Journal of Business Research (2023) — LinkedIn post content, B2B engagement & sales

Summary:

This report from Journal of Business Research is a peer-reviewed academic study on whether the content of LinkedIn posts affects B2B customer engagement, follower growth, and sales revenue.

The authors followed one young B2B consulting firm operating mainly in Chile and Peru for 106 weeks (Feb 2019 – Mar 2021), using the firm's own weekly data: sales revenue, new followers, website visits, engagement (likes, clicks, comments, shares), and 146 LinkedIn posts manually coded as sales, technical or social.

The main findings:
• New followers are the strongest driver. A 1% rise in new followers led to a 0.591% rise in sales revenue and a 0.512% rise in engagement.
• Website visits matter too, but less. A 1% rise in website visits led to a 0.356% rise in sales revenue and a 0.140% rise in followers — roughly half the effect of followers.
• Post type alone doesn't drive sales. Neither sales, technical nor social posts moved sales revenue directly; sales posts worked only indirectly — through more followers (+0.212%) and more website visits (+0.311%).
• Social posts drive engagement, not traffic. A 1% rise in social posts raised engagement by 0.294% but cut website visits by 0.056%.
• Sales posts crowd out social posts. A 1% rise in sales posts cut social posts by 0.070%.

Margin notes:
This is a single-firm case study in one service category and one region (LATAM), so these effects may not generalize to other markets or industries.