Important Changes for B2B Marketing with LinkedIn

When it comes to B2B marketing, LinkedIn is king. In April, LinkedIn announced that its community had grown to 500 million members living in 200 countries. More than 9 million companies use LinkedIn, and more 100,000 articles are published each week.

Many articles are published on LinkedIn, but the site is also a popular place to share content originally published elsewhere. According to Content Marketing Institute, LinkedIn has surpassed both Twitter and Facebook for content shares on many B2B topics.

Clearly, this is not a social media site that professionals or businesses can afford to ignore. The site is an essential way to get your name out there and make connections. It is an excellent way attract leads to help grow your business.

Using LinkedIn

Businesses can use LinkedIn in several ways. Your company needs a LinkedIn company page, and each employee should have a personal profile. These provide essential information about you and your business.

Another popular way to use LinkedIn is to join LinkedIn groups. These groups center around specific professional topics. By posting in various groups, you can get in front of professionals who may never have seen your content otherwise. Groups typically have between 200 and 20,000 members so by posting helpful articles to groups, you exponentially expand your company’s reach.

Changes to LinkedIn Groups Posting Procedures

In the past, posts to LinkedIn groups could be scheduled in advance using social tools such as Hootsuite or HubSpot. Unfortunately, this will no longer be possible.

LinkedIn has recently announced a change in its policies. Beginning in July, LinkedIn group posts must be made natively – they can’t be scheduled through third-party sites.

This means that we will no longer be able to schedule LinkedIn group posts on your behalf, using our tools. Although we have to discontinue our LinkedIn group posting service, we will continue to provide other services related to LinkedIn. The way we schedule posts to company pages and personal profiles will not be affected by this policy change. We will also continue to support your LinkedIn group efforts by providing you with a posting calendar and pre-written posts, so you can efficiently post on your own.

While this new policy puts a “hitch” in our standard practices, it should not deter you from using LinkedIn groups. We universally find that for clients who sell to other businesses, LinkedIn generates more than 85% of social leads. Bottom line: It’s worth your time.

As always, the key is to continue to publish and promote smart, helpful blog content that empowers your prospects to make informed buying decisions. Need help writing social posts? Learn more about our social media content services.