6 Steps to Level Up Your Brand Storytelling on LinkedIn

Introduction

• LinkedIn is becoming more and more a powerful marketing tool, especially for B2B brands.
• However, many people just post content without much of a strategy.
• Remember, customers buy into a story, not just a product. 
• So how can we leverage the LinkedIn platform to tell our brand story?
• In this post we show how you can level up your efforts in 6 practical steps.

What is Storytelling Marketing

• Definition: 
• Storytelling marketing is using a narrative to connect your brand’s communication and message with customers. 
• Storytelling marketing can help customers understand who you are and why they should care about your brand. 
• It helps customers build an emotional connection with your company and gives your brand a human touch.

Why Brand Storytelling Matters

• “Cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner suggests we are 22 times more likely to remember a fact when it has been wrapped in a story. Why? Because stories are memorable.” Source.
• Storytelling in marketing triggers attention, persuades, and motivated potential customers
• It also fosters intimacy and cultivates trust - all the ingredients needed for a long-term relationship with your audience.

6 Steps to Levelling Up Your Brand Storytelling on Linkedin

• Section introduction.

Step 1: Know Your Audience

• First step: Know who you’re talking to and identify their needs.
• Create Buyer Personas
• Find out demographics
• Use LinkedIn Analytics to find out more about your audience
• On your LinkedIn Page you can view basic demographics from your audience. (Page > Analytics > Followers)

• What are their pain points? What are their motivators?
• Use LinkedIn polls to ask your audience questions about pain points

Step 2: Establish Your Brand’s Story Framework

• Keep your brand story framework simple. At its core you need:
• Pain Point
• Solution (Your brand and its product / services)
• Outcome / Success 
• You also need a hero (your customer) who will see themselves in the story. And a guide (your brand) who will enable them to complete their journey.
• Important: Your customer needs to be the main character in your brand story, not you!
• It’s your customer who takes the journey from where they are to where they want to go. And it’s your brand who helps them achieve that journey.

Step 3: Optimise Your Brand Page 

• Make your LinkedIn page a destination
• It’s one of the first pages LinkedIn members visit to find out more about your company.
• Use this as a chance to interact with the audience on the first touch point
• Pointers to optimise brand page:
• Utilise your profile image and banner.
• One of the few parts of LinkedIn that you can customise to your branding.
• Don’t leave it blank - this is a wasted opportunity
• Example:

• Write compelling ‘About’ section
• A well crafted about section can be the perfect first impression for your ideal audience.
• Use your brand voice - whether that’s funny or educational. Make sure it fits your branding.
• Include keywords for company & industry in your “about” section.
• Use this section as part of your storytelling
• Let them know: Who you are. What you offer. How you can help your audience. 
• Example:

Step 4: Create a Content Strategy

• Post consistently (internal link to Postfity’s service page)
• Highlight what makes your company unique. Post richer content, including white papers and other documents and seamlessly integrated videos.
• Establish thought leadership. Figure out what content your target audience cares about most.
• Use the Content Suggestions feature (Page > Content) to find relevant posts based on filters such as your audience, industry, job function, seniority, or location.

Step 5: Leverage Employee Voices

• According to LinkedIn, the average employee has 10X the network than your company’s follower base. 
• Moreover, your employees have the most authentic voices and stories.
• Reshare articles, posts and other content produced by employees
• Encourage employees to share relevant stories on LinkedIn
• Pointers for successful employee engagement:
• Create a social media policy
• Spell out best practices for posting on LinkedIn. Give them guidelines to help them feel more comfortable promoting their work and the company.
• Select LinkedIn champions
• Nominate employees who're already killing it at LinkedIn to share their expertise with other employees.
• Train them so they can onboard and help other employees get started on building their personal brand on LinkedIn and helping share stories about your brand.
• Create incentive program
• Incentive employees to share their work. Give out a prize to the employee who has the most engagement or shares on their post per month.

Step 6: Use LinkedIn Analytics

• Use LinkedIn Analytics to assess which posts have high engagement or high CTRs.
• Review your content strategy to incorporate more of the content that receives high engagement or high CTRs. Drop content with low engagement.

Conclusion

• Reiterate the importance of storytelling on LinkedIn marketing
• Summarize most important pillars of storytelling in marketing