3 Content Types You Need in Your B2B Strategy

You’ve got your social media pages active and are regularly posting—great! But how do you take your strategy to the next level? By sifting through your content and determining what content should be organic, sponsored, and direct sponsored. 

What’s the difference between these three types of content?

Knowing the difference can help you determine who sees your content and ensure that it’s getting in front of people who will help drive your ROI. Let’s break down the three types:

Organic content: Organic content is any posts that you do not put money behind. These posts are updates you share with your followers. It is free to create, posts directly to your page, and appears on your followers’ feed. 

Sponsored content: A sponsored post is one that your organization posts directly to your page and then puts money behind. Think of it this way: it starts as an organic post that you’re promoting. To sponsor a post, a page admin would go to the Campaign Manager. The post would be visible on your page, to your followers, and anyone that you target.

Direct sponsored content: Direct sponsored content are posts that do not appear in your followers’ feed nor on your profile. These posts are built in the Campaign Manager and admins can personalize and test these ads to continuously improve their performance. This content is only visible to the target audience. Other names for direct sponsored content are “dark ads” and “lead generation paid ads.”

Get creative with your direct sponsored content

While utilizing the direct sponsored content tool, you have a wealth of options to display your message. Take advantage of these tools to make your advertisement stand out from standard feed posts:

Single image ads: A single image ad looks like a regular post to the feed. If you want your ad to blend in and look like a standard post, this option is for you. 

Carousel image ads: Using the carousel feature, you can display multiple photos for viewers to scroll through. By clicking any of the images, your audience will visit the desired link. 

Video ads: If you want to share a video with your target audience, you’ve come to the right bullet point—there’s an option just for you! By following the video specs, you can share your message in film from 3 seconds to 30 minutes (although we don’t recommend going beyond 60 seconds). 

Single job ads: For these ads, the job must already be posted to LinkedIn. Use this tool to promote your jobs to the appropriate candidates and make your number of applications skyrocket.

Why B2B businesses must incorporate all three into their social strategy

It’s safe to assume that your goal is to drive ROI consistently. To truly be strategic about how you get there, your team needs to be mindful of who sees what content, and which content you should promote. 

If you’re searching for a specific candidate for a job posting, you probably don’t need to put it on your feed for your followers to see. Instead, push it only to relevant people. If you’re trying to promote an event in Dallas, but a majority of your followers are in Cleveland, don’t post it to your Cleveland followers. Instead, use the direct sponsored content feature to promote it to people in Dallas.

On the other hand, let’s say that you post a blog organically and it performs well. If your audience likes this piece of content, it would be a good idea to turn this post into sponsored content and reach more relevant people. 

And there you have it—the in’s and out’s of the different types of posts that you need to integrate into your content marketing strategy. To learn more about boosted posts, click here.