Five Things Small Businesses Should Consider Before Building an Organic LinkedIn Content Plan

If you run a small or medium sized business, social media probably sits somewhere on your to do list between “important” and “when I get a minute”. You might post in bursts when things are quieter. You might have set up a LinkedIn profile and left it untouched. Or you may have tried posting consistently for a few weeks and then stopped because it did not seem to lead anywhere meaningful.

That is entirely understandable. When you are responsible for revenue, operations and people, publishing content can feel like a luxury. But organic content, particularly on LinkedIn, is not a vanity exercise. Done properly, it is a commercial tool. It builds visibility with the right people, strengthens credibility and shortens sales cycles.

Before you commit to posting more frequently, it is worth stepping back. Here are five things every small business should consider before building an organic content plan.

1.Start with a clear commercial objective

When businesses decide they need to “do more content” , it often comes without being clear on why. Visibility alone is not a strategy, nor is “building the brand” in isolation. What is the actual business outcome you want? In most cases the answer always leads back to more inbound enquiries. Mark Ritson, a marketing professor and brand consultant known for his work on marketing effectiveness and strategy, has long argued that marketing must be grounded in clear objectives and commercial impact. The same applies to organic content. If your content activity is not linked to growth, it will drift.

For example, if your goal is to win more work from manufacturing firms in the Lincolnshire, your content should demonstrate expertise in that sector, share relevant case studies of success and comment intelligently on issues impacting that audience. That is very different from posting generic motivational quotes or broad business commentary. When you know the objective, it becomes easier to decide what to say and what not to say. When we support clients at WrightWay Marketing, this is always the starting point. Content only works when it is anchored to commercial intent.

2.Define your audience properly, not “anyone who might buy”

Many small businesses will tell me their audience is “business owners” or “anyone who needs our service”. That is too vague to guide meaningful content. Who specifically are you trying to reach? Professional tool and construction equipment dealers in the UK with multiple branches, turning over £2m to £10m a year, where the owner or managing director is juggling supplier relationships, stock pressure and tightening margins? Or perhaps regional distributors supplying independent builders’ merchants who are facing increased competition from nationals and online suppliers? The more defined the audience, the easier it is to create relevant content. On LinkedIn, that might mean writing posts that speak directly to construction tool dealers struggling with fluctuating demand, rising transport costs or supplier consolidation. When someone reads your post and thinks, “That is exactly our situation”, you are no longer shouting into the void.

3.Establish content pillars to create consistency

One reason business owners stop posting is that they run out of ideas. They sit down to write and think, “What on earth do I say this week?” Content pillars solve this problem. They are simply a small number of core themes that reflect your expertise and commercial focus. For example, a consultancy might choose three pillars: industry insight, practical advice based on client work, and leadership lessons from running a growing business. A construction supply business might focus on margin management, supplier strategy and practical sales improvement on the trade counter. Les Binet and Peter Field, marketing effectiveness researchers known for analysing long term advertising performance and the balance between brand building and sales activation, have shown that consistent brand building over time drives stronger results than sporadic bursts. Content pillars help you maintain that consistency without reinventing the wheel each week.

They also reinforce positioning. If you repeatedly publish thoughtful commentary on a specific issue, you become associated with it. Over time, that compounds. Think of it as a long term investment. You don't look for impact overnight but with consistency you'll see the results long term.

4. Think platform first, and treat it as a sales tool

Not all platforms behave the same. What works on Instagram or TikTok will not necessarily work on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a professional network, people are there to learn, to build credibility and to make commercial connections. That does not mean your content must be dry so you can take inspiration from the high impact short form focused content on social media but it should be relevant to business realities.

Also, longer form posts that explain a challenge and offer a clear perspective often perform well. So do thoughtful takes on industry trends or honest reflections on leadership decisions. Shallow engagement bait rarely builds authority with senior decision makers. It is also worth remembering that LinkedIn rewards native behaviour. Posting thoughtful text posts, using relevant professional language and engaging with comments all signal that you are part of the community. Simply dropping links without context rarely works.

If you are targeting owners and directors in the construction space, ask yourself: would this post genuinely help them think differently about their business If not, it may be noise. Just as importantly, organic content should not sit solely with the company page or one marketing lead. If this is a commercial growth tool, your sales team should be involved. Ensure they are bought into the process in sharing posts and content to their network. Often the best performing posts I see are when employees share a main account post with their comments and the content booms.

Your salespeople have networks full of prospects, suppliers and industry peers. When they engage with, comment on and share company content, it extends reach far beyond what a single account can achieve. It also adds credibility. A post amplified by five sales managers, each adding their own perspective, carries more weight than one post sitting quietly on a brand page. Encourage your team to see content as part of the sales process, not separate from it. It warms conversations. It keeps you visible between meetings. It gives salespeople a reason to reconnect with dormant contacts. That only happens if they are bought in and understand the purpose behind it.

5. Measure what matters, not just likes.

It is easy to become distracted by visible metrics. Likes, comments and follower counts can feel like progress. Sometimes they are. Often they are not. The more important question is whether your content is influencing commercial outcomes. Are you seeing more relevant profile views from your target audience? Are prospects mentioning your posts in sales conversations? Are inbound enquiries becoming warmer because people already understand what you do?

Organic content often works quietly. Someone may read your posts for months before reaching out. If you stop because a few posts did not generate immediate leads, you may miss the longer term impact. That does not mean you ignore data. It means you interpret it through a commercial lens rather than a vanity one. If you want a clearer framework for this, take a look at our brand awareness guide, where we explain how to measure it effectively and link it to commercial outcomes.

Bringing it together

If you are time poor, the answer is not to post daily for the sake of it. It is better to be deliberate, clarify the business objective and define the specific audience. Choose a handful of content pillars. Create for the platform you are actually using. Involve your sales team so content becomes a shared growth tool rather than a marketing side project. Measure success in terms of influence and opportunity, not applause. Organic content is not about becoming an influencer, it is about making your expertise visible to the people who matter most to your growth. For many SMEs, that visibility gap is the only thing standing between capability and opportunity.

The businesses that win on LinkedIn are rarely the loudest. They are the most consistent and the most commercially focused. If your posting has been sporadic or non existent, perhaps the question is not whether you should be active, it is whether you can afford to stay invisible.

If you are serious about turning LinkedIn into a genuine growth channel rather than a sporadic marketing task, WrightWay Marketing can help you build a focused, commercially driven organic content plan that your leadership and sales teams actually use. If that sounds relevant, let’s start a conversation. Tell us how we can help you here.