LinkedIn Corporate Influencer: Strategies for Success in the Business Network

1. What are Corporate Influencers?
2. Why is LinkedIn the perfect platform for Corporate Influencers?
3. What advantages and challenges come with Corporate Influencing?
4. Who is suitable as a Corporate Influencer?
5. What steps should you as a company take to set up an effective Corporate Influencer program?
6. 3 Tips for your Corporate Influencers to be successful on LinkedIn
7. Demonstrate expertise in the form of relevant content
8. Conclusion

Are companies now training influencers themselves? Yes, you read it right, because Corporate Influencers on LinkedIn are no longer the well-kept secret weapon - especially when it comes to giving business figures a little push with authentic and human social media communication. Winning real influence on LinkedIn and on your target group means more than just being present. Our guest author and social media expert Sebastian Hering now explains how to set up a Corporate Influencer program for your company and what the most important success factors are.

What are Corporate Influencers?

A "Corporate Influencer" is a person who is active within a company or an organization and through their presence and activities on social media, mostly on LinkedIn, helps shape the company's brand and messages, promoting focus topics or products via Social Selling or filling the employer's brand with life.

In today's digital landscape, where more and more products and services are being pushed into the limelight, Corporate Influencers can be a key component in the marketing and communication mix of many companies, influencing the buying decisions of potential customers positively through the more personal dimension of this discipline.

Why is LinkedIn the perfect platform for Corporate Influencers?

LinkedIn is the ideal meeting place when it comes to bringing together the ambitions of talents and the goals of companies under a common roof. Although LinkedIn is increasingly becoming a content platform, professional matters are still the main focus for most users - especially networking and interaction with opinion leaders, companies or recruiters. On the other hand, companies want to inform about their products and services or conduct employer branding. You see, the overlap is large and unique, because on other social media platforms, the motives between users and companies diverge much more. Therefore, Corporate Influencer Marketing, especially in the B2B sector, should be an integral part of your LinkedIn Content Strategy or become one.

What advantages and challenges come with Corporate Influencing?

Corporate Influencer Marketing has experienced a real boom in recent years because many companies have recognized the potential of their employees and their specific networks. But what are the advantages of the "company-owned" Influencers specifically?

Benefits of a Corporate Influencer Program

1. Extended reach: Corporate Influencers often reach a higher reach than company pages, as these are preferred by the LinkedIn algorithm.
2. Identification and trust: People follow people and can identify with them easier than with anonymous company pages. In the long run, this creates trust.
3. Personality: Aren't we all wired in such a way that we prefer to listen to personal stories? The authenticity and personality of the influencers trigger enthusiasm, which in the long term results in engagement and reach.
4. Informal content: Nobody is perfect. Nor do Corporate Influencer content have to be. Ideally, however, they are informative, human and accessible.
5. Recommendation Marketing: It is the most proven form of marketing – that Corporate Influencers use for themselves: the good old word of mouth.

Doesn't that sound great? Definitely, but Corporate Influencers as a marketing tool do have a few downsides that you should not lose sight of in your overall view.

Disadvantages of a Corporate Influencer Program

1. Time expended: The setup and maintenance of a Corporate Influencer program can be very time-consuming – both for you as a marketer and for the Corporate Influencer themselves. Therefore, do not underestimate this.
2. Volatility and risk of termination: Influencers can change the company they are representing, which can lead to loss of investment that one has put into the influencer – not to mention their community or target group. You then lose that too.
3. Findability and Stamina: The Corporate Influencer business is not a sprint, but a marathon. In the beginning, the visibility of the profile may be very low. Especially at this time, it requires patience and additional efforts. If done right, the thing will then really take off in the long term.
4. Person-dependence: This great strength is its greatest weakness at the same time. The communication is closely tied to the individual influencers and prone to personal changes. This does not always have to be resignation, but can also lie in a change of the field of activity or the subject area.

Who is suitable as a Corporate Influencer?

