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LinkedIn is a powerful social media platform for businesses of all sizes, which is why social selling is such a huge part of the interface. It can be used to create connections with potential customers, connect with other businesses, and share your company’s story. It’s also a fantastic way to show off your company’s brand and culture to attract talent and customers.
In this blog post, we will take a look at 7 companies that are doing a great job of social selling through effective social branding on LinkedIn.
Social Branding vs Social Selling
To set the table for our post below, let’s take a moment and differentiate between social selling and social branding.
What is Social Branding? Social branding is the process of creating a strong and recognizable presence for your company on social media, complimenting your social selling efforts. It involves developing a strategy for how you will use social media to connect with customers and promote your brand.
What is Social Selling? Social Selling is the practice of using social media to reach, engage, and connect with your target audience. This can be in the form of relationship building, thought leadership, or engaging in relevant discourse – all with long term goal of driving potential business, either directly or indirectly: The “selling” in social selling.
Both have to work together to achieve max influence.
Typically, companies think of platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram or TikTok to share their brand and culture. However, particularly for B2B companies and those looking to attract new employees, these more social sites won’t fit the bill.
Alternatively, LinkedIn is a great platform for executing a strategy for both social selling and social branding. It allows businesses to create connections with potential customers and employees and share their stories in a more in-depth way than other less formal social media platforms.
Five Companies Doing Great Social Branding on LinkedIn
To better understand social branding on LinkedIn, here are five companies we think do it well:
Remotion: LinkedIn Ads Agency
Remotion works with B2B tech companies to deliver scalable, predictable, and profitable results. Their team, headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel, does a great job of social branding on LinkedIn.
Remotion’s LinkedIn page is full of great content. They share tips on how to use LinkedIn Ads, case studies of their work, and images that showcase their team and office culture. Even their job listings are cohesively branded so you feel almost like a member of the team from the moment you apply!
Remotion perhaps did the most complete job of any company on this list in terms of curating their LinkedIn profiles. Almost every employee listed on LinkedIn had both a Remotion background photo and their official, consistent Remotion headshot as their profile image. The rest had at least one or the other. These visual cues make them easy to identify, and it’s obvious that they are part of a team as soon as you come across any of their profiles.
Matter Made
Another company working to promote growth amongst B2B tech companies, Matter Made does a great job of creating a unified look on LinkedIn.
First, their employees use cohesive headshots as their profile pictures. The images are black and white with Matter Made’s branded red color as the border. Additionally, most personnel opted to use various Matter Made wallpaper imaging for their background photo.
Even the company’s LinkedIn page looks similar, with the background image advertising an open call for applicants. Like Remotion, this approach makes the company’s employees stand out, while also drawing in new talent.
Gong
Gong utilizes AI technology to help sales and marketing teams close more deals. They use LinkedIn to connect with potential customers and share their product in a “human way.” With a mission like this, it’s clear that social branding has to be part of their strategy!
Gong’s branding on LinkedIn is based around its mission of “connecting the world’s sales and marketing professionals.” This is shown through a common background image for all employees.
These “Gongsters” do a fantastic job with unified headshots utilizing the same, company-specific colors, plus a common background. This visual one-two punch immediately connects them to their company. And since Gong’s logo and branding feature bright and unique colors, the background images help employees stand out and represent their company.
The team at Gong also took advantage of the “Life” section on their LinkedIn company page. They have a cheeky video titled “Working at Gong is the Absolute Worst ;)” which is a playful way of engaging new employees. They also promote the value of teamwork and feature trending employee content. This content is branded yet shows the value of individual employees.
Metadata IO
Metadata IO is a data management platform that helps customers make better use of their data.
Their LinkedIn branding is based around its tagline: “By marketers, for marketers.” They also clearly make an effort to use their branding to engage. This is shown through consistent images and colors used on their employee backgrounds, website, and social media platforms.
Metadata also uses a lot of images and videos to show off its employees and product/platform. They also use LinkedIn to post open jobs and announce new hires.
In regards to employee profiles, Metadata does a good job of using consistent employee headshots on the company’s orange background. Most employees also used some sort of Metadata branded wallpaper for their background image, though it was not one consistent image.
On their website, the Leadership Team all have consistent headshots in turquoise tops against orange backgrounds. However, as you scroll down the page, other employees did not have similar headshots at all.
Overall, Metadata’s social branding is very well done, and they’re doing an excellent job of connecting with potential customers on LinkedIn.
Kide Science
Kide Science is an innovative STEAM education platform/pedagogy for preschool and elementary teachers. The team embodies this dedication the learning and childlike wonder through individual but cohesive backgrounds, tied together by uniform headshots.
