The Complete Guide to Getting Started with B2B LinkedIn Marketing

LinkedIn is the professional social network.
If you run a B2B business, there is a good chance that you’ve looked at LinkedIn as a source for lead generation. As a copywriter, I’ve used LinkedIn pretty extensively to find new prospects. It’s a place designed for networking, so it seems like a natural fit, doesn’t it?
Well, the hype isn’t misplaced. LinkedIn has been an invaluable resource in the growth of my own business and many others. It’s legitimately a gold-mine for those that can figure out how to do LinkedIn right.
So if you run a B2B business and aren’t using LinkedIn — this guide is for you. If you are in the B2B space, you need to have a presence on LinkedIn. Knowing how to grow your audience on LinkedIn can help you to expand your network, generate leads, and grow your business organically.
LinkedIn is a different animal than Facebook or Twitter, and that’s a good thing. The expectations are undeniably higher, but the opportunities that the platform provides are worth the extra effort.
Why Market on LinkedIn?
Relationships are more important than ever — this is true both online and off. Building the right relationships is integral to finding new opportunities and building upon your growth.
Don’t underestimate just how influential LinkedIn has become:
- LinkedIn is the largest professional social network in the world. There are more than 500 million users in total.
- 40% of LinkedIn users check the platform everyday,
- 1 of 3 professionals currently has a LinkedIn account.
Additionally, content is more actively engaged with on LinkedIn. That is something that many fail to realize — LinkedIn is so much more than a professional profile and online resume. It’s a publishing platform. It’s a job posting website. It’s networking and conversations with like-minded professionals and entrepreneurs. The entire platform is designed to get users interacting with each other and doing business. When users win, LinkedIn wins too. To overlook LinkedIn as a legitimate source for B2B growth would be a mistake.
Setting up Your Profile

You can’t start marketing yourself on LinkedIn without first setting up your professional profile. You might already have one, but keep reading. We will walk you through the process of setting it up and may see a few things in a new way.
Your Name
Use your real name. LinkedIn may shut down your account if you attempt to use the space for anything other than what it was meant for. Occasionally you will see someone that lists their job title alongside their name, but that violates the terms of service of the platform.
Your Headline

Your headline is arguably the most important element of your profile. It shapes your perception on LinkedIn and immediately gives people a point of reference when interacting with you. It will be shown in several different places throughout the network, including within the search results and employee listing pages. Keep in mind that your headline will actually be used when users search. Connected to your headline is information about the company that you work for.
Your headline will show up in:
- Searches
- Invitations to Connect
- Messages
- When Your Profile Pic is Hovered Over
So while it might be tempting to add some sort of tag line, don’t sacrifice clarity in the process. Your headline should clearly convey what it is that you do in a few short words. In most cases, a job title is sufficient. In others, a short description of your job might be more apt. In essence, it is your LinkedIn business card. Make sure it says what it needs to say to convey the right message.
Contact Info
LinkedIn recently made some changes to the way that contact info is displayed. Your own personal website used to display below your heading but was enveloped within the contact info as a whole. Your contact info allows you to list the following things:
- IM Handle
- Phone
- Address
- Websites
You want to make yourself accessible, so fill out everything that is relevant to you. If you are worried about your email being visible, don’t. It is only visible to people that you have connected with on LinkedIn, or have engaged with through email. However — you can always use a second email address if you are worried about it falling into the wrong hands.
Summary

The summary of your profile is essentially your resume. It’s here that you should summarize your experience and expertise. You can write a few paragraphs about your experience, but try to keep things short and sweet. No one is reading 500+ words on a LinkedIn profile. Use bullet points.
The summary section also allows you to upload media as well. Pretty much any of the basic types of media are allowed including images, YouTube videos, Slideshare presentations, and audio. This can be an excellent way to share content that your prospective audience would enjoy. Don’t overdo it, though. Cap your uploads at two or three to keep your profile from becoming too busy.
Be creative with your summary. If you offer services — make sure to promote them here. Link to marketing materials for your connections to interact with. Include any writing samples. Make sure that you are able to really drive home what it is that you do and set the stage for future interactions with leads on the platform.
Experience
Experience is one of the most important aspects of your profile and is often the first place that interested parties will look. It provides a snapshot of your working experience and tells a story about your career.
Keep in mind that this section is used to determine what keywords your profile will be ranking for, and results from this section will be shown in several areas throughout the network. Use keywords that you want to rank for, and include subsidiary job titles in your descriptions of those jobs.
As you fill in the summaries of your different positions, remember that LinkedIn has implemented several different rules to determine if you are keyword stuffing or trying to game the system. While it is difficult to trip these filters, don’t go overboard. Fit keywords in as they make sense, but remember that you should be writing for human readers, not algorithms.
Skills

