6 Steps to Level Up Your LinkedIn B2B Marketing Strategy with Storytelling

Back in the day, after hours of horsing around at your 9-5 office career, you’d pop on Facebook, maybe on Instagram, and catch up on the latest. 

LinkedIn? That wasn’t a go-to social platform to distract yourself from real-life drama.

But now, young professionals spew their business ideas, strategies, and humorous copywriting all over the place.

I mean, Linkedin is really poppin’!

It’s no longer a dusty old resume holder. It has now transformed into a personalized marketing haven full of potential — not just for individual professional growth but also for businesses.

So, how can your B2B business reap the benefits of this evolving platform?

Today we’re getting into the nitty-gritty details on crafting a Linkedin content strategy that’s oozing with stories and personality.

Because, at the end of the day, customers buy into stories. That’s why weaving storytelling into your LinkedIn marketing strategy has massive potential to level up your brand and business.

What is Storytelling Marketing

Storytelling in marketing uses a narrative to connect your brand’s communication and message with customers. 

Colossal corporations like Coca-Cola and Nike use this strategy to win over their customers’ hearts. They understand that storytelling is a powerful way to bridge the gap between who you are, what you offer, and why it should matter to your ideal clients. 

It helps your ideal customers understand you and what you stand for so they can make a decision. Think about your elementary school days when your teacher needed to talk to you about a difficult concept. She told you a story to help you make sense of it all. 

Storytelling not only helps others easily understand, but it creates an emotional connection that gives your B2B business a human touch. 

Why Brand Storytelling Matters

Cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner suggests we are 22 times more likely to remember a fact when it’s told in a story. Why? Because stories are memorable.

Storytelling in LinkedIn marketing triggers attention, persuades, and motivates potential customers to take action. Displaying the “who” and “why” behind your brand piques the interest of your customers, fosters intimacy, and cultivates trust. These are all the ingredients to healthy relationships.

6 Steps to Levelling Up Your Brand Storytelling on Linkedin

If you want to craft a viral story like the Netflix show Squid Game, then there is a formula you can follow. Let’s take a closer look.

Step 1 for Storytelling LinkedIn profile: Know Your Audience

Beyond knowing who you’re talking to and understanding their needs, you must go deep into their psychographics. This means knowing your target audience’s interests, habits, personality, opinions, and lifestyle. 

By understanding your ideal customer’s psychographics, you’ll know what they care about, what drives them, and what kinds of messages they would most likely respond to.

How do you do this exactly? Well, LinkedIn happens to be a great place to start researching your ideal customers.

On your LinkedIn Page, you can view basic demographics from your audience by navigating to page> analytics> followers. 

This helps you understand who follows you, how they interact with other brands, and their overall personality online. 

LinkedIn also has other features that you can use to identify your ideal customer's pain points and motivators. For instance, polls are a fantastic way to get thoughts and opinions.

In the example below, I collected information about how my audience pivots through change (specifically during the pandemic) so that I can mold my business to fit their needs.

Crafting a winning buyer persona is only the first part of the puzzle. While consumers change how they interact with businesses, LinkedIn's analytical data will help you adapt to these rapidly changing times. 

Step 2 for Storytelling LinkedIn profile: Establish Your Brand’s Story Framework

Don’t worry. You don’t need to be a New York Times bestselling author to turn heads (and make money). Instead, keep it simple. 

First, establish your main characters: the hero and the guide.

As humans, we understandably enjoy talking about ourselves. But as you craft your content marketing for Linkedin, remember that your customer is the hero of your story. Make each post about them.

And your brand? Your brand is the magical fairy godmother guiding them along their journey towards the promised land (their goals and aspirations). 

Then, establish the core concepts you need to jazz up your Linkedin marketing:

• A pain point — What is your ideal client struggling with?
• A solution — What service or product do you offer that helps your ideal client?
• A happy ending — What would it look like for your ideal client if they used your product or service? What is the transformation that your brand creates for your client?

Fill in all these details and you’ll have a story framework that draws your audience in and keeps them invested in what you have to say.

Step 3 for Storytelling LinkedIn profile: Optimise Your Brand Page

Most consumers seek out your social media to learn more about you, so make your Linkedin page a destination. 

Here are some tips on optimizing your brand page:

• Use powerful images and action-worthy copy in your banner.
• Complement your banner with a crisp profile picture or logo.
• DON’T leave these parts blank as it’s a missed opportunity.

Below is an example of how Ikea used a joyous picture of a father and son to appeal to their target audience’s need to bond at home.

As a LinkedIn user, you can optimise your page’s banner to draw your ideal audience in and make them interested in your brand story — like Ikea’s heartwarming banner.

Optimisation: step by step

In your headline, include keywords that are relevant to your industry. For instance, if you’re an SEO business, have words like SEO, SEO for B2B, SEO for B2C, etc., in your headline. Because Linkedin is also a search engine, when people search these keywords in the search bar, they’ll likely find your brand if it’s optimized. 

