Marketing to Local Government Officials on LinkedIn: The Most Popular Content and Best Practices

Explore Superstar marketers’ most popular LinkedIn content and best practices when engaging with local governments.

Did you know that LinkedIn is 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook and Twitter? That’s what HubSpot revealed in a January 2020 study of over 5,000 businesses. If you want your business to be discovered by senior decision-makers of local governments– and stay top of mind–maintain your presence on LinkedIn with an active social feed.

But what do you write about, and how?

In this article, we’ll explore the:

What are local government marketers posting about on LinkedIn?

When you improve your ability to engage local government officials and their employees, you convert more leads.  Power Almanac’s research in April of 2020 uncovered that the roles most likely to have a LinkedIn presence are the City Manager and the Head of Human Resources.

But what content themes are Superstar marketers posting to serve to their local government followers and prospective followers? 

METHODOLOGY: Power Almanac identified the Top 5 LinkedIn Superstars of Local Government Marketing (based on number of followers and content engagement), and analyzed all of their LinkedIn posts from the last 12 months. The seven dominant content themes we discovered are:

The superstar local government LinkedIn marketers are:

What are the content themes of local government marketers on LinkedIn?

At 27%, the most popular subject matter focused on event information, virtual conference news, webinar, and webcast promotion.  The second most prevalent content theme (nearly one quarter of all 663 posts) was industry insights and thought leadership.  Content that shined a light on customers and employees brought in the next two main themes, with 19% and 10% respectively. 

Posts related to company information (such as organizational announcements, branding activity, press releases, and more) comprised 10%; and posts related to products and services, as well as sponsorships and partnerships, covered the remaining topics.

The MOST POPULAR content theme
local government marketers posted on LinkedIn
offered information around EVENTS
including virtual conferences and webinars.

Now that you’re familiar with a variety of subject matter to inspire your own social updates, how to you get started creating the individual posts?  What do you include?  Elevate your LinkedIn content by implementing each theme’s content best practices to cut through the noise of local government officials’ LinkedIn feeds and encourage engagement to build trust.

Reaching the right decision maker is critical to succeed in marketing to local government. When you align your marketing outreach to the correct decision maker, you increase your chance of success including more frequent and meaningful discussions, more qualified leads, more sales, and longer-lasting partnerships.

Power Almanac’s database of contact information for local government decision makers is organized around roles (not titles) to ensure you can reach the right decision maker. Experiment for yourself with role-based targeting by downloading 100 free leads of local government decision makers now. It takes less than five minutes to choose any 100 records. No credit card required.

1. 21 critical decision-making roles
2. All 325,000 records are phone-verified (because government websites do not tell you about roles!)

1. Events are the most popular content topic

If you have a company or industry event in the near future, post about it!  LinkedIn drives registrations for events every day. In fact, promotion of events, virtual conferences, webinars, and webcasts dominate our analysis as the most popular theme of local government marketers with over 27%.

In order to boost your attendance and create a more stirring lead-up to the big event, implement the following tactics:

• Start promoting the event early, (at least 6-8 weeks in advance), to generate excitement and discussion among local government officials
• Post a countdown message every week or even every few days until your event
• Share relevant invitation-details in the image and the body-copy to build awareness such as the event date, time, location/vanity URL/type of event, prominent attendees, and a call-to-action to register
• @mention guest speakers and sponsors to leverage those secondary local government networks
• Share teaser slides from exciting event presentations
• Offer an exclusive discount elected officials
• Host a contest or giveaway for a free event registration
• Feature individual images and titles of, and relevant quotes from, the event’s guest speakers
• Create a hashtag related to your local government event so your audience will stay current on all the event information
  • The shorter the hashtag, the better
  • Include the event hashtag on all collateral so citizens can join the conversation
• Leverage a popular existing local government hashtag:
  • #localgovernments
  • #localgovdigital
  • #countygovernments

2. Insights validate subject matter expertise

Position your company as a thought leader by sharing industry insights.  Original research is highly engaging, and an opportunity to be a subject matter expert.  Showcase your authority in your space by taking a stand on a current matter, or sharing the organization’s point of view on a topic relevant to local government. 

3. Customers provide convincing content

To enhance your integrity, spotlight a customer to testify to your marketing and sales claims.

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK and REVIEWS, TESTIMONIALS,
and CASE STUDIES serve as invaluable social proof that
your company is a trustworthy, caring service or goods provider.

