Month: April 2021

Podcast 95: how to write B2B social media content

Posted on by The Radix Team

In this month’s Good Copy, Bad Copy, we’re talking about writing social media copy for B2B brands – how to write it, what tactics work well, and what B2B marketing experts think great social content looks like.

Guest co-host Lorraine Williams, founder of Lighthouse Proofreading (and undisputed Queen of PDF Proofing), joins David to chat about the wonderful world of LinkedIn and the challenges of writing engaging content for a B2B audience.

You’ll also catch an interview with social media marketing guru Luan Wise. An independent marketing consultant and trainer, Luan knows all there is to know about social media marketing (she even runs courses for LinkedIn). Tune in to hear her best writing advice for B2B social content – as well as her recent research study about social media and how it’s changed in the pandemic.

Plus, three top B2B marketers share their favourite examples of great social content – and our very own Ben Philpott provides the copywriting tip of the month.

B2B social content: a sneak peek at Luan’s “what not to do” list

As Luan points out in her interview, social media marketing follows similar rules to any other kind of content – and anything you post needs to adhere to your brand and messaging. That means ensuring your voice is still clear and recognisable, and that you’re writing towards the right audience.

But along with these tips, Luan shares a few mistakes you should be careful to avoid:

  • Don’t forget your call to action: You’re posting on social media to be social – so don’t forget to involve your reader in some way.
  • Don’t go silent for weeks on end: Being consistently present is key to being great at B2B social media – so don’t just leave all your posting for a quiet month.
  • Don’t publish clickbait or fake headlines: The clearer you are, the more your readers will care about what you have to say.
  • Don’t overthink it: Plan out your social media strategy, then make posting a habit.

You can absorb more of Luan’s wisdom by (you guessed it) listening to the podcast, where you’ll also catch David and Lorraine talking about their own tips and tricks.

And be sure to check out Luan’s website for info on all the courses she runs, and a ton of free resources.

In this episode, you’ll find…

00.50 – (Enter stage left) Introducing this week’s co-host, Lorraine Williams

02.44 – Luan Wise spills the secrets of writing great social media content for B2B

22.31 – David and Lorraine chat about the joys and perils of writing for LinkedIn

35:35 – Three B2B experts share their favourite social media content

43:13 – Copywriting tip of the month, by our own Ben P

Anything you love or hate about this podcast? 

We’d love to chat about it. You can contact us through @radixcom on Twitter or [email protected]. Or, if you’re feeling fancy, just send us a voice memo with what you want to say – we might even feature it next month.

As ever, if you’d like to leave us a review on your listening platform of choice, that’s always a bonus.

How to listen 

Credits 

  • A massive thank you to Luan Wise for letting us pick your brain about all things social media. We really appreciate your time and insights.
  • Thanks also to everyone who joined in the discussion about B2B social content on Propolis and LinkedIn – especially this month’s featured commenters: Dan Smith, Kate Roe, and Yvonne Deegan. Y’all rock.
  • Thanks to Ben for the copywriting tip of the month, and of course a big thanks to Lorraine for being an awesome co-host, and an exceptional LinkedIn-er. It was great to hear your social media secrets (btw, here at Radix we’re firmly camp Hula Hoop).
  • Podcast editing and music by Bang and Smash.

Will your B2B blog post perform better as a LinkedIn article? Let’s investigate.

Posted on by The Radix Team

It must’ve been four years ago when I first heard that B2B blog writing was on its way out. But here we are in 2021 and I’m writing this, a blog.

Of course blogs didn’t die. But they did change.

In fact, B2B blog content has only gotten longer and more versatile, with the average blog post now hitting 1269 words. And of the 94% of B2B marketers using the format, many seem to be spending more time than ever ensuring their blogs provide genuine value and, in turn, deliver stronger results.

To get those results, though, you need to put your content in the right place.

The B2B content dilemma: dedicated blogging vs LinkedIn articles

Where should your blog posts live to perform at their best? It’s not the simple question it once was.

In B2B, you have a couple of strong options. You can publish content on your dedicated business blog, or as an article hosted natively by LinkedIn.

Let’s weigh up the pros and cons of both approaches.

The dedicated B2B blog: expertise where it counts

For many businesses, an on-site blog is more than just a means to share thought leadership and respond to the latest industry trends; it’s an SEO powerhouse.

Even back in 2017, our Creative Director David noted that search algorithms were increasingly rewarding quality content. And that’s as true as ever for your blog content today – especially since Google E-A-T and YMYL came on the scene.

What is Google E-A-T – and why should a B2B marketer care?

According to Google, “E-A-T” stands for “expertise, authority, and trustworthiness”. And that’s what your content needs to successfully rank where you want it to.