Next up, your “about” section. Within the first line of your about section, make sure to add the same keywords to ensure the best possible chance to pop up on the first page of searches. Your about section should be snappy, embody your brand voice, and leave a lasting first impression. Who you are, what you offer, and how you help your audience are the key components. 

In the example below, Amazon clearly states its brand values and uses personality by using “Amazonians”. They evoke emotion by using words like “obsession”, “passion”, and “excitement.” Using words like these turn facts into feelings, which leave a stronger and longer-lasting impression.

In another example, Freelance Copywriter Mark Asher (@itsmarkasher on LinkedIn) clearly depicts his journey and what he found to be the most problematic factor in most businesses: it’s crammed with useless information. 

By talking about his target audience’s problem, he’s showing his audience that he understands them and knows how to fix it for them.

Now that your Linkedin page is optimized, let’s talk about your content strategy.  

Step 4 for Storytelling LinkedIn profile: Create a Content Strategy

When building your content strategy, think about product launches, the latest happenings in your industry, and special monthly holidays that you can incorporate into your content.

Post frequently and consistently to train your audience to expect your content on certain days so that they can build trust with you. To make it easier, use Postfity’s scheduling platform to seamlessly post to all your platforms with one click. 

Sprinkle in thought leadership to build authority and always highlight stories about what makes your company unique! By including information-packed content like white papers or educational videos, you’ll easily build your credibility and become a go-to in your niche. 

Now, if you’re really stumped for ideas, use the content suggestions feature on Linkedin (Page > Content) to find relevant posts based on filters such as your audience, industry, job function, seniority, or location. 

For more hidden gems, use the Social Tips Calendar to find relevant trends in your niche outside of the scope of Linkedin. 

By simultaneously including storytelling on Linkedin with thought leadership, industry news, thoughtful posts, and education about your products/services, you’ll be winning over your audience in no time! 

Step 5 for Storytelling LinkedIn profile: Leverage Employee Voices

According to LinkedIn Talent Solutions, the average employee has 10x the network than your company’s follower base. Employee advocates are the perfect voices to tell your brand story, so make sure to feature them! 

Reshare articles and posts from your employees’ personal LinkedIn profiles and encourage them to share relevant company stories. 

For smooth sailing with social media employee engagement, here are some pointers:

• Create a clear social media policy, including best practices. 
• Give them guidelines so that they’re more comfortable promoting their work with your company.
• Select “LinkedIn Champions” to empower those who are killing it on Linkedin and act as a model for other employees.
• Train them so they can onboard and help other employees build their personal brand on Linkedin. This also helps new employees understand how they can share stories about your business. 
• Create an incentive program that encourages employees to post more. Give away prizes to those who have the most shares per month or whoever shares the most company stories.

Pro tip: Learn from those who have succeeded! Here is a success story of ShortList Recruitment, a company that grew its organic views on LinkedIn by 2,666% in 4 months with Employee Advocacy using Postfity.

Step 6 for Storytelling LinkedIn profile: Use LinkedIn Analytics

Last but certainly not least, use Linkedin analytics to understand how well your stories are performing. If you’re focused on multiple platforms, using a service like Postfity will help you see all your social analytics in one space. 

Look for posts that have high engagement rates and CTRs so that you can adjust your Linkedin storytelling accordingly. Whatever content you’ve seen perform less than par, scratch it and try something new! 

You can also check out who’s recently viewed your profile and interact with them if they fit into your buyer persona. 

Ultimately, the more you post, the more you’ll notice patterns your people are drawn to. Identify those winning posts and keep creating more of that! 

Unleash the power of storytelling LinkedIn profile in marketing

There is infinite power in storytelling on Linkedin. It helps your B2B business connect and build that “know, like, and trust” factor so that you can cultivate life-long relationships with your ideal customers. Read more about it in "The Importance of Storytelling in Marketing" on asmarketingagency.com/en/blog.

Additionally, here are some quick points to keep in mind as you work on your LinkedIn marketing strategy:

1. Know your audience.
2. Establish your brand’s storytelling framework. 
3. Optimise your brand page.
4. Create a content strategy.
5. Leverage employee voices.
6. Use LinkedIn analytics.

Final words

I hope you now have a better understanding of the role of storytelling in marketing, specifically on LinkedIn. Therefore, now's the time to implement these tips and share your brand story with the world!

Bio

Adriana Stein is a Digital Marketing Consultant who develops holistic online marketing strategies for B2B and B2C companies across English and German-speaking markets. By acting as an external strategic partner to Senior Level Marketers, her go-to marketing strategies are for businesses looking to expand into new markets, increase sales, and sustainably grow their business. She specializes in creating strategies that incorporate various techniques like native-speaker level SEO, LinkedIn content marketing, and marketing automation. With her multilingual and multicultural team at AS Marketing agency, they are able to successfully expand brands into new markets! Check out her LI profile: /in/adriana-stein-631a13145