Just like a resume, LinkedIn allows you to list your skills on your profile. This serves as another excellent place to add information that makes your profile easier to find in search. List all of the different skill sets that you possess or have experience with. If you have done something before in a job or on your own, list it! It can’t hurt.
Once you’ve locked in your list of skills, the people that you connect with can then endorse the skills that you have listed. Remember that a large majority of your connections won’t take the time to endorse you — so you may have to ask them to. Make sure that you ask them to only endorse you for the skills that they can verify, and do the same for them as well. A profile with a lot of endorsements speaks volumes about your experience.
You’ll receive a notification whenever someone endorses a skill. Additionally, LinkedIn will ask you to endorse the skills that your connections have listed on their own profile. Do this. When you endorse someone else they will be much more likely to return the favor. Additionally, you can look at the skills that others have listed to help fuel your own list.
Education
List the entirety of your education. Lots of people will be interested in finding out what University you attended and generally learning more about your story.
Publications

Publications can be a great addition to any profile. Here you can list publications that you yourself have published, or published directly on the LinkedIn platform. These can include books, reports, case studies, or white papers. You are allowed to link directly to the different publications that you have created in the past.
Keep in mind that you can also list eBooks in this section as well. These free eBooks can actually drive leads straight to your mailing list. List anything that you have ever published.
Status Updates
As you might have guessed, status updates are key for growing your profile and creating a following on the network. At its core, it isn’t much different than updating your Facebook, but for a more professional audience.
Follow these tips to make the most while posting on LinkedIn:
- Don’t be the “self-promotional” guy. LinkedIn is a business platform, so promoting yourself is really the entire purpose. However, if you are going to be transparently self-promotional, make sure you are providing value to your connections as well. Link to interesting news and content on other websites. By sharing information that others will enjoy keeps your following engaged and more willing to tolerate some self-promotional activity.
- This isn’t Facebook or Twitter. Don’t get too personal. Don’t share political opinions. Any personal information that you share should be carefully calculated. Share big news about yourself. Let the world know that you are having a baby. Let them know when you are married. Share a recent success in your business. These are all large life events that are appropriate for LinkedIn — but don’t update your profile with information about your lunch that day.
- Promote those that promote you. Were you recently interviewed? Were you quoted in a recent article? Share these with your professional connections on LinkedIn.
- Call to action. Ask that your readers do something. Sharing a new blog post? Ask them to check it out and let you know what you think. Don’t ask them to buy something, but use your content to drum up conversations with your audience.
- Mix it up. Don’t always share the same kinds of things. Be a little unpredictable and interesting when sharing with the individuals that are following you on LinkedIn.
On LinkedIn, try to focus less on your status updates and instead, look for opportunities for conversations. Updates can be a great place to start a conversation, but generally status updates are less important than they are on Facebook or Twitter, where they provide the primary way to interact.
Building Your LinkedIn Network
You can’t market to your network on LinkedIn if you don’t have one. One of your first goals should be to build that network out. There are multiple tools that can be used to help you grow your network.
Find Previous Contacts
The first step is to connect with individuals that you have already worked with in the past. You can important contacts from several sources including GMail and other email sources. If their profile email is the same email that they used to interact with you, LinkedIn will pull up their profile for you to add.
Search LinkedIn For Previous Co-Workers or Schoolmates
LinkedIn will allow you to search for previous co-workers or alumni that attended University at the same time as you. This is an excellent place to start and can help you to quickly grow your network with people that are happy to endorse skills and interact.
Ask Contacts for LinkedIn Profiles
You won’t find everyone that you do business with through the usual methods. Instead, ask contacts for their LinkedIn profiles. If they don’t have one, you can recommend joining and earn some brownie points.
Use the ‘People You May Know’ Feature
The People You May Know feature is actually surprisingly efficient, looking at potential connections that connect with multiple people that you already connect with. Always look through these connections to see if there are any names that you recognize.
See Who Viewed your Profile

