LinkedIn has come a long way since its inception in 2003. Founded as a professional networking site, it has turned into a go-to social media platform tailored for business growth and professional connections – and lately even made first steps to broaden its feature list by adding (brain) games.
Of course, LinkedIn has also gained some bad rep for the clickbait and emotional content that is wildly successful yet wildly annoying. But if you are thinking about quitting LinkedIn due to the poor quality of your own feed, you may want to reconsider.
Especially if you are a smaller company in the energy sector, there are 6 major reasons for you to stay on LinkedIn:
1. LinkedIn is for growing businesses what X (Twitter) is for journalists
Just as X (Twitter), LinkedIn is simply an essential ecosystem that is deeply integrated into the day-to-day operations and success of their respective users. They are the go-to places for getting information, building a presence among peers, making connections, and staying relevant in a digitized world.
This is why, as the biggest professional networking platform, LinkedIn remains unparalleled for B2B companies looking to expand their reach, especially when you’re growing through new hires, product launches or strategic partnerships.
Just imagine LinkedIn being a massive industry conference where every attendee is a potential client, partner, or influencer. In the energy sector, LinkedIn serves this exact purpose.
The platform’s professional networking capabilities create a digital space where industry-specific conversations happen that can rapidly lead to meaningful connections, which easily can turn into your next big client or partner.
2. Get direct access to decision makers
Think about the difficulty of getting past a gatekeeper to speak directly with a decision-maker. LinkedIn bypasses this hurdle by providing a direct line to key individualssuch as energy traders, risk managers, and procurement managers.
It’s like having an open invitation to the VIP section where all the top professionals gather, giving you the opportunity to engage with the right people without the usual barriers. LinkedIn offers advanced search functionality to help you find and connect with those decision-makers in the first place. It allows you to filter by job title, company, location, industry and more to zero in on your ideal prospects.
Sales Navigator, LinkedIn’s premium sales solution, takes this even further. It provides advanced lead and company search capabilities, lead recommendations, and additional insights to help you identify the right decision-makers to target. You can set up alerts to be notified about job changes and other key events that could represent opportunities.
3. Establish rapport and even thought leadership
When starting to pitch, there is nothing worse than making a cold call where the person you speak to does not know you and is very likely to brush you off as fast as possible. With a LinkedIn presence, you can already meet your potential leads eye-to-eye as they can read through your content, see your associations, and most effectively, notice your shared contacts. This may build enough trust for you to start a conversation.
But this is just the baseline. By regularly sharing insightful posts, articles, webinars and industry analysis you can even position your company as market leader or yourself as a thought leader, creating even more familiarity and trust before any direct interaction.
Just put yourself in the shoes of your target audience: giving them access to a regular stream of such valuable content is simply irresistible. LinkedIn has become so prolific in this regard that even some thought leaders have switched from X (Twitter) to LinkedIn.
4. Gain competitive intelligence
Imagine being in a race where you can see every move your competitors make in real-time. LinkedIn offers this advantage by allowing you to monitor competitors’ activities, such as new hires, strategic partnerships, and product launches.
Keep your radar up-to-date to stay informed and agile. While others are scanning dozens of company blogs and newsletters, you find it all in one place and are already one step ahead adjusting your strategies.
5. Use targeted advertising
With only a handful of potential customers, some B2B markets can be very niche and your posts may not be enough to get them to notice you. This is why LinkedIn’s advertising capabilities also offer precise targeting, allowing you to reach professionals based on job titles, companies, industries, and locations.
This ensures your marketing efforts are laser-focused, hitting the right audience with the right message, thereby increasing the chances of generating high-quality leads.
6. Engage in industry groups and communities
Imagine being part of a roundtable discussion where industry experts exchange ideas and insights. LinkedIn’s industry-specific groups and communities provide this interactive environment for the digital domain. In the energy sector, there is a wide array of LinkedIn groups catering to various specialties.
For instance:
- Broad energy groups like the Energy & Utilities Network and Energy Professionals cover overarching topics, trends, and innovations spanning the entire energy landscape.
- More focused groups dive into specific areas such as energy trading (e.g., Energy Trading Europe) or renewable energy (e.g., Renewable Energy World).
- Smaller groups explore specialized topics like waste-to-energy solutions or even very niche regional groups, like the ‘Danish Smart Grid Research Network’.
Engaging in these communities is like having a permanent seat at an ongoing industry symposium. While there is massive room for improvement, they still have value today, for instance for learning about (or promoting) webinars or other events, keeping up with industry news, etc. – some of the narrower groups may be better in this regard.
If you find your group, and consistently participate and add value, you can definitely build your reputation, expand your professional network, and position your company as a thought leader in your field.
LinkedIn can be a powerful tool, if you know how to handle it
You need to think of LinkedIn as one piece of a larger puzzle.
Just as a balanced diet requires a variety of foods, a well-rounded B2B marketing strategy includes multiple channelssuch as industry events, webinars, email marketing, and direct outreach.
Consistently maintaining your LinkedIn presence with regular updates and engagement ensures that this vital piece of your marketing strategy effectively contributes to your overall business growth and industry relationships.
So are you fired up to get yourself back out there on LinkedIn and be visible to your target audience and industry peers? Good.
But all this sounds like a lot of work?
Bigger companies simply hire a social media marketing team that dedicates 100% of their time planning content and strategy. But smaller companies simply can’t afford to do that.
Getting your own marketing department up and running may block funds that are desperately neededin polishing your product and investing in other vital areas of your business.
This is why the best course of action is to go with a dedicated marketing agency, where you gain access to a whole team of marketing specialists in areas like content creation, graphic design, and social strategy – often for less than the cost of a single full-time employee. Flexible plans allow you to start small, test what works, and scale up your social media efforts as needed.
And since an agency like ours here at Narrativio already has deep experience in the energy industry, we can hit the ground running and deliver results with a shorter learning curve. In addition to our energy expertise, you can also rely on our years of experience and specialization in social media and storytelling that allows us to formulate & communicate the messages much more successfully.
This is how, with us, you’ll have a steady stream of high-quality, on-brand content that keeps your audience engaged, without the overhead and inconsistency that can come with trying to manage it all in-house.
To remain lean and agile, making use of marketing agency services is the way to go. You can choose how much content you want and only pay for what gets delivered.