That depends very clearly on the objective. If the main goal is employer branding, all employees are in principle suitable as brand ambassadors, because this goal serves a wide target group. However, if it is about social recruiting or the fact that the Corporate Influencers highlight topics and thus also company products, not every single employee is suitable for such a Corporate Influencer program. Corporate Influencers should bring four things:

1. Expertise: the Corporate Influencer must be an expert in their field because after all, he or she should now report about it on LinkedIn.
2. Self-presentation: In the best case, the Corporate Influencer is a "crowd pleaser" and likes to tell the world about themselves. Shy people tend to have a harder time here.
3. Motivation: Without intrinsic drive, it will lead to nothing, because the Corporate Influencer should post regularly and exchange with his or her network. Among influencers, there are no lazy days!
4. Time resources: Success or failure as a Corporate Influencer actually depends on how much time he or she can invest. If constant daily to-dos are prioritized, the influencing will in the long run become more of a burden than an enrichment.

Do you already have someone in mind who fulfills these points? Then immediately talk to him or her about a small second career as a Corporate Influencer in your company, because this combination is actually quite rare.

What steps should you as a company take to set up an effective Corporate Influencer program?

Starting is always hard and this is also the case when starting a Corporate Influencer program, because the biggest challenge is usually just getting started and developing a working workflow between you and your Influencer protégés. The most valuable tip at this point is to actually just start. If you prefer a little more structure, then following could be an approach that has already passed the practical test several times.

Start by identifying the areas of your company that require more intensive Social Media communication. The next step is to select the right team members for this task. Here, as already mentioned before, it is crucial to find people who are both technically proficient and have a natural inclination for self-presentation.

Once you have identified your potential influencers, it is time to train them accordingly. The aspects of profile optimization, networking, interaction with other users, and creating appealing content should be particularly emphasized.

During the initial phase, intensive support of your influencers is important. Provide them with an editorial plan and organize regular meetings to accompany the start of their Influencer activities. These Jour fixes provide an ideal platform to discuss progress and develop content and strategies together.

Don't forget the issue of analysis among all the onboarding, training and content creation. This helps you to check the effectiveness of your joint strategy and make adjustments if necessary. Tip: don't overdo it, because the cooperation should be fun and motivate. Long-term successes count more than short-grasped KPIs.

In the end, your influencer should act independently and not have to be cared for as intensively by you as it was at the beginning. If your selected influencers are very busy at the start of your program, focus primarily on building a strong network and engaging with their community. After all, these two aspects form the foundation for success in the world of Influencer marketing on LinkedIn.

3 Tips for your Corporate Influencers to be successful on LinkedIn 

Nothing comes from doing nothing – clear, right? As already mentioned, the aspect of time resource should not be underestimated, but that should not deter you, because you can also scale a Corporate Influencer program and there are also one or two tips to get the most out of your time. Basically, there are three areas that need to be addressed: optimizing the personal profile, engagement and network building, and creating content.

Optimization of the personal LinkedIn profile

What has long been the business card offline, is your personal LinkedIn appearance online. It is your calling card and your basis to demonstrate your expertise in an authentic way and build trust with your potential followers. You already hear it: LinkedIn offers here several ways to spruce up the appearance of your Corporate Influencers and professionalize it.

LinkedIn Creator Mode: the ticket to the influencer profile

A few clicks and your "normal" LinkedIn profile transforms into a meaningful account that ideally attracts customers, like-minded people and interested parties alike. Because the Creator Mode on LinkedIn aims to support content creators in increasing their reach and visibility on the platform. The advantages are diverse and essential for the success of your Corporate Influencer approach:

