More and more CEOs recognize the importance of building personal brands on social media, especially LinkedIn.
A strong personal brand on LinkedIn opens up the door to more meaningful connections with partners, clients, and investors.
It can also help you attract top talent and scale your business.
But how can you effectively leverage LinkedIn to achieve all these?
Use LinkedIn to your company’s advantage
In the past, it was harder for people to find out about your business or understand who you are and what you are trying to achieve.
But now, it’s easier than ever to be the voice of a company on platforms like LinkedIn.
If you don’t know where to start, begin by optimizing your LinkedIn profile with a great image, a compelling headline, and a summary that includes relevant keywords and professional accomplishments.
Then, to start building your personal brand, create valuable content that showcases your expertise, thought leadership, and company achievements.
The more you share your beliefs, leadership style, and company culture, the more people will be drawn to your content and trust you.
When people trust you, they are likely to give your services or products a chance.
However, it’s not just about how many conversions you can attract from a platform like LinkedIn.
It’s also about how many connections you can create that can lead to new partnerships, attract new investors and stakeholders, and bring in new employees.
LinkedIn can offer you new opportunities such as podcast invites, blog interviews, and conference keynote speaker offers where you can discuss your expertise and mention your company.
And all these can boost your visibility and credibility.
Of course, measuring the exact impact of these interactions can be challenging.
However, take a look at Peter Caputa.
He tracks his LinkedIn data using Databox to understand how many people following him or interacting with his posts end up starting a Databox free trial.
Doing so, he gathers real data on the effectiveness of his LinkedIn strategy.
Who is Peter Caputa?
Peter is the CEO of Databox, a company that empowers businesses to unlock data-driven insights for smarter decision-making.
This platform allows anyone in a company to access and analyze data and make quicker, goal-oriented choices across all devices.
But before Databox, Peter Caputa made a significant impact at HubSpot.
As VP of Sales, he spearheaded their channel sales growth, exceeding $100 million in annual recurring revenue.
He started at HubSpot when the company had less than 50 employees and climbed the ranks within the Inbound Marketing department.
Peter’s entrepreneurial spirit extends beyond Databox.
He founded the Collaborative Growth Network, a mastermind group for marketing agencies.
This network offers strategic direction in sales, marketing, and channel strategy, focusing on martech and sales tech solutions.
They help companies leverage marketing agencies as a powerful sales channel.
Recognizing the power of social media for lead generation, Peter began actively sharing his expertise on LinkedIn in November 2019.
He has since gained a following of over 24,000 with over 72,000 engagements on his 822 posts.
This consistent content creation has actually contributed to increased signups for Databox.
What makes Peter a B2B creator?
- Believes in the integration of marketing and sales
- Peter is the company’s voice
- Uses LinkedIn to generate signups for Databox
A. The power of data in making decisions
Peter considers that data helps us describe our world, whether you measure your business, your heartbeat, or your number of steps.
He thinks that relying on data gives you the truth about where you’re standing.
From there, you will see where you should be heading if you want to reach certain personal or business goals.
In a podcast interview, Peter discusses why he created Databox and how his product helps companies make data-informed decisions.
Most companies review their data too infrequently, such as yearly or quarterly, which is insufficient for optimal decision-making.
Databox addresses this issue by providing a centralized platform on which all company data can be gathered, monitored, and analyzed in real time.
Peter thinks that companies should continuously monitor their data for more efficient decision-making.
Also, every company that uses Databox has visibility to individual and team data to improve performance.
So employees can compare their performance against benchmarks and predict future outcomes.
Once all data is centralized, Databox can automate various analytical tasks.
This centralization facilitates benchmarking performance, forecasting future results, detecting anomalies, and identifying correlations.
For example, it can forecast results based on historical data without manual input, detect anomalies like spikes or dips in metrics, and alert users of any changes that may require immediate action.
So, companies can make better, more informed decisions by having a real-time data review.
By adopting this data-informed approach, companies support continuous improvement and strategic management across all levels of the organization.
Peter created a LinkedIn post stating that only 50% of companies can report on their performance effectively.
And he offered three steps to create a better reporting process without necessarily using his platform:
- Track key performance indicators: Begin by monitoring a few critical KPIs such as website traffic and conversions, sales calls, deals created and closed, customer support responsiveness, team utilization, and cash on hand.
- Regularly discuss results: Hold weekly or at least monthly meetings to review your results. Use charts to compare current performance to previous periods and track progress toward your goals.
- Document and analyze: Write a detailed explanation of your results, including recommendations and next steps, each month.
B. Peter is the company’s voice
Peter Caputa’s brand on LinkedIn is strongly associated with Databox.
Peter uses a Databox LinkedIn cover image, and his tagline only mentions that he is the CEO of Databox.
Not to mention that out of all his 827 LinkedIn posts, 342 are about Databox.
Some are reposts of what Databox does and their new feature launches, like the example below where he reposts Databox and Pinterest integration.
In other posts, Peter uses statistics and visuals extracted from Databox to communicate with his community.
Such an example is a LinkedIn post about how companies evaluate their organic marketing efforts.
There are several reasons why Peter uses visuals and statistics from Databox in his posts.
Firstly, because they enhance credibility and authority.
Presenting data from Databox shows that Peter’s observations are backed by evidence and makes his arguments more persuasive.
Visuals and statistics also increase his engagement, capturing his audience’s attention and making the information more digestible.