Customer feedback, customer reviews, testimonials and case studies build trust with potential local government customers, and is a great way to say thank you to individuals who advocate for your company.  Some companies even address negative reviews because how a company responds says much more about the company than the negative review itself.  You can also feature city or county government seals (or logos) to showcase your customer base.

4. Employees are the fabric of your company

A spotlight on an employee allows your local government audience to get to know the people who make up your organization.  It also attracts new hires, and the recognition of existing employees supports retention.  Humanize your organization with the backgrounds and perspectives of your own leaders and team members. 

For LinkedIn posts that highlight employees, these best practices put a face to the brand, and a story to the experience.

• Add a photo or video of the employee – in front of a local government building is even better!
• Include a short, employee introductory  
• Quote the employee
• Include a fun, “Voted Most Likely To…” designation
• Conduct a mini-interview
• Link to in-depth interview
• Feature a day-in-the-life an employee
• Explore an employee’s career path
• Share information about a specific team or department
• Highlight your C-suite
• Showcase new hires
• Thank employees for their hard work
• Link to your company’s About Us page or Careers page to learn more

OPTIMIZATION RECOMMENDATION
Sidewalk Labs posted an employee spotlight, and even cited her LinkedIn profile
page for marketers to learn more about her.  That’s a great content marketing tactic!
The message can be made stronger by mentioning the featured employee’s past work
experience for the city of New York.  Our research shows local governments value a supplier-employees’ local government experience.

5. Company information keeps your audience in the loop

Company information takes many shapes.  Business and company announcements, seasonal initiatives, branding activities, and press releases are just a few.  Test and measure what the right balance of content is between marketing your organization and publishing interesting and helpful content for your local government audience.

• Share the company’s origin story, mission, or vision
• Present company values, and give examples of how those values are practiced
• Create an infographic of little-known fun facts about the company
• Celebrate company wins and milestones (e.g. # of states covered or 10,000 LinkedIn followers)
• Thank your followers and customers for helping make those company achievements possible
• Organize an AMA (Ask Me Anything) to start an engaging conversation

Our friends at the Engaging Local Government Leaders (ELGL) partnered with us to analyze and determine how the best local government supplies stand out.  In our research around what separates a truly great local government supplier from the pack, Haverford Award winners (recognized for helping to transform local governments and their ability to serve) most notably:

• Improved public engagement and communication
• Enhanced efficiency and cost savings
• Improved services and accessibility
• Enhanced planning, performance and transparency

6. Product information keeps customers informed of offerings

Use product information sparingly in LinkedIn context.  While product education, new launch announcements, and feature enhancements are crucial components to your LinkedIn feed to amplify the news, avoid frequent instances of sales and marketing posts.  A great place to start is sharing product information every 5-7 posts.  Your government followers and prospective government followers will thank you for it. 

Additional ideas for posts regarding product information include:

• Enhance the post with an infographic or chart
• Test and learn from content that compares company offerings to those of your competition
• Announce an exclusive giveaway or a product promotion for your LinkedIn followers 

7. Partnerships and sponsorships help build your organization

No business is an island.  Organizations grow their business with the help of other organizations.  Showcase your partnerships and sponsorships, and show gratitude for your company involvement.  They may even return the favor. 

Does your company participate in philanthropy?  Gets their message out into the socialsphere even more by supporting your favorite charities on LinkedIn.  And if your company sponsors a little league team or a voting event, let your followers know, too.  Add the reasons for your support and provide more insight into your community involvement.

Seven Popular Content Themes, Dozens of Best Practices

Power Almanac’s independent research identifies five superstar LinkedIn marketers who most strongly engage with local government officials, and those marketers’ most popular content themes.

Event information, industry insights and thought leadership, customer and
employee showcases, company news, product information, and partnerships
and sponsorship were shared the most.

Great content in a company’s LinkedIn feed supports the research that local government decision-makers conduct every day.  As our findings reveal, trending best practices of these popular content themes– from early promotion of a local government event to showcasing new hires– help marketers connect with local government decision-makers, and help business partnerships thrive.

THE 5 LINKEDIN SUPERSTARS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT MARKETING

Check out our previous article, where we discovered what percentage of local government marketers are active on LinkedIn, (82%), what companies are leveraging the best branding practices, and what those best branding practices are.