It’s also one of the three guidelines used by Google’s human search evaluators when assessing whether its algorithms are doing their job properly. It’s easy to get lost down a rabbit hole here, so let me break it down for you: E-A-T works to stop Google from serving you rubbish content.

Today, approximately 86% of content marketers include blogs as part of their marketing strategy. And when companies who do so are likely to get 97% more links to their sites compared to those who don’t, it’s easy to see the appeal from a marketing perspective.

The proof of the pudding

But remember, your blog is also evidence of your expertise; it’s proof that you have the knowledge to really deliver the goods. When a technical expert publishes a blog sharing their expertise, it’s more convincing than just saying how smart they are.

A dedicated blog is also a means to take ownership of your content, giving you full authority over how it looks and feels. And because it sits on your website, with your look and feel, there’s an immediate association between the quality of your content and your brand.

So, if it’s easy to just share a URL to your dedicated blog, why on earth would you post your content natively on LinkedIn instead?

The LinkedIn article: building networks and conversations

Just to clarify, as this can get a little confusing: when we talk about posting a LinkedIn article, we don’t mean lifting your blog’s URL and sharing it socially. We mean your blog is published on the LinkedIn platform – that’s where it lives, and it’s tied specifically to your account.

(If you happen to remember LinkedIn Pulse, that’s exactly what I’m referring to. Except they’ve now retired the Pulse name and integrated its features into the standard LinkedIn experience.)

Anyway, before we go on, let’s pull out some statistics. Mull over these for a moment:

What’s more, 91% of decision-makers consider it the place to find valuable content. And it’s not hard to see why.

LinkedIn encourages awareness, networking, and discourse. It’s easy to share your opinion, and it’s democratic too – it must be one of the only places online where you’re likely to see an enterprise CEO discussing content with, say, a graduate developer in a public forum.

So, back to our original question: what’s better – posting your blog as a LinkedIn article, or on your website?

What’s best on LinkedIn: native content vs external links

On LinkedIn, you’re serving people content where they already are. They don’t need to click out to your site to read your blog. What’s more, you’re creating opportunities to build your personal network, and even sell socially.

For example, when people comment on your content, they create visibility for you on their own network – often, likeminded people, in similar sectors and roles. This helps your content to extend its reach, and with luck, attract the kind of lookalike customers you want to appeal to.

Most importantly, it plays to how LinkedIn decides who sees what. In May 2020, LinkedIn engineers kindly published the details of their new algorithm, and for some, it held a few nasty surprises. You see, LinkedIn largely determines content visibility based on the amount of time people spend interacting with it – that includes likes, comments, and shares. Now, this has a knock-on effect: it means external links will be penalised. Why? Because they pull users away from LinkedIn and decrease the time they spend on the post.

Ouch. That’s a score for posting content natively if ever there was one.

But then again, with LinkedIn articles, the content is associated with you – an individual – and there’s no immediate indication that it’s tied to your brand. Even with a powerful call-to-action, there’s still no guarantee they’ll click through to your site. Chances are, they’re in browse mode, and they just want something to read while eating lunch at their desk. And that means they’re not being reeled into a buying journey.

And maybe you risk your content getting lost in a sea of voices, because, hey, if anyone can post an article here, what’s to say they’re the real deal?

Can we have the best of both worlds? I think so.

Is there any reason you can’t just use your blog in two places at once?

Well, having hunted around online for a definitive answer – all for the sake of this blog, of course – I concluded that there’s no harm in doing both. Albeit, posting two ever-so-different versions of the same blog.

The relentlessly helpful John Espirian covers this approach really well (both in a LinkedIn article and on his blog, of course). But very briefly, here’s how it works:

First, publish the full-fat version of your blog as you normally would, on your website. This gives you all the benefits I mentioned earlier, like SEO authority, brand association, and greater control over how it looks and feels. Then, for optimal visibility, share it on your preferred social media platforms.

Next, create an abridged version of your final draft. One that delivers the same value but isn’t likely to supersede your original post in Google’s rankings. Not necessarily because duplicate content can score you poorly, but because – as Google’s John Muller testifies – its algorithm will always try and promote the best matching page to a user’s search, and you want them to find your site first.

Once you’ve done that, publish your second draft as an article on LinkedIn where, with any luck, you’ll reap the benefits of a larger audience and maybe get some killer conversation going too.

You do you.

Where do you prefer to post your blog content? Does our research line up with your experiences, or is there a smarter way to solve this puzzle? Or maybe we’ve got this whole LinkedIn business totally wrong? Let us know.

You can tweet us at @radixcom, pop us an email at [email protected], or join the conversation over on (where else?) our LinkedIn page.