Besides the educational purpose of these posts, where Peter talks about the need for more comprehensive tracking and analysis systems, he subtly promotes Databox.
He markets Databox as a valuable solution for improving data collection and data analysis.
From the start, Peter knew how important it is to build an audience and communicate what your company is doing.
He wrote a post on LinkedIn encouraging founders and CEOs to build their personal brands.
He says, “People want to talk to people, not logos”.
How do I know he knew the importance of community building from the start?
In 2018, one year after accepting the CEO position at Databox, he wrote a post on Medium discussing the key decisions he made to ensure the company’s success.
In this post, he discusses five decisions that helped him and highlight the fact that his previous experience at HubSpot really helped him make better decisions, as he inspired himself by what they did there.
At the end of that post, he states that he knows how important it is to be transparent with your community, customers, employees, and partners.
He mentions that Databox has been committed to sharing business updates through various channels, such as their blog and podcast, as well as through personal conversations with partners about their complete strategy.
Indeed, this commitment to transparency remains strong at Databox, and Peter continues to openly discuss what they do at Databox on his personal LinkedIn.
C. Uses LinkedIn to generate signups for Databox
In a podcast interview, Peter says he started posting on LinkedIn a while ago (back in 2019), and he and his team convinced some of their partners to create LinkedIn accounts as well so they could support each other.
Now, Peter uses his personal LinkedIn to generate around 100 free trial signups for their product every month.
He even tested with Databox to see if his LinkedIn posts drove the company’s conversions.
Regarding his LinkedIn strategy, he says that he usually writes his posts or heavily edits everything he publishes.
While occasionally seeking help from internal team members or partners, he ensures that the content reflects his voice and perspective.
He sometimes offers partners the opportunity to ghostwrite content for him, but few take him up on this offer.
Peter values responding to and engaging with others’ content on LinkedIn, as it helps him stay informed about relevant topics and connect with knowledgeable individuals.
When creating posts, Peter often uses lessons from content produced by his team, such as podcasts, newsletters, or articles, and shares these insights on his LinkedIn profile.
He doesn’t come up with every idea in isolation but instead draws from the collaborative efforts of his team.
Occasionally, he will plan and schedule several posts over the weekend.
However, more commonly, he writes posts spontaneously, either early in the morning when an idea keeps him awake or at the end of the day based on events that happened.
Peter emphasizes that his posts are often about sharing what he has learned or observed rather than just stating his opinions because these posts are usually quick to write and can generate significant engagement.
Peter says that spending a few minutes each day on LinkedIn to engage thoughtfully can greatly impact your networking success and personal and business growth.
That’s why he encourages CEOs, marketers, and salespersons to share their expertise on social media.
He advises them to share their experiences and opinions and talk more about themselves and less about the company they work for because, he says, “Your unnatural exuberance for everything your company is doing isn’t attracting anyone to you.”
In another podcast, Peter states that the sales and marketing teams should leverage LinkedIn because building more connections can get to more introductions and meetings.
Peter says that while marketers are good at creating engaging content, they often fail to prioritize starting these conversations, missing out on leads.
While salespeople might not invest time in posting quality content, instead focus on direct outreach, which can come across as spammy.
So the best scenario is combining these two approaches—creating engaging content and actively starting conversations.
By doing so, Peter finds he can generate leads at will, often needing to set up processes to manage the influx of interest.
As an example of this approach, he talks about a LinkedIn post he created about inbound SDRs, which was viewed by 60,000 people and garnered 162 comments.
This level of engagement is highly efficient for prospecting and helps grow his follower base, with new followers tuning into his subsequent posts.
What can B2B creators learn from Peter?
1. Leverage social media for marketing and brand-building
It’s easier than ever for CEOs, marketers, and salespersons to leverage social media and transform their new connections into partnerships, new prospects, and clients.
Peter believes it’s a missed opportunity when CEOs don’t use their authoritative voice because people are interested in content from successful individuals, making it a low-effort, high-return strategy.
So, connect with clients and customers on social media, interview them, gather insights through various formats like podcasts or surveys, and then share this information publicly on your LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, or YouTube.
By doing so, you can encourage those clients to share your stories about them with others, thus broadening your reach and making new connections and clients.
2. Use data to drive engagement and credibility
Peter uses visuals and statistics from Databox to create his LinkedIn posts and build his credibility.
Creating posts backed by data can make your posts more persuasive and attract your audience’s attention.
But whenever you choose to provide statistics, make sure you provide data from reliable sources, such as official reports, research, or trusted industry publications.
Also, make sure you contextualize the data you provide by sharing what it means or your own opinion about it.
People want to understand why this data is important to them.
Then, ask for their opinions or experiences related to the data you share to increase your engagement and create a community around your brand.
3. Value transparency
Peter, just like Nathan Barry or Tyler Denk, shares Databox’s updates on his LinkedIn and X.
That’s because, just like the other CEOs, he knows how important transparency is when building a company.
It helps you build trust and loyalty among your stakeholders, customers, employees, partners, and future investors or potential customers.
So, be open to sharing information about your company to create an environment where employees, partners, and stakeholders have confidence in the leadership and know the company’s direction and goals.
Final Thoughts
Peter Caputa understood why it’s important to create a personal brand on LinkedIn and how much it impacts Databox.
So, what’s stopping you from creating your brand and helping boost your company’s growth and visibility?