Ahh, B2B Marketing...

It's a beautifully frustrating dichotomy of gut feel and facts. Inspiration and consideration. Art and science.

And it's balancing those last two which is where things can get tricky.

Nice words and pretty pictures for the sake of it (without an understanding of "why?" or what you're trying to achieve) are altogether pointless. Especially on LinkedIn where impressions, engagement, and eyeballs matter.

That’s why we carried out a research study with our chums from the Nudge Panel recently, to get under the skin of exactly what’s working (and why) on LinkedIn.

Because very people seem to actually know, right?

Here comes the science bit...

A carefully selected cross-section of posts we analysed and the ratings generated by our panel of marketing and social media experts correlated with actual impressions data at r=.92, which translates to about 86% ‘confidence’. FYI That's very high.

Specifically, the experts rated the posts on how attention-grabbing, engaging and useful they were.

So, what are the recommendations?

How can you ensure success on LinkedIn?

Here’s the super 8:

1. Fluency:

Chunk text and use bullets, formatting, and whitespace to reduce friction. That way it makes content much easier to skim and consume.

2. Curiosity Hook:

Start with provocative questions, surprising stats, stand out statements, or contrasts to capture attention and trigger curiosity with a specific target audience.

3. Focalism:

Limit to one clear message per post so the main point doesn’t get buried.

Think of it like tennis balls. If you had to catch 1 tennis ball, you’d probably do it. If you had to catch 5 at once you’d probably drop at least 3 of them.

4. Picture Superiority Effect:

Use clear, appealing, and optimised images to reinforce text and grab attention. But avoid AI generated imagery.

LinkedIn is getting wise to this and downgrading content/posts that feature it.

5. Affect:

Tell stories, use human language, and build emotional resonance to drive engagement. Again, avoid AI to do this. No one can talk like a human like a human.

6. Call-to-Engagement:

Encourage dialogue and comments (which drive engagement and reach on posts) with CTAs and questions that invite sharing and opinions.

7. Urgency:

Highlight stakes using loss aversion, regret aversion, or gain frames (all three of which are hardwired in our evolutionary biology) to make engagement feel meaningful.

8. Utility Principle:

Ensure posts always deliver clear, concrete, specific value so readers feel rewarded for engaging. Nothing wishy washy or non-descript.

A Quick Wrap Up

Whilst some of these Super 8 may slip into the “well, yeah… obviously!” category for the experienced marketers amongst you, there’s still considerable depths to be explored - within each point individually and in various combination with each other too.

(And infact each point and their combination could be a whole blog post to be honest, and maybe we’ll get round to that at some point).

But we're sure there are still some pointers to consider, pitfalls to avoid, and "oh yeah, we defo need to do more of that!" in there for you. 

And if you are keen to dig into these deeper to see how you can apply these super 8 in the perfect combination for your brand (and as part of your own flavour of Sharper C.O.L.A.) just get in touch.

Happy LinkedIn-ing.