Business to business content (B2B) is often overshadowed by consumer content that gets millions of views and shares. We felt it was time to bring it out of the shadows, to celebrate the best B2B content of 2017 and to learn about engaging business audiences.

Creating business content is complex. It has to satisfy various needs such as raising awareness, driving traffic, generating leads and ultimately converting customers. Content is often aimed at specific niche audiences of buyers and hence it doesn’t get widely shared. However, there are some types of content that engage large business audiences. We have reviewed the most engaging business content published this year and identified 10 key content types that work well to drive B2B engagement.

The too long, didn’t read summary of the top 10 most engaging forms of B2B content:

Technology developments. Industries can be destroyed and created by technological change, and quickly. Whether it is online banking, artificial intelligence, driverless cars or big data, business audiences eagerly consume content on technology change in their industry. Future trends. These trends may be related to technology developments but they cover a wider range of trends such as customer engagement, regulation, cultural change and political developments. Opinion or viewpoint posts. There is no shortage of viewpoints about business developments from ethical and moral perspectives to how to grow a business. Controversial or challenging viewpoints frequently provoke engagement. The views of successful business leaders such as Jeff Bezos also gain high engagement Inspirational stories and case studies. Story formats are an increasingly powerful form of business content, particularly data driven stories and inspirational stories. Practical tips and how to posts. Business audiences want to do their job better and actively look for practical content that may help them improve their performance. Personal career advice. Most people want to advance their career and they actively seek out and share good career advice. Research and reference content. Knowledge can become obsolete very quickly, new research findings help business audiences to understand changes. Reference content is closely related to practical and ‘how to’ content, it is helpful and a source of support. Leadership. Aspirational staff aspire to be leaders and good leaders want to improve. There is a thirst for content on leadership from practical tips to case studies and reflections by current and former CEOs. Industry news. We all have to keep up with the latest developments in our industry and sectors. Thus there is always interest in company news and significant market developments. In vogue topics or brands. Every year and in every industry there are celebrity brands and topics. These are the in vogue topics people actively discuss in meetings and coffee shops – sometimes in a good way, sometimes not. Recent celebrity brands have included Uber, Apple and Tesla. Recent celebrity topics have included big data and artificial intelligence. Bonus Tip: LinkedIn Pulse articles. If you want to gain more attention on LinkedIn, then you need to be publishing on Pulse. Nineteen of the top twenty most shared articles on LinkedIn this year were published on the platform itself.

Some of the most engaging articles combine a number of these elements and emphasise these in their title.

For those interested in exploring the issues in more depth, scroll on down.

1. Technology Developments

Companies that don’t keep pace with technological change are likely to fail. We all know the stories from Kodak to Blackberry to Blockbuster Video. These days your products and services can be rendered obsolete by new technologies from artificial intelligence to smartphones to new communication software such as Slack. And it can happen fast. Thus business audiences are very sensitive to new technology stories and more specifically case studies. Nobody wants to to get Betamaxed.

In this first example from Bloomberg gained over 95,000 engagements. It is a story, a case study and a briefing on technology developments which may change the future of legal services. Lawyers: Maybe cut the Christmas lunch short and read this. Your billing models may need a fresh look in 2018.