Linkedin Corporate Influencer
A selfie with a hashtag and you're a corporate influencer on LinkedIn? It's not quite that simple.

LinkedIn is the most used platform for corporate influencing. What is important for corporate influencers on LinkedIn. Plus: successful examples – to copy.

Why should companies use corporate influencers on LinkedIn?

Anyone who wants to establish corporate influencers in their company, i.e. employees as brand ambassadors, should start with LinkedIn. The reason: “It is a business platform that is clearly named as such,” explains Klaus Eck, a communications consultant specializing in corporate influencing. According to Eck, it is easier to motivate employees to act as company ambassadors on this platform, “because many of them have only communicated there for business purposes.” It is therefore not a private account, like Facebook or Instagram.

In addition, according to Eck, compared to Instagram, Facebook and X, LinkedIn is a platform with a more polite approach – and therefore ideal for getting started.

But beware: LinkedIn is primarily a network for academics, even if it is slowly changing. If the target group is non-academics and younger people, Eck says it might be advisable to use brand ambassadors on Instagram or TikTok.

Guide to Corporate Influencing on LinkedIn

In order to conduct successful corporate influencer marketing on LinkedIn, it is first important that the company’s ambassadors post on their own profile and not on the company profile. The reach of personal profiles is usually many times higher than that of companies. In addition, the identification potential is higher, an important advantage of corporate influencers.

A corporate influencer should also optimize his LinkedIn profile and use all options, such as an attractive photo and regular posting, liking, and commenting.

In addition, the following tips from corporate influencer consultant Klaus Eck can contribute to the success of a brand ambassador on LinkedIn:

1. Put your career first

Of course, corporate influencers must have a certain affinity for social media. However, self-presentation should not be the focus. According to Eck, it is not primarily about the person themselves, but rather their skills and expertise. The reason for the professional focus: Excessive self-presentation comes across as unsympathetic, while expertise creates trust.

2. Mention professional competence instead of job title

According to Eck, the profile slogans of corporate influencers should not contain the job titles, but rather the technical topics that the brand ambassadors deal with in their daily work.

The job titles are often too cryptic. If the specialist topics are shown directly under the name of the brand ambassador, everyone knows immediately which field the person represents when they comment on something.

3. Find three key topics

In addition, an internal brand ambassador should decide on three subject areas that he would like to post about. “This is the editorial plan, i.e. the three focal points with subtopics that a corporate influencer sets for himself,” says Eck, defining the strategy behind it. 80 percent of the content must then also include these subject areas, while 20 percent of the content can be freely selected. “Without 80 percent of focal content, there is no positioning,” explains Eck. It’s about focusing on your core competencies in order to gain trust in these areas.

4. Create Emotionality

Generating emotion is an important part of being a corporate influencer. The following aspects help with this:

Writing about topics close to your heart

To be successful at corporate influencing, it is not enough to have expertise. The topics must be genuine matters of the heart. They do not necessarily have to be thematically related to one another. A brand ambassador who is an IT expert but has been dealing with the topic of sustainability for years and is a working mother can also write about all of these topics. However, it is important that she really knows all of the topics. Otherwise, according to Eck, she could quickly be identified as a pure self-promoter.

A corporate influencer should also not be afraid of cross-industry topics, such as sustainability and parenting. “Such topics are not related to a company. They are cross-company and therefore they are wonderful for immediately expanding your network. And that is important for being successful,” explains Klaus Eck.

use the first person

Another very simple way of making articles emotional: “I write a technical text, but I give it a personal touch by using a personal pronoun, for example, ‘I’,” says Eck. The “I form” immediately brings the text closer to the reader.

Mixing personal and professional levels

The personality of the brand ambassador should not be in the foreground, but they should be visible. This is the only way to guarantee that the content will touch others emotionally and thus create closeness. Accordingly, a corporate influencer can also report on personal events from time to time. This sharpens the personality behind the field. Showing attitude also helps to make a name for yourself and stand out from the crowd. This creates attention and orientation.

Examples of successful corporate influencers on LinkedIn.

If you want to start as a corporate influencer on LinkedIn, you can take these two LinkedIn profiles as an example:

Otto Group with Dr. Frederike Fritsche

The company has been using internal brand ambassadors on LinkedIn to promote itself since 2017. In 2021, Dr. Frederike Fritsch became the group’s first full-time corporate influencer. Her focus: bringing Otto’s technology topics to the public. She herself found her way into IT as a career changer and would also like to inspire other women to pursue technical careers. The corporate influencer has more than 20,000 followers and is one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices.

Deutsche Bank with Jürgen Schmitt

Jürgen Schmitt has been working for Deutsche Bank since 1993. Under #somethingwithbank, the former stock trader with the charismatic long beard shares his expertise on financial topics. In fact, it was even his own idea: in 2018, the Delta One trading desk he worked for was relocated from Frankfurt to London – and so was his job. Schmitt was informed of this shortly before his vacation. While on vacation, he came up with the idea of ​​making weekly short videos on financial topics on social media. He presented this to Deutsche Bank’s communications department and they let him do it. With success: with more than 25,000 followers on LinkedIn, he is one of the best-known corporate influencers in Germany.

Do you think you also deserve to be on the list of corporate influencers? Then let me know why.

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