Author: Caitlin Kryl, Content Marketing Manager
UPDATED July 5, 2023
If you’ve been on LinkedIn for more than a couple of years, you’ll notice it’s looking…a little different these days.
LinkedIn launched in 2003 as a simple recruitment platform — but over the past several years, the more social aspects of this oft-forgotten social media channel have exploded. Today’s LinkedIn is not only a massive virtual recruiting hub with more than 810 million members from across the globe but a veritable mecca of business and work-life storytelling and meaningful conversation.
Behind the musings on leadership, career advice, and customer stories you likely see on your feed every day is a powerful algorithm that offers impressive organic reach. Hootsuite data shows that 77% of content marketers look to LinkedIn for the best organic results — and many marketers even rank the platform at a similar level to the ultimate organic reach unicorn, TikTok.
This knowledge is powerful when applied to your company page’s strategy. But have you factored the influence of senior leadership into your brand growth equation? If your answer is “not yet,” you’re missing out on massive audience engagement, lead generation, and recruitment potential.
Here’s the download on why it’s so important to invest in your executive LinkedIn strategy, with real-world examples from our clients, and how to get started today.
3 reasons to invest time in CEO or leadership team’s LinkedIn strategy
➡️ Humans connect best with other humans
Let me be clear — your company page is an incredibly valuable aspect of your content strategy. But as humans, we connect and identify best when we know the face and name on the other side of the screen, not just the logo.
Anecdotally, we see that LinkedIn values these human-to-human interactions best as well, proven in the form of outsized impressions and engagement on CEO social media posts, even when sharing similar content on both channels.
➡️ Speak directly to an audience of decision-makers and potential talent
Hootsuite data tells us that 4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn “drive business decisions,” and more than 12 million people are signaling that they’re open to work right now. Your personal LinkedIn network is a powerful way to directly and organically connect to an audience of potential customers, investors, partners, and future team members.
When our clients invest time in posting regularly, they begin to see the impact of their personal LinkedIn strategy trickle into everyday business interactions — and sometimes lead to direct outreach from investors and industry decision-makers. One client shares: “I’ve had moments where I step into a room of veritable strangers and they already intimately understand my company’s story because they’ve been closely following my updates on social media.”
➡️ Share more personal—and long-form—storytelling
The fact is that your personal channel allows you to tell stories tailored to your experiences; lean into your own professional journey alongside your company’s journey and share that wisdom with a like-minded audience. In your personal storytelling, you build trust between you and your audience in a way that feels more specific than something that would go on the company page.
This is also an opportunity to tell longer stories. Unlike the 262-character quips required for Twitter, LinkedIn’s algorithm prioritizes content that captures viewers for longer periods of time. With up to 1,300 characters allowed (though, use that full limit sparingly!), LinkedIn is your opportunity to take a deeper dive into a story or concept.
➡️ Amplify your company’s page
There are likely folks in your audience who don’t yet follow your company — prospective clients, board members — and I bet you wish they did. Amplifying content from your company page, either through sharing or organically posting is a great way to reach those folks, ensuring your company page’s content reaches additional audience members and brings additional folks to follow your channels.
How to get started with your personal LinkedIn strategy
🧠 Start gathering post ideas
Is your team already posting regularly on the company’s LinkedIn? Start by identifying the posts where sharing and adding your perspective on personal channels would help amplify that original content.
Some prompts for your own original content could be:
- Recalling a meaningful customer or partner interaction
- Adding your unique perspective and expertise to a relevant industry topic
- Experiences from your daily life that prove the need for your product
- Sharing media opportunities where you were featured like podcasts, articles, etc.
- Personal stories from your journey. What advice would you give to others early in their entrepreneurship journey?
☝️Some general tips:
- Respond to comments. Always.
- Use images. LinkedIn posts with images get 2x higher engagement.
- Aim for consistency — even if it’s once a week.
- Make sure you’re engaging with others’ content as well. Follow relevant hashtags or set up a favorites list to make sure you’re a valuable contributor to the larger conversation.
🏁 Just start.
You don’t need to have it all figured out to get started now. Commit to one post a week, and a combination of amplifying company social media with your own comments, sharing relevant articles, and posting your own original thoughts. Consider your first 10 posts your preliminary audience research. When you start to see what they respond best to, you can further hone and craft your content to maximize your influence.
If you want to explore how an integrated CEO and company content strategy could help your startup, reach out anytime.
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3 Steps to Build Your Profile: Be Social, Generous, & Human