Mastering B2B Brand Building on LinkedIn: 4 Key Takeaways
Fight or Flight hosted “Mastering B2B Brand Building on LinkedIn” on May 14th, bringing together Rob Mayhew (Content Creator), Tobi Demuren (Global Head of Advocacy Marketing, LinkedIn) and Kate Sarginson (Head of Creative, Fight or Flight), to discuss the best ways for brands to promote themselves on LinkedIn.
Taking place at 21Soho, the panel discussed LinkedIn’s changing nature and creativity on the platform. From how to inject humour to make your brand stand out to leveraging influencers in the B2B space, Rob, Tobi, and Kate provided real insights into establishing a brand in a crowded market where most marketers do the same old thing.
Weren’t able to join us on the day? We have four key takeaways from the event that we’ll share with you now.
1. LinkedIn is free content – so follow for inspiration
Now with over a billion members, LinkedIn is the natural home for B2B marketers to find their target audience. And as the platform continues to ride a spike in engagement post-Covid, there’s a great chance for brands to take advantage of this moment. As Tobi says, “A lot of B2B brands are starting to dip their toes into it…there’s a real opportunity to be one of the first movers in the space.”
Part of the reason for this is the burst of creative content on the platform. Content creators – like Rob – have found a home on LinkedIn, speaking to a highly engaged audience. In Rob’s case, this has seen his followers grow to over 130,000 since he started producing his content during the pandemic.
What’s more, creative content is free to access on the platform. Rob puts it simply: “If you think LinkedIn is boring, you’re just following the wrong people.”
2. Timing is everything
As noted, LinkedIn is currently booming in terms of audience and engagement. But there’s a chance that won’t last forever. Tobi’s word of warning for this is that, whilst currently “you don’t have to do a lot to get a lot of followers”, this won’t always be the case. “LinkedIn right now, is not going to be the same as LinkedIn in 5 years’ time – it’s going to be much harder to get followers, to get your content seen. So there’s a huge opportunity.”
That means the time to act on the platform is now. It’s something at Fight or Flight, we’ve already seen and taken advantage of: whether it be our work engaging with creators (like Rob) on Frontify’s Real or Not Real or Spot the Brand campaigns, or integrating social & PR together for Roland DG’s award-winning 50 Shades of Ginger campaign.
3. Being platform-specific with your content
One quote from Rob made this point better than any other: “You have to create a LinkedIn first campaign, because it’s just a smart thing to do.”
Whilst people may think it’s easy to repurpose content across platforms, there’s much more opportunity to create something special and LinkedIn specific. From his own perspective within LinkedIn, Tobi sees it as such: “What does LinkedIn content look like? I think there’s so much of an opportunity…nobody’s really nailed or put down a template for what LinkedIn content looks like.”
Kate and Rob also touch more on this, with a particular look towards our Pitch “Pitch To Win” campaign that we collaborated on. The campaign – split across two videos – called on users to submit their “pitching horror stories” as comments on Rob’s video sketch – “bringing the brand story to life”, as Kate puts it.
By crafting the content to the specific LinkedIn audience, the campaign saw some amazing results. The videos generated over 500,000 impressions and 224k unique video views, which is an amazing performance in building great awareness of Pitch’s brand offering.
4. Injecting humour
Thanks to our panel, the crowd at the event had plenty of laughs—perfect for discussing how humour can cut through on LinkedIn, too. Rob’s content and growth are testaments to this, and he predicts that his LinkedIn profile will overtake TikTok by the end of the year.
LinkedIn is paying attention to this. Adding a “laugh” emoji reaction to posts is just one sign of this. Tobi explains: “If you use humour, you get more engagement than anything else. As B2B brands start to think a bit more about what we can do, we’ll see a lot more brands dipping into that humour space.”
Knowing how to get the tone right is important though, whether you’re going alone on the comedy route or using an influencer to help you in this space. Make sure you’re set up for success and have planned your content strategy for the platform thoroughly. And if you ever need a little guidance, make sure to get in touch with Fight or Flight!
65% of B2B leaders say they’re going to increase their usage of LinkedIn in 2024. And with the media increasingly turning to LinkedIn over platforms such as X, having an active presence and sharing thought leadership is more important than ever.
But we also know it’s not always easy. That’s why Fight or Flight has put together an executive profiling product, working with you to boost the presence of your executives on LinkedIn.
We’ll work together with you across:
• Social Profile Audits & Best Practice Documents
• Executive Content Development
• Community Management (Reactive & Proactive)
• Ongoing Training & Support to upskill your team
Take a look at our product guide here, and drop us a message using the contact form above or at social@fightorflight.com to discuss in more detail!