Why you should not use Company page to post on LinkedIn

You should not use company page to post on LinkedIn, because you shouldn’t. Period. ❌

Joke aside, there is no debate possible on this subject. Yet an incredible number of LinkedIn users continue to break their teeth on content with their Company page. And this question comes up a lot at Podawaa. 🤨

So I’m going to explain to you why you shouldn’t bet on a content strategy with a Company page on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a network of people

LinkedIn is a social network. And in “social network”, there is “social” (yes you had noticed, it’s half the word 😅).

Who says social says human, says person and does not say Company, brand, self-promotion, and sterilized content.

As a human, we are much more attached to other humans than to brands or companies. Chances are you will remember a post from the CEO of Coca-Cola rather than the Microsoft page (assuming the latter went through your newsfeed, but we’ll talk about that later).

People want authenticity

No one empathizes with the sterilized content of business pages.

“We are launching our new 1200w heating vacuum cleaner and we will be at the Vacuum cleaner show to present it to you. Come see us.”

Who cares?

People want authenticity. We want something unusual, something new. We want content that touches emotions. And for that, we want humans with real faces to share it with us. No logos…

If the CEO of Coca-Cola announces that he stops sugar in his morning coffee, he would do far more views than the announcement of Coca-Cola which tells us about its recycling of bottles #bullshit 😜

Storytelling is essential. It is a psychological mechanism, widely used in hypnosis, which projects your unconscious into a story. It hooks you there, integrates it into your memory, generates emotions, and releases hormones.

I’m not saying it’s not possible with a business page. It will just be much harder. In times of efficiency, it is a very risky choice.

Engagement rate is low

This point simply follows from the previous one. But engagement gives reach to your LinkedIn post.

If we take the previous examples, who do you think will get the most comments? The post on the new vacuum cleaner or the fact that the CEO of Coca-Cola stops the sugar in his morning coffee?

I think I have a clue. (Especially if it’s the CEO of Coca Cola who stops sugar, this ironic situation should generate a lot of engagement 😅)

Because we are not hooked by the content, we do not like and do not comment on business pages. They, therefore, make fewer views. But the goal of a content strategy is to make yourself visible, right?

The algorithm is against you

Like any social network (and like any business in our capitalist society), the purpose of LinkedIn is to generate income.

Since the money is in the pocket of companies and they are stupid enough to create content with their pages, LinkedIn decreases the organic reach of page posts in order to encourage them to pay for more views. Thus, you get on average 5 to 10 times less views for the same engagement.

A classic strategy already applied by Facebook or Instagram.

So obviously, if you have millions to spend, sponsor your posts. But we come back to the previous points: corporate content, sponsored moreover, will not resonate with anyone in your audience.

Then what to do to promote your brand?

There are a lot of strategies, much more effective than those using business pages, to promote a brand.

The ones I recommend are:

• Post content with the company representative. If possible, the CEO.
• Avoid “corporate content”. Everyone doesn’t care about your next show. Talk about experiences, be original, spark emotions. We can sometimes say the same thing by being much smarter in the way of presenting and writing it.
• Use an “employee advocacy” strategy. They can talk about their work experience, their challenges, their projects, the impact that they have on society. In short, things we want to hear about. Open a window behind the scene of your company. Let them get to know you a little better, as humans, by getting YOUR employees published.

These are just a few examples. In any case, remember that which is human, unusual, authentic, even on LinkedIn, is much more effective than branding, sterilization, and THE BUSINESS PAGES 😛.