LinkedIn lets you know who has been viewing your profile if you sign up for a Premium account. It doesn’t hurt to reach out to those that have taken a look at your profile.
List Your LinkedIn on Your Blog/Website
If you are not listing your LinkedIn on your website you could be leaving quite a bit of traffic on the table. Make sure that you link to your profile and encourage people to connect with you.
Using LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn Groups are an excellent place to meet people and grow your list of connections within your industry. By taking part in the discussions that happen on LinkedIn you will not only be able to meet new people, but you can connect with them and get them to endorse your skills as well.
Unfortunately, a lot of LinkedIn groups end up becoming link feeds for content that people are haphazardly trying to promote. In fact, most groups that you join will probably look like this. But don’t worry, there are some genuinely great LinkedIn groups out there that have active moderation and encourage conversation. You will have to search around for them, though.
Interacting with Groups
When you do find an active, beneficial group just focus on having conversations. Too often people join groups, bombard it with links and opinions, then spam connection requests to anyone that they see posting in the threads. Don’t be overly self-promotional. Be genuinely helpful and only promote yourself occasionally. The goal here is to build connections and real relationships with people in your industry. Let the leads come organically.
Free Resources
Whenever you come across a free resource (whether it is your own or not), take the opportunity to share it with any of the LinkedIn groups that you belong to that might find it useful. This will help to keep your name in their mind and improve discussion in the group. Being an active facilitator of interesting discussions can help you to stand out.
Create Your Own Group
A great way to help facilitate conversions and meet new people is to start your own group. It can take quite a bit of time to reach that tipping point of activity, but once you do you are in a great position. As the admin, you can dictate what kind of content is allowed to be shared within the group. As the group grows, you establish yourself within your industry as a leader and facilitator. As the group grows, it can become its own personal networking engine.
Another upside to creating your own LinkedIn group is that you can keep it small, and personally invite people that you believe will get something out of it or contribute. Creating small, close-knit groups can be a great way to expand your network and meet new people.
Creating a LinkedIn Company Page

Creating a page for your company can be beneficial as well. When someone searches for a specific type of company (ie. Web Design) or searches for them by name, your company will show up in the search. There are a few things that your company page lets users know;
- The industry that the company operates within. These might include industries like Broadcast media, Internet, Consumer Goods, or Web Design.
- The number of employees at the company. This lets them know how large the company is and gives them a baseline for dealing with the company in the future. This can instill trust in potential clients.
- See profiles of individual employees. If your employees list themselves with your official company page, other users can see them. Many use this feature to find the right person to reach out to at a specific company.
- Company location or location of headquarters. Pretty self explanatory.
These are all very important details that users can use to evaluate a company. Additionally, it gives employees of the company the ability to link their personal professional profile directly to the company page.
In order to create a company page you will have to use an email address that is connected to your company’s website. Your.Name@company.com. Gmail, Hotmail and other free providers are not allowed by LinkedIn anymore, who obviously wants to cut down on the number of spammy company pages that have managed to populate the site in recent years.

Specialties
Your company page also allows you to list the number of products and services that you offer. This is excellent for conveying what it is that your company does, and how you create value for the consumer. You can add a great deal of information about each product and if you want to — get creative and add youtube videos, contacts, or other marketing materials within the description.
Call to Action
Company pages also allow you to add a call to action banner that links back to your website. You should absolutely take advantage of this, as it will allow you to ensure that you are sending prospects along to your lead capture forms or product pages.
Careers
The careers section is great for letting those interested in working for you learn more about your company. It lists the employees that currently work at the company, and also allows you to link back to a careers page on your website. If you’re hiring, LinkedIn is a premiere place to source talent.
Insights
The insights section delves a little deeper into the company as a whole providing information about your employees, similar companies, where the employees are located, and the skills and expertise that your employees list on their LinkedIn profiles. Insights also let you tap into analytics for your company profile, giving information about your employees and the people that visit your page.
Advertising on LinkedIn

Although LinkedIn is fairly open about allowing people to promote their business on the network, they also allow you to purchase ads. These ads are not too dissimilar from ads that you might see on your Facebook feed, but are usually a fair bit more expensive. You can point ads to your website or LinkedIn company page and each individual ad that you purchase is allowed up to 15 different ad variations for testing.
Targeting
One area in which LinkedIn ads shine is definitely in the targeting. There are many different ways in which you can target your ads and increase the ROI of each ad variation. Some of the different ways in which you can target your LinkedIn advertisements include:
- User location
- Company
- Job Title
- School
- Skills
- Groups Belonged To
- Gender
- Age
It’s easy to see how these targeting actions could be extremely useful. The data that advertisers have access to on LinkedIn
Conclusion
You’ve reached the end of the guide! This guide covers the basics for LinkedIn marketing, but there is a lot more to delve into particularly within the LinkedIn ads space. To be successful in marketing yourself on LinkedIn, it takes persistence and the ability recognize what your target market will respond to. You can’t bombard LinkedIn groups with self promotion and expect to be greeted with open arms — you can, however, take a methodical approach and win them over by being transparent and useful. This can be applied to almost any platform.
