3 ways to turn LinkedIn into a B2B AI discovery engine

LinkedIn has always been a key driver for B2B discovery, but over the past few years, a new layer of upper-funnel clout has developed: the platform’s influence on AI search citations.

LLMs are increasingly influential in how B2B buyers discover products and services, and LinkedIn has become a top source of this information. This means that if your brand effectively optimizes its LinkedIn presence and content flow for AI search ingestion, you’ll likely get a corresponding bump in AEO-based discovery.

In our work with B2B clients (mostly of the high-growth SaaS variety), we’ve divided this LinkedIn AEO initiative into three segments:

• Optimize earned media.
• Feed LLMs strategic content.
• Invest in post-engagement that strengthens LLM signals.

Here’s how to approach each segment and the outcomes you can expect.

1. Optimize earned media: website, company pages, and high-profile employee pages

If you need reasons to keep your website optimized and your LinkedIn pages (both your company page and the pages of your high-profile employees, such as content contributors and thought leaders) up to date, here you go: Doing so feeds LLMs signals that your brand is trustworthy and an authentic source of information.

Much like Google adheres to E-E-A-T for traditional SEO, LLMs pull signals from a brands’ earned media to gauge credibility and trustworthiness. Content published on behalf of a brand by its employees and leaders can also contribute to the brand’s reputation, provided those authors are optimizing their owned media.

On websites 

Make sure your business address, contact information, product descriptions, about pages, and author profile pages are fully built out with good, accurate information. 

On LinkedIn company pages

Pay attention to top-level positioning, your “About” section, and the products and services you offer, providing good, detailed descriptions for each. 

This may seem basic, but it’s common for companies to go for excessively long periods without updating their LinkedIn pages, beyond just posting. Take 30 seconds to gauge whether your page is truly up to date or missing messaging that’s integral to appearing in relevant LLM prompts. (For example, if your products and services are particularly relevant to a specific industry, call out that industry in your intro text.)

One more thing: Make sure your company’s executives and thought leaders also have your company and positioning reflected in their profiles. Better yet, they should be posting on behalf of the company if they’re willing to use their profile on its behalf – that’s just more material telling the LLMs that your company is a real, authentic, trustworthy source of expertise.

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2. Feed the LLMs strategic content

Just as a 100-word blog would be a huge outlier to move the needle in organic discovery, meatier content on LinkedIn has proven more influential for AEO visibility (according to recent research our agency’s LinkedIn rep shared with us).

Specifically, 800 to 1,200 words of high-quality, original, differentiated content seems to be a great target for driving AEO mentions. LinkedIn articles and newsletters are perfect forums for this length, since users open them expecting deep dives and won’t instinctively bounce like a Facebook user clicking “…more” on a post only to see a mass of text below. 

Yes, carousels and videos are great for building engagement, and there’s every reason to embed them in newsletters and articles. But early signs are that LLMs really, really like good, richly written content.

Dig deeper: LinkedIn Ads on a budget: How one playbook drove sub-$10 CPL

3. Invest in building post-engagement

More research from our LinkedIn rep: LinkedIn posts with at least 10 quality comments and/or 60 reactions are particularly influential for LLMs. That makes sense, as social proof is a strong signal of authority, and it’s important to note that achieving this level of engagement doesn’t require a ton of added budget.

Yes, you can boost company posts and use Thought Leader Ads (TLAs) and follower ads to build bigger user bases. I almost always recommend brands test TLAs when having employees do the work of putting up good, relevant content

It’s a good practice to do this anyway — LLMs or not — for posts that get good organic traction and effectively speak to a company’s products, services, or positioning. 

Our rep didn’t have any precise data that indicated a correlation between TLAs/boosted posts and greater visibility on LLMs. However, as TLAs and boosted posts are essentially promoted organic posts, they serve as a foundation for stronger organic traction.

Another LinkedIn threshold to note for AEO is that engagement from profiles with less than 3,000 followers (again, this is from our LinkedIn rep) tends to carry more clout with LLMs because those profiles are seen as relatively authoritative and trustworthy. 

If you have any employees (including executives) who are over that threshold, empower them to post on behalf of the business by helping them share insights, proprietary data, and any effective tests or methodologies that have driven good results. (While a lot of companies prefer not to tip their hand on the latter, doing so is a great way to build a broad reputation for expertise.)

Don’t stop at employees, either: Consider follower ads to build your company’s follower base, and see if you can form partnerships with verified industry experts (guest blogs and video interviews are great for this) who will amplify your brand’s content. Just ensure that content follows the thought leadership thread of the section above; overly promotional content and straight-up brand messaging won’t get much traction with any audience, machine, or human.

Dig deeper: LinkedIn’s new playbook taps creators as the future of B2B marketing

AI search is expanding LinkedIn’s influence in B2B

AEO must now be a careful consideration in your approach to every channel, including Reddit and YouTube. If you’re in B2B and sticking close to the in-platform data you see from LinkedIn, zoom out and carve out some resources to address the initiatives above. The impact of AEO is hard to measure, but it’s only growing as B2B users flock to the LLMs. 

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