The LinkedIn Business Case: ROI Timeline for Organic Content

3 phases of ROI for organic LinkedIn content

LinkedIn has changed, but it remains the single most powerful untapped opportunity for B2B technology businesses. Think about the other channels your competitors use; events, SEO, Google AdWords - I'm confident that ALL of your competitors are using them.

But how many use INDIVIDUAL organic content? Very few! You'll note I specifically say 'individual' content, because that is what buyers respond to. They simply don't care about your companies LinkedIn account - they want to feel connected to your employees. Real people!

In this article I'm going to share my own experience and the return I personally have received from creating content.

It's NOT 'Social Selling'

There's nothing wrong with selling - I'm a proud career sales professional. The reason that I dislike the term is that it's not very accurate. Selling is the act of directly engaging in two-way dialogue. Using LinkedIn to frequently publish content isn't that - it's about creating awareness and authority. It is often called 'building your brand', which I've come to realise is a term that turn's people off.

Let's call it what it really is - your digital reputation.

Social Selling is certainly a component of this. It's using LinkedIn to then connect directly in conversation, which should 100% be your goal, but for today I'm just talking about content creation in isolation.

So why is LinkedIn still so 'untapped'? After all, it's not exactly new..

What's stopping you?

When I speak to people the most common reasons for them not posting isn't because they don't believe there's value, but because they...

1. Don't know exactly what the value is

2. Don't know how to do it well

For now, I'm just going to answer the top one - What is the value. I'm not going to be talking in abstract terms, but from my own personal experience in using LinkedIn as my primary channel to market.

What's the point?!

Well, money, to be exact. First off, stop thinking about LinkedIn as 'Social Media'. The term is too readily associated with things like Facebook and isn't a good analogue for it's business value. Instead think of it as..

A 24/7 conference with a Billion other business people there - and attendance is free.

When you look at it like that, hopefully you'll start to see why I think intelligent participation is a no-brainer.

Now, just for clarity, I'm not suggesting that you stop all your other sales and marketing activities and go all-in on organic social content. I'm simply saying you MUST add this to the mix of things you're doing.

One of the main things that sabotages LinkedIn success is poor expectations. It requires a long-term commitment and not something that yields results overnight. It's like going to the gym - the gains compound over time, but if you think you're going to go down for one heavy weights session and look like someone from Baywatch (I'm showing my age now) then you're just going to get bummed out and give up.

It's better you go into this with your eyes wide-open on what results you're likely to get and when.

On my own journey I noticed 3 distinct phases I went through...

Roadmap to ROI

The return isn't binary. It doesn't come all at once, but slowly at first, and more-and-more as time goes on. But if you don't know what to look for, you might miss those green-shoots and give up.

Here are the 3 phases you'll experience:

1. Awareness

2. Authority

3. Action

   
   

Awareness

Before you can influence a buyer in even the smallest of ways, they need to know you exist. This doesn't happen overnight, so you need to accept it'll take a little time. I'm reminded of something I heard some time back.

'If we hear a single thing interesting piece of information, we tell everyone we heard something interesting, if we hear 10 things we tell people we found someone interesting'

That's the goal. To become someone our buyers consider interesting. It's consistency that changes your buyers awareness of a single isolated piece of content, to associating it to you.

This is the silent phase, where the progress you make is largely invisible. You'll get more 'likes' and slowly the number of comments / engagement will increase. Although these are vanity metrics, they do start to indicate traction.

Authority

This is where things start to get spicy, and it's also the stage that I didn't anticipate when I set out. The first time it happened, I had a meeting with a CEO that was introduced to me from outside LinkedIn. When I sat down he opened his notebook and listed half a dozen themes I had discussed in recent posts - he had build the entire agenda for the meeting based on my content.

This happened more and more, and I also noticed that by opportunities we're closing faster, and for more money than before. I had more value because of the authority I had established.

At this stage, your content isn't established enough for you to expect inbound leads, but it amplifies and accelerates all your other activities. In your prospect meetings and follow-ups you'll increasingly get comments like 'I really liked your post on....'

Don't be dismissive of how important a milestone that it. It's a clear indicator that your content is positively impacting your sales. Don't be narrow-minded in only measuring the value of LinkedIn for providing new leads - it's far, far more than that.

For me, the authority phase was between 6-12 months after I started posting regularly.

Action

You're now sufficiently well known that you will get regular inbound requests from buyers based on your content. There is always more you can do to improve, but this is the ultimate manifestation of why we use LinkedIn - to get entirely new leads.

The 'Authority' component also continues to increase, amplifying and accelerating your other activities.

It was in the 12+ month range before these happened to me with any regularity.

A note on timeline: I've just shared my own experience. Looking back I believe I could have achieved more, faster. But I'm using these real timelines so that your expectations are conservative and achievable. I know that if you achieve the same as I have, this will be a huge contributor to your success, but hopefully you can use this and other material to go even faster.

Time Investment

I've talked about the return you can expect, but what about the investment?

First-off, lets acknowledge the elephant in the room. LinkedIn can be addictive, so it needs to be carefully time-managed so that you control it and it doesn't take over your focus. It's incredibly powerful, but you need to be doing it in addition to your other working activities, not in place of them.

I'll talk about the method in another post, but for now I'll just give you the basics for the time you should allow, to start.

• Spend an hour a week bulk creating posts. 4 posts, taking 15 mins each

• Allow 15-20 mins per day to respond to comments on your posts - this is important because the engagement will boost their visibility (I'll explain more another time, but trust me)

Your total time investment should be around 2 hours per week, and most of it can be taken from 'dead time' like travelling on the train to work / meetings. If you want to spend additional time, be careful not to take it from your focus time during the working day.

My investment in LinkedIn has exceeded my expectations. We live in a world where buyers want to know your business, and you individually, before they connect. Make it easier for them to see your expertise!

If you want to embrace organic content creation on LinkedIn and need more guidance, the team at GTM Hive can support with a number of training programmes.