In the fast-evolving digital landscape, B2B food and drink brands are leveraging social media to build stronger networks, drive sales, and boost brand visibility.

LinkedIn, as the world’s largest professional networking platform and the oldest (21 years this year and counting), has become an important tool in these efforts, offering unique opportunities to connect with the right audiences.

For food and drink brands in particular, LinkedIn presents an untapped potential to expand their reach and create lasting industry partnerships. But to truly harness the power of LinkedIn, companies need to be strategic.

Here’s how B2B food and drink brands can unlock the full potential of LinkedIn:

  1. Optimise Your Company Page: Your Brand’s Digital Shop Window

Your LinkedIn Company Page is more than just a profile – it’s your brand’s first impression in a professional setting. For food and drink brands, this page can act as a hub for showcasing innovation (the most followed LinkedIn hashtag), sustainability practices, and industry expertise. With over 67 million companies on LinkedIn, it’s important to get your page right[i].

Food and Drink Brands need to consider:

A Compelling Overview: Craft a clear, engaging company description that highlights your brand’s mission, values and what sets you apart in the food and drink world.

Regular Content Updates: Post regularly about your company news, products, partnerships, sustainability initiatives, team and content that demonstrates your expertise. This keeps your page dynamic and positions your brand as a key player in the industry.

Visual Appeal: Use high-quality images and videos to highlight your business and products. It doesn’t need to be all business, go behind-the-scenes with your team and share your sustainability and charity efforts – people engage with other people and will enjoy getting to know you as a business.

  1. Employee Advocacy: Tap into Your Internal Influencers

Your employees can be your biggest brand advocates. By empowering them to engage on LinkedIn, you can effectively multiply your reach.

Encourage employees to:

Engage with Company Content: A simple like or share from an employee can significantly increase visibility and engagement, helping your content reach wider, more relevant networks.

Share Their Expertise: Encourage your team to write posts about their experiences, company culture, and even industry trends, positioning them – and through a halo effect, your company – as thought leaders.

Bring in help: Partner with a social media specialist who understands the food and drink industry to help train your team and give them the confidence to post. Choose a partner that walks the walk, not just talks the talk!

  1. Empowering Your Sales Team: LinkedIn as a Lead Generation Tool

For sales teams, LinkedIn is more than a networking site – it’s a powerful lead generation platform! Did you know businesses who see a company’s content on LinkedIn are 6x more likely to purchase from that brand? And 62% of B2B marketeers say it generates them leads, twice as much than the next-highest social channel.[ii]

Food and drink brands can use LinkedIn to connect with potential foodservice and retail customers, distributors, and partners through:

Social Selling: Salespeople can use LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator to identify prospects, connect directly with decision-makers, and nurture relationships.

Thought Leadership: Your team can share insights and updates, positioning them as experts in their field and fostering trust with potential customers.

Engagement Tactics: By commenting on industry discussions and joining relevant LinkedIn groups, sales teams can engage with potential leads, demonstrating your brand’s active presence in the food and drink industry.

  1. LinkedIn Ads: Driving Targeted Reach

LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager is designed for B2B marketing, and offers precision targeting – brilliant news for smaller budgets! For food and drink brands, this is an excellent way to reach specific foodservice or retail sectors, manufacturers, and wholesalers in specific countries/regions, or job titles. Did you know over a third (33%) of buyers who see a business’s ad on LinkedIn, research the company with the purpose of purchasing a product, AND it delivers twice the conversion rate of any other platform.[iii]

From driving web traffic to generating leads and targeting key decision makers, what LinkedIn format you use will be driven by your objectives:

Sponsored Content: Use LinkedIn’s Sponsored Content feature to promote key messages, product announcements, or thought leadership articles to a specific targeted audience. This can drive traffic to your website or generate leads.

Lead Gen Forms: LinkedIn’s lead generation forms allow you to collect contact information directly from users without them leaving the platform. These forms can be tied to ads promoting product launches, reports, webinars, or other valuable content.

Targeting Decision Makers: LinkedIn’s ability to target ads to specific industries and roles makes it ideal for food and drink brands looking to reach buyers, procurement managers, or sustainability officers.

  1. Engagement and Community Building: Be Where the Conversations Are

LinkedIn is a fantastic platform for engagement and community building as a food and drink brand. By actively participating in conversations around key topics from sustainability and innovation to food safety, foodservice and retail brands can build authority and foster relationships with key audiences.

Here’s how to start:

Join Industry Groups: Many food and drink professionals are members of LinkedIn groups. Becoming active in these groups allows food and drink brands to stay on top of industry trends, share insights, and connect with potential prospects.

Post Interactive Content: Such as polls, questions or thought-provoking posts and tag members where appropriate to encourage discussion and increase visibility, helping your brand stay top-of-mind.

Respond and Engage: Comment on other industry leaders’ posts, share relevant articles, and be consistent in your engagement. This builds your food and drink brand’s presence as a contributor to the industry and the conversations that are happening around key issues and trends.

  1. Sustainability Messaging: Aligning with Industry Values

For food and drink brands, sustainability is more than just a buzzword, it’s an industry necessity for both the planet and business efficiencies. Use LinkedIn to highlight your sustainability efforts, whether through blog posts, articles, awards or case studies. LinkedIn’s professional context means these messages are far more likely to reach decision-makers who are focussed on corporate social responsibility and sustainability in supply chains. Be transparent and at all costs avoid green washing.

  1. Work with a Social Media agency that understands the food and drink world.

LinkedIn provides food and drink brands with powerful tools for growth, visibility, and engagement. From optimising your company page to driving lead generation with ads and empowering employees, a comprehensive approach to LinkedIn can generate measurable and tangible results for businesses no matter your size or marketing budget. By working with a specialist food and drink agency, such as jellybean, every aspect of your LinkedIn presence can be optimised for success.

If you found this article on maximising LinkedIn for food & drink brands useful you can find out more about our social media services here, and if you think your brand might benefit from our services, please do get in touch here.

[i] Hootsuite

[ii] LinkedIn

[iii] Webfx