1. Increased visibility and community building: The Creator Mode prioritizes the display of personal content in the follower's feed, contributing to an increase in reach and engagement.
2. Access to content creation tools: LinkedIn offers creators access to special tools, such as creating newsletters, LinkedIn Live and others, that make it easier to produce interactive and appealing content.
3. Profile optimization: More is extracted from the profile to draw attention to content. For example, the "Connect" button becomes a "Follow" button, making it easier for users to subscribe to the content of your Corporate Influencers. In addition, the "In Focus" area can be installed directly under the header information. This enables the prominent integration of published posts, PDFs or website links that effectively showcase the expertise or personality of your Corporate Influencer.
4. Insights and Analytics: The Creator Mode provides detailed insights into the performance of content, helping Corporate Influencers refine their strategy and better understand their audience.
5. Profile tagging: Findability is half the rent. The integration of up to 5 topics in hashtag representation directly under the slogan can make a valuable contribution. Cool, isn't it?

Make a good first impression with the LinkedIn profile, header image, and slogan

Let’s start at the top! The profile picture is the personal “logo” of your Corporate Influencer, so do it right! Have it professionally taken so it looks genuine and sympathetic. Make sure the face is clearly recognizable – good lighting is half the battle. And that's not all: your Corporate Influencer's profile needs a strong header that presents the added value clearly. You could almost call it a value proposition. Short, crisp and to the point – visitors to the profile should immediately recognize which solution your Corporate Influencer can offer.

And the slogan under the profile picture? That has to be just as spot-on and convey the message of your Corporate Influencer. This can be identical in content to the header image or complement it sensibly. A personal touch can definitely not hurt either.

Express Individuality and Authenticity with the LinkedIn Info Text

What is the business life about and what makes your Corporate Influencer as a person? This is exactly what the info text on his or her LinkedIn profile should reveal. Give the other users an insight into the professional career and future goals with a concise, personal summary. Don't forget to inject life into the profile of your upcoming social media star with small, human details – preferably the text should be written by him or her. But please, keep clear from boasting and superlatives – they are rarely well received. A healthy amount of self-confidence? Yes, sure!

The LinkedIn Curriculum Vitae: Please detailed and seamless!

Clear and concise: The LinkedIn Curriculum Vitae has to be an open book – understandable, complete, without gaps. Why? So that users can capture the career journey of your Corporate Influencer at a glance. Short, concise bullet points to each career step are key here. Warning: Gaps look suspicious, clearness creates trust. Especially when it comes to convincing with expertise, every facet of your Corporate Influencer's profile counts.

The icing on the cake: Recommendations and Skill Confirmations

Time for references! Let your Corporate Influencers get confirmations from former work colleagues, college friends or other contacts. Skills can be highlighted in this way. This possibility on LinkedIn to get recommendations has real power when it comes to getting a small advance of trust in the target group. And if the request for recommendation seemingly falls on deaf ears, a friendly nudge can actually work wonders.

The role of network building and engagement

For your Corporate Influencers to become visible on LinkedIn at all, it requires much more than good content. Because if nobody sees those, well then the word Influencer is a bit over the top. Content is king? Absolutely, but to stand out on LinkedIn, network building and maintenance in the form of engagement should be your absolute priority. These are good news, because if your Corporate Influencer can carve out only 15 minutes a day for this, both of you have already won a lot. But how exactly does your Influencer approach network expansion?

Network building made easy

Basically, there are three ways how your Corporate Influencers on LinkedIn can get the attention they – hopefully deservedly – have earned.

1. They go to the network section of their LinkedIn profile and connect with the people who are relevant to their goals, for example, potential customers, users from the same industry etc. In doing so, your Influencers should not forget to attach a small message à la "You were suggested to me and I found your profile interesting!” – but please in a friendly and polished way!
2. They use the advanced search of LinkedIn. For this, they enter a job title for example and then click on "show all results" at the end of the appearing dropdown menu. Once they have confirmed with Enter, another header menu opens. There they first choose "People" and then search for the "all filters" button on the far right. Here they can now filter by companies, contact level and much more and select new contacts selectively.
3. Users find your Corporate Influencers because they stumble over their engagements and content.

