As I sit down with my morning coffee, I follow the same routine I do every day and take 30 minutes to scroll through LinkedIn. It’s a place that’s allowed me to meet some wonderful people in the industry, to learn, to share, to grow my business. I have a soft spot for it. But this blog isn’t a love letter to LinkedIn, so I’ll swiftly move on.
I scroll through and spend 2–3 seconds scanning each post, assessing if it’s worth pausing to consume.
“Have you downloaded our latest e-book?”… scroll…
“In a digital landscape that’s ever-evolving”… nope…
“I’m excited to announce…”… scroll…
“Looking to reduce your costs by 50%? We can help.”… scroll…
There are two posts that grab my attention. One makes me chuckle out loud, and one sparks enough curiosity on a particular topic that it sends me into a ChatGPT rabbit hole, testing out prompts from the post to see how effective they are. Turns out, they were very useful. I go back to show the post some love.
Why am I telling you this? This is how I imagine most people consume content. Including our B2B buyers.
We don’t want to be pitch-slapped. We’re not looking to immediately consume white papers. We’re not looking for another AI-generated post that sounds like everyone else.
We’re craving some humanity. We want connection.
We all *know* we should be producing content that makes our audience feel something. But it’s often far easier to push out something we know is ‘safe’. Whether it’s been seen, adapted, and approved by five people before it makes it into the world, or whether we’ve outsourced it to our friendly neighbourhood AI language model to do it for us.
But many people have this niggling feeling of nervousness when it comes to publishing content on platforms like LinkedIn. It’s often the risk of a backlash, the professional risk that might come with saying something ‘off-brand’, or the personal fear of not receiving engagement on what we’ve shared. The vulnerability of putting ourselves out there can be debilitating for some.
But playing it safe can often be more detrimental in the longer term.
I was speaking to someone recently and they referenced a B2B leader they follow on LinkedIn, “I’ve not even met this person and I know it’s not written by them.”
They were referring to a constant stream of AI-generated content that lacked substance or genuine value. Yes, AI can help with lots of things but it fails to bring your personality, your perspectives, and your experience. Opting for ‘safe’ often translates into boring content that’s a bit… meh! It ticks the box of posting, but fails to make our audience feel anything, often doesn’t provide any new information and ultimately, is easily forgettable. It doesn’t build trust with our audience.
We’re all competing for our prospect’s attention. And whilst we often think it’s product, price, and features that we compete on, it goes deeper than that. It’s also emotional connection, engagement experience, and memorability.
Why is this the case?
Well, according to the theory of Dunbar’s number, we can only really maintain about 150 connections at once. But 150 alone doesn’t tell the whole story. Other numbers sit within the social brain hypothesis too. That’s followed by successive layers of 15 good friends, 50 friends, 150 meaningful contacts, 500 acquaintances and 1,500 people you can recognise.
We have limited headspace to remember connections and the importance of standing out and keeping those top spots has never been more important. Platforms like LinkedIn provide us with the unique opportunity to build relationships with our buyers over a longer period, driving connection and consistently sharing helpful content that positions us front of mind when they’re ready to buy. On an individual level. Human to human.
A New Era of B2B Decision-Making
According to Forrester research, B2B buying is becoming more complex (when is it not, eh?), with younger business buyers relying on ten or more external sources, including social media and peer networks, to make decisions.
“Today’s B2B buyers – 71% of whom are Gen Z or millennial – aren’t swayed by the same old tactics. They’re influenced by what they watch, who they follow, and what they trust,” says Matt Derella, VP of LinkedIn. “Video and creators are shaping the shortlist. If you want to win, you need to turn views into relationships – and relationships into revenue.”
We’re all spending more time online (and scrolling social media more than we care to admit), and so are our buyers. Platforms like LinkedIn give us an opportunity to get in front of decision-makers every week, being helpful, inspiring them, engaging them, and earning their trust.
Break Out of the B2Boring Content Zone
Be prepared to have a view on your industry. Share your knowledge. Make it valuable.
Your buyers are following you because you’re…you. If they wanted to read another whitepaper, they’d head over to your company site. So bring your personality into what you’re sharing.
So how do you make your content sound like you? If the content I’m sharing is text-based, I read it aloud before posting. Every. Time. This helps highlight any areas where the flow needs reworking or anything that sounds a bit forced or unnatural. It seems like a very basic task but it will definitely flag those overly corporate terms you probably wouldn’t use in everyday conversation.
I also question myself on the value or interest level of the post for my audience. Why should they care? Will it capture attention or is it likely to just get lost in the feed? Is this something they would share with a colleague? Be honest with yourself.
Not every piece of content you share will fly, but you test, learn and grow over time. But be prepared to question your nervousness.
It’s about being intentional with your efforts here. You’re investing time and energy into your content, so make it worthwhile. The potential for visibility and trust-building on platforms like LinkedIn is huge. But you need to respect your audience. If you want them to pay attention to what you’re putting out, you need to provide them with something that makes them feel something.
Strengthening Your Personal Brand Workshop at B2B Ignite
Now, if this is something you’d like to learn more about, I have some excellent news! I’ll be running a workshop at B2B Ignite on exactly that.
Whether you’re looking to empower your team to become more visible in your industry or you’re looking to grow your own personal brand to strengthen relationships, join me at 14:15 on July 2nd.
I’ll be covering lots of actionable and practical tips to establish your personal brand, identify what kind of content will actually build trust with your audience and how you can turn online conversations into real-life outcomes.
Plus, if you use my discount code ROBYNHARTLEY20 you’ll save 20% on your ticket.
I look forward to seeing you there!
Interesting in learning more? Connect with Robyn on LinkedIn here.
