What can the new LinkedIn Collective do for B2B? 7 Tips

This month, LinkedIn launched a brand new online community for B2B marketers – LinkedIn Collective.

So, what does this new platform offer, and how could it benefit B2B businesses looking for new ideas?

The New LinkedIn Collective

LinkedIn has been making several updates to their offering as of late, from the new LinkedIn events boost to native carousel posting options.

Their latest addition is a new space designed by and for B2B experts.

According to LinkedIn, the new LinkedIn Collective hub will offer:

Groundbreaking insights from the world of work curated by our team of B2B marketing experts.

It’s designed as the place to go for B2B thought leadership and tips derived from LinkedIn’s own platform data and independent research.

It promises to cover subjects such as:

How to build a content brand on LinkedIn
How to drive creativity in B2B advertising
How to move B2B marketing into the future

It is also designed as a forum for marketers to discuss challenges, solutions and updates.

So, what does this move tell us?

Thought leadership content fuels B2B marketing

The fact that LinkedIn is seeking to position itself as a content resource, rather than a distributor or promotor highlights the importance of value-add content in the future of B2B content marketing.

It reflects the increasing importance of quality over quantity, of adding value over selling.

There’s no getting around the fact that effective, thought leadership content continues to be a vital part of any B2B company’s marketing strategy. Without it, you’re likely to get left out of the conversation entirely.

How to use the Collective as a B2B company

LinkedIn’s new venture has the potential to offer valuable insights and data to B2B companies.

It’s already shared stats such as:

Brands that effectively harness emotion acquire 198x more followers on average
Investing in great creative can drive 10-20x more sales

LinkedIn has an insider view into behaviour and trends, and you’d be wise to listen.
97% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for content marketing and 80% of B2B leads come from the social platform.

This makes playing by LinkedIn’s rules and recommendations a secure investment.

Here are our tips for making use of the platform:

Offer support – People love to reciprocate. Supporting, congratulating, celebrating and giving credit leads to more LinkedIn engagement and promising connections
Find inspiration – As the platform grows, there will be a plethora of B2B professionals to glean information and ideas from
Keep an eye on the competition – Competitor research is vital for brand positioning. Check out what your competitors are up to, what’s working for them and see if you can apply it to your own marketing efforts
Join the conversation – Getting your brand name out there is always a good thing, you never know where a new connection could take you
Follow the data – Data insights are invaluable when it comes to your business strategy and success. Keep an eye out for relevant stats that could guide you in the right direction
Link to content – The Collective could provide a great space to link to relevant content on your own website. Find a relevant post or conversation to seed your content naturally in a comment
Top talent – Looking for new marketing hires? This could be a great place to find fresh talent or experienced professionals looking for a role change

It’s still early days for the platform which currently has just over 3,000 followers. Could it be the next number one destination for B2B content marketing knowledge?

Only time will tell, but for now, B2B brands can benefit from getting their content strategy on the right track.

Get in touch to see how we can help accelerate your digital marketing strategy.