and how can the Company Page help make them more visible?
Final Thoughts
The biggest barrier to better LinkedIn content often isn’t a lack of ideas. It’s overthinking.
Will this fit the brand guidelines? Is the video polished enough? Will employees want to be involved? What if the post doesn’t perform?
Meanwhile, nothing gets published and the people, expertise and stories that could make the brand interesting stay hidden.
Jay’s advice at the end of our conversation was refreshingly simple:
“When in doubt, post it… regret is worse than failure. Just do it.”
I’m not suggesting throwing strategy out the window. I’m suggesting we stop confusing professional with perfect.
Find your internal stars. Give them a place in your Company Page content. Try something that looks a little less corporate. Pay attention to what gets people to stop, respond and engage, then do more of what works.
You’ll learn far more from putting useful content into the world than you will from another round of internal approvals.
Because nobody can connect with the expertise and people inside your business if you keep them hidden.
I challenge you this week to replace overthinking with having fun! 😀
Cheers!
Michelle J Raymond
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