LinkedIn is the leading social media platform for B2B organizations and can be used to build brand awareness and generate leads. Using a blend of organic and paid tactics to reach your audience will be more effective than using one or the other. Here we take a look at how to blend organic and paid social media marketing with LinkedIn.

Choose Your Audience

The first step is to decide the ideal audience for your campaign. Once you’ve determined the companies you want to focus on, develop a list of decision-makers and key influencers to target with your messaging. This will likely come down to job title and role. Depending on the size of the companies you’re going after, you’ll want to have between two and ten target contacts within each organization as B2B sales almost always involves multiple decision-makers.

Use A Variety Of Ads

Sponsored content, text ads, image ads, video ads, and InMail should all be used to ensure you’re putting out the type of content your audience likes to absorb. Beyond ad type, you’ll want each of your ads to lead to various premium content pieces. This should include a mix of eBooks, whitepapers, case studies, demo videos, and free offers such as consultations or trials. A/B test your ads and focus your spend on those that perform the best.

Connect With Your Prospects

Connecting directly with your prospects gives you the opportunity to have a live conversation with them without the need to pick up the telephone. Connection requests should be genuine and not include a sales pitch. Find some level of common interest by researching their personal profile and company pages and use that within your connection request. Send a request to anyone within the organization you believe will have an influence on purchase decisions.

Create And Join Discussion Groups

Joining the discussion groups that your audience is a part of gives you another place to share content and interact with your audience even if you’re not connected. Post helpful articles, and be sure to engage with anything that is posted by one of your targets. Creating your own groups and inviting only those on your prospect lists gives you a highly segmented audience and control of the content being posted to the group.

Post From Company And Personal Pages

The reach of company pages has dwindled over the years, but they still need to remain active. Post daily to your company page, but make sure your marketing team is sharing from their personal profiles as well. Personal pages tend to have better reach, and if you’ve done a good job connecting with your target audience, you’ll be putting content right in front of the people you want to see it the most.

Use Direct Messaging To Build Relationships

Don’t be afraid to send your prospects a direct message. Just make sure you’re not sending a sales pitch right away. Provide value to them by sharing helpful content and start to build a relationship on a personal level. Use their geographic location and background to ask relevant questions as conversation starters. Spend the time to build a genuine connection before introducing your business, products, or services.