Since the backgrounds are related to the company but are so visually diverse, it’s very important that the headshots be consistent. Luckily, the team does a great job with this. They have professional headshots utilizing great lighting and a consistent, branded color background.
Honorable Mentions: Two More Companies That Are Almost There
With so many companies doing a great job of social selling on LinkedIn, there is still room for improvement! Some companies are noticing the trends and moving toward better cohesion. With some attention and tweaks, such as unified headshots, these teams could be doing an amazing job. Check out two more teams that earned honorable mentions!
Qualtrics
Qualtrics is a customer experience management platform that helps companies track, measure, and improve customer satisfaction.
The team at Qualtrics has a strong social media presence across all platforms and thousands of employees visible on LinkedIn. While many of their employees use some sort of branded Qualtrics imaging for their background image, it’s not consistent. Additionally, their headshots are not uniform, either – making it difficult to identify the team when scrolling through the LinkedIn feed.
However, they do show company pride and individuality with their social branding efforts. Many employees have quotes about customer experience on their background images, and this is also reflected in their profile bios.
Drift
The leaders at Drift do a good job of creating a team atmosphere with their LinkedIn profiles. Drift connects client companies with buyers using real-time via chat, video, voice, or email to help build trust and accelerate revenue. Their organizational principles and values are people-centric, and their leadership puts team recognition above individual regard.
This is all well-personified in their LinkedIn profiles. Employees are encouraged to use Drift-branded imaging for their background photos. Additionally, several staffers were also wearing clothing featuring the Drift logo in their profile pictures. However, the photos differ greatly in lighting, background, and cropping. Professional team headshots would clean up the chaos!
This team does have a more cohesive “About Us” page on their website. These images are all similar, with a black background and leadership team members wearing Drift t-shirts. Each person has a headshot and a blurb, along with an icon linking to their LinkedIn account.
They also link to their various other social media platforms directly from their LinkedIn overview section. And under the “Life” section on their company LinkedIn page, Drift took the opportunity to promote its values and culture. This is helpful for prospective employees and clients alike, as it says a lot about what kind of company and employees they’d be interacting with. Overall, the effect on LinkedIn and their website feel thought-out without being heavy-handed. But there is room for growth, too.
How Your Company Can Utilize and Improve Social Branding
If you’re looking to bolster your social branding on LinkedIn, here are some simple steps:
Use cohesive images for your employees’ profile pictures and backgrounds
Cohesive images are the clearest way to make your team stand out as a unified group, especially in the LinkedIn feed. As you can see above, the profile photos for our top companies would stand out anywhere they post or leave a comment. Background images are also a great way to do this because leadership can simply email one image or several options to all employees.
Another idea is to have each team within the company use a specific background image. For example, all of marketing could use one branded image, while all of sales use another. This way your teams are clearly part of a larger organization, but it also allows for some creativity and individuality. In either case, they should showcase something important about your brand.
If you really want to make an impact and do social branding at its best, you will need cohesive headshots. What people notice most on a LinkedIn profile is that profile picture. And while acquiring team headshots and keeping them updated for new hires has been a headache in the past, virtual headshots make this a snap (shameless plug for us!).
Make sure your branding is based around a clear mission or tagline
Base your social branding around a specific mission, value, or tagline. This will make it easier to stay within a framework. It will impact your images, use of video, and text.
A united message is the most important message to convey. Pick one and try it out!
Utilize videos and multimedia to showcase your product or company culture
LinkedIn offers a lot more flexibility than people initially realize. For example, we’ve highlighted a couple of companies that use the “Life” tab on their pages. This is a really straightforward opportunity to showcase your company and employees. It will tell clients who you are and help prospective employees feel engaged.
Additionally, using videos and other media to give people a better look inside your company or product builds engagement. Spend some time understanding what LinkedIn has to offer and determine how you can use your assets to your advantage on the platform.
Connect with potential customers and share your story in a human way
Social branding and using social media are all about connecting with people. Whether you’re trying to recruit top talent or hook new clients, you need to share your story in a way that makes people connect. Make sure comments and posts reflect your brand and convey a cohesive message. Consistency is key!
Takeaways on Social Branding
LinkedIn is a powerful social media platform for businesses of all sizes. It can be used to build relationships with potential customers, promote your products and services, and even recruit new employees.
Each of these seven companies we’ve reviewed has a unique and effective social branding strategy on LinkedIn. By looking at what they’re doing well, you’ll learn how to create a strong social media presence for their own company. Whether you’re B2B or not, these examples are sure to give you some inspiration!
And just as these businesses have found a unique way to use LinkedIn to connect with their target audience and generate interest and sales, so can you. And you can still be original and true to your values in doing so!
While each of the companies we reviewed has a different take on social branding for LinkedIn, all seven are effective in standing out from the crowd and representing their company culture. And you can too.
