Your B2B LinkedIn Playbook Is a Lie

I used to think our company’s LinkedIn page was our most important digital asset. We posted updates, shared articles, and dutifully used three-to-five relevant hashtags. In return, we were rewarded with the digital equivalent of tumbleweeds rolling by. Two likes. Maybe a comment from a new hire.

I watched so many B2B companies do the same, following a "best practices" guide that led straight to a cliff.

Then I realized something: we were all playing the wrong game.

The Problem with "LinkedIn Strategy"

Most advice about B2B LinkedIn reads like an instruction manual for a particularly boring robot. "Optimize brand synergy," "leverage thought leadership," "maintain a consistent posting cadence." It's no wonder our feeds are filled with sterile corporate announcements that have all the personality of a quarterly earnings report.

The issue isn’t that LinkedIn is a bad place to find clients—it’s that LinkedIn can smell corporate-speak from a mile away. And when your "authentic" post is just a rephrased press release, people scroll right on by.

What Actually Works: Four Approaches That Don’t Feel Like Work

Post as a Person, Not a Logo

Instead of pouring energy into a faceless company page, put a real person front and center. The messy, imperfect, human stuff.

We noticed that company pages with 50,000 followers were getting less engagement than a random founder with 1,000. People don't connect with logos; they connect with other people. It’s a social network, after all.

Your founder, your CEO, your head of sales—their profile is the main stage. The company page is just the digital business card they hand out later. We saw a team make their CEO’s profile the entire focus. The results were immediate. Why? Because a post from a founder feels real. A post from a brand feels like an ad.

The key: Your company is a supporting character in your founder’s story, not the star.

Sell a Product, Not a Vague Service

Most B2B service pitches are a one-way ticket to "let me think about it." They're full of custom proposals and vague promises.

Then I saw a team do something brilliant. They stopped selling a service and started selling a product.

The old, confusing pitch: "We offer bespoke virtual assistant solutions to optimize your workflow. Let's hop on a 30-minute discovery call."

The new, no-brainer pitch: "Hire a full-time offshore employee for $99/week."

That one change transformed everything. It killed decision fatigue. Prospects didn't have to analyze a complex proposal; they saw a crystal-clear offer. This alone cut their sales cycle in half.

The key: Turn your service into an irresistible, easy-to-understand offer with a fixed price.

Use Content That The Algorithm Actually Likes

LinkedIn has one selfish goal: keep people on LinkedIn. If you help, they reward you. If you try to pull people away, they bury your post.

We learned this the hard way. Here’s what works and what’s a total waste of time:

The Winner: PDF Slideshows (Carousels). This was an accidental discovery. We uploaded an internal presentation as a PDF, and the reach went nuclear. It works because it takes time to swipe through 10 pages. That "dwell time" signals to the algorithm that your content is engaging, so it shows it to more people.
The Sinner: External Links. This is the cardinal sin. Posting a link to your blog or website is like trying to hand out flyers for another party inside the club. The bouncer (the algorithm) will show you the door. It kills your reach, period.
The Dud: LinkedIn Articles. You’d think this would work, but it doesn’t. It requires an extra click and takes users to a different interface. It’s almost as bad as an external link. A short, punchy text post is better.

The key: Your job is to entertain and inform people right there in the feed. Don't make them click away.

Build an Audience of Buyers, Not Just Followers

A huge follower count is a vanity metric. 2,000 engaged CEOs are better than 20,000 random connections.

Here’s how to build a network that matters:

Start by hand-picking: Go into relevant groups and manually send connection requests to people who look like your ideal customer. It's a grind, but it seeds your network with quality.
Message after they connect: Don't send a sales pitch with the invite. After they accept, send a simple, "Thanks for connecting. Noticed you work in [Industry]. Curious what you think about [Trend]?" Start a conversation.
Connect with your fans: This is the flywheel. Go through the people who liked and commented on your posts. Send connection requests to them. They've already raised their hand and shown interest.

The key: You’re not collecting contacts; you’re building a community of people who are actually interested in what you have to say.

The Real Rules of LinkedIn

Every industry is different, but here’s what actually matters:

Dwell time is king. Create content that makes people stop scrolling. Slideshows, short videos, text posts with compelling questions.
The first hour is critical. The algorithm decides the fate of your post based on how it performs right after you hit "publish." A flurry of early, meaningful comments tells the algorithm it’s a winner.
Form a small "DM squad." Find 10-15 peers and create a private chat. When one of you posts, drop the link in the chat. Everyone else jumps in to leave a thoughtful comment. This isn't fake engagement; it's kickstarting a real conversation.
Your CEO's "like" is a secret weapon. If your founder is too busy to post, have other team members post valuable content. Then, have the founder simply "like" their posts. That one click will push the content out to their entire high-value network.
Accept that you'll post some duds. You’ll spend an hour on a post that gets four likes. That’s tuition for learning how this works.

Getting Started (Without the "Best Practices")

Pick one person to be your champion (your founder or CEO). Rewrite their profile headline to focus on the problem they solve for customers, not their job title.
Spend an hour turning one of your services into a fixed-price "product." Give it a clear name and price.
Take your best case study or blog post and turn it into a 10-page PDF slideshow. Use a tool like Canva.
Post it from your champion's profile. End with a question.
Spend 15 minutes a day connecting with people who engage with your content.

That's it. No "synergy." No "thought leadership." Just showing up consistently and being a human.

The Bottom Line

B2B LinkedIn marketing works when it doesn't feel like marketing. When you're genuinely sharing valuable insights from a real person's perspective, people want to know what you're working on. When you're just a logo shouting into the void, they can tell.

The best LinkedIn strategy doesn't feel like a strategy at all. It feels like getting to know an expert who happens to be working on something interesting.

And that's not something you can automate—it's just being human.