LinkedIn Company Pages aren’t new, but they can still seem like the final frontier for B2B marketers and business owners to conquer. This is especially true for businesses relying purely on organic content strategies, as generating substantial impressions and engagement can be challenging.
Historically, Company Pages have been utilised predominantly as broadcast tools, with content primarily serving business-centric interests. Posts about financial updates, newly appointed roles, and events have been commonplace. However, these communication strategies are often one-sided, resulting in pages that feel impersonal and offer little value to followers.
The Power of B2B Community-Generated Content
The silver lining here is that with a shift in content strategy, you can quickly improve key metrics and cultivate a vibrant community around your brand.
You’re probably already familiar with User Generated Content (UGC), which is frequently employed in B2C marketing. UGC refers to content created by consumers, often perceived as more trustworthy than that produced by the brand.
For Company Pages, I want you to extend UGC beyond just customers or users and embrace the Community-Generated Content (CGC) concept. It involves all community members, including employees, customers, suppliers, associations, and other industry players.
CGC fosters a greater sense of community engagement and authenticity. Authenticity generates brand trust and a sense of community, which are powerful ways to increase loyalty and improve sales.
The Types and Benefits of Community-Generated Content
Let’s consider some instances of CGC and their inherent benefits:
Employees – Content crafted by employees in their own voices is perceived as authentic and trustworthy. Leveraging their existing industry relationships can enhance your company’s credibility and reach. Marketers often focus on building employees as advocates on their personal profiles, but this strategy can also include the company page.
Suppliers – This strategy serves a dual purpose. Not only can you use such content for potential cross-promotion and to extend your reach beyond usual customer audiences, but it also strengthens business relationships.
Industry Associations – Utilising industry connections can demonstrate to your followers that your business is well-integrated and trusted within your industry. In addition, emphasise content that shows your keen awareness of issues impacting your sector. This content could be trend-based, regulation changes, events etc
Customers – leveraging content from your customers brings multiple advantages to your LinkedIn Company Page. First, it offers testimonials and insights from the user perspective, boosting your brand’s credibility and fostering a genuine connection with prospective clients.
These organic customer narratives often outperform traditional advertising in terms of authenticity and trustworthiness. Moreover, this strategy allows you to amplify your customer’s voice and showcase your product or service’s real-life applications and benefits. It’s also a chance to illustrate how your business has positively impacted your customer base, creating compelling stories that resonate with other potential customers.
And let’s not forget; it also encourages brand loyalty by giving customers a platform and making them feel heard and appreciated.
Universities/Research Institutes – sharing the latest research can reinforce your position as an industry leader that is not just style over substance. Give your B2B community a reason to trust your business.
360° B2B Community-Generated Content Builds Trust
This shift towards more content creation at a community level will give marketers a range of content that can be unique and engaging. In addition, page followers will now get a 360° industry view from your page and know it is the only place they need to go for information.
An added benefit of this strategy is its cost-effectiveness – as the content needn’t be glossy or overly polished. In fact, less ‘produced’ content often performs better on LinkedIn.
I urge marketers to seize this opportunity. Harness the collective strength of your community to generate compelling, authentic, and effective content that resonates with your audience.
CGC is not just about information; it’s about connection, conversation, and community. So let’s leverage it to transform our Company Page from a corporate bulletin board to an engaging industry-leading community hub.
LinkedIn Company Pages Updates, New Features and Trends (Q2 2023)
I recently had the pleasure of joining Lynnaire Johnston, my co-author for an international bestseller and the world’s first book on Company Pages – Business Gold – Book, to talk about the latest and greatest things you need to know about LinkedIn Company Pages.
https://youtu.be/4vFXryILLFs
As we finish out the first half of the year, are you happy with how your B2B is leveraging LinkedIn? If the answer is no and you aren’t seeing a return on your investment, now is the time to invest in training. Many of my clients, after training, go from being busy on LinkedIn to being effective, attracting the lion’s share of high-quality opportunities.
Cheers!
Michelle
Michelle J Raymond is the founder of B2B Growth Co and has made her mark as a leading LinkedIn growth strategist, offering comprehensive strategies and training to brands eager to harness LinkedIn for business growth through thought leadership, content marketing or social selling techniques.
With 20+ years’ experience in B2B sales, and almost a decade of social selling on LinkedIn, Michelle stands out for her significant LinkedIn contributions as the co-author of two globally acclaimed books: “Business Gold,” the first book exclusively dedicated to LinkedIn Company Pages, and “The LinkedIn Branding Book,” and her insightful podcast Social Media for B2B Growth. Follow her YouTube channel @MichelleJRaymond for helpful how to’s.
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