Disclaimer: Your upcoming LinkedIn heroes should ask themselves with every contact, whether this contact fits into their desired network. After all, they have the goal to create content that is relevant for their target group – and particularly many members of the target group should be "stored" in their network. With (former) colleagues, school or university friends, they should not see this so strictly, because in the end these contacts can become their most loyal fans.

Engagement is the basis for success on LinkedIn

Visibility on LinkedIn is not a given, after all you don't want your Corporate Influencers to wander through the valley of insignificance. Engagement is the key and is actually also a very efficient means to attract new contacts and thus multipliers. The simplest form of engagement is the Like and its LinkedIn-emotion siblings. Clear signal for "likes it!" - but nothing more.

Sharing other content is already more powerful, disregarding the average performance compared to the performance of new content. This plays a subordinate role when sharing because with this your Corporate Influencers signal that they support the opinion or expertise of another user to such an extent that they actively participate in spreading it. This creates bonding, which then has a positive effect when your Corporate Influencers publish posts, because then they get their engagement "repaid."

Commenting is – and maybe you're surprised - the cream of the crop, because with a comment that goes beyond a "Great content!”, your Influencers not only build bonding and trust, but also demonstrate their own expertise – and that's visible to the original post author's network as well. If they manage to pack their knowledge and experience in anecdotes in a concise, self-confident but humble way, expand the topic of the post or stimulate discussions, then new followers will flutter in little by little. It doesn't get any better. Just one more thing: showing off and disparaging someone are absolute no-go's.

Demonstrate expertise in the form of relevant content

Content is an absolutely important building block in your Corporate Influencer strategy to show that your Corporate Influencers really have what it takes and that one can bet on their expertise. But what does good LinkedIn content look like?

• The mix makes it: Users on LinkedIn are primarily looking for information that will help them in their daily professional lives, so it is essential to demonstrate knowledge. However, personal stories are just as important. This should not cross the line of good taste thematically, I mean topics that focus exclusively on engagement baiting like death, illness and human tragedies. Personal things in normal dimensions, however, are often more exciting for the network than the purely technical. After all, people just follow people in the end.
• Cobbler, stick to your last: your Corporate Influencers should stick to the topic they really understand. Pseudo-knowledge is quickly exposed.
• Without regularity it will lead to nothing: define a minimum posting frequency with your Corporate Influencers. Rather stack lower than too high. If it's only one post per week in the beginning, that's perfectly okay.
• The goal defines the format: If insights from an event are to be shown, your Influencer should choose an image gallery, if a complex topic is to be broken down, then a document post is surely the right decision. If thoughts are to be presented, then use a selfie and pack the information in the copy text.
• Don't make the work too hard. Tools likeCanva Pro provide you and your Corporate Influencers an easy way to create posts and adapt numerous existing designs for your purposes.

A good idea and a suitable format are crucial for the success of posts, but the power of the written word should not be underestimated. Your Corporate Influencer should pay attention to the following points:

• An attention-grabbing entry like a provocative thesis, a clever question or an entertaining wordplay is an absolute must to captivate users immediately.
• Clear structure with paragraphs and simple sentences facilitates skimming and does not immediately overwhelm the reader. Rule of thumb: the text should contain more periods than commas.
• The written should sound like the spoken. You know, personality matters.
• Emojis as eye-catchers and structuring elements. If it fits with the brand of your Corporate Influencer, using these colorful images is a clear recommendation.
• Hashtags: much discussed and in the end not decisive. Use them to tag the post or as a place of additional, possibly humorous information. But 3-5 should suffice – preferably under the text, so it doesn't disturb the reading.

Conclusion

You are ready! Grab your product experts, employer branding ambassadors and sales canons and put them in the LinkedIn spotlight. And if your corporate influencers' first post doesn't get the desired response despite all your drive: Stand up, straighten your crown, make improvements and keep at it. Because remember, corporate influencer marketing is not a sprint, it's a marathon.