In Q1 2021, TransEnterix, Inc., a medical device company that is digitizing the interface between the surgeon and the patient to improve minimally invasive surgery, announced it will change its corporate name to Asensus Surgical, Inc. The name change and announcement of its new category, Performance-Guided Surgery™, reflected the company's broader vision of shaping the future of surgery by integrating AI and machine learning with surgical robotics. Given that one in five patients undergoing an operation has one or more complications, Asensus is on a mission to change “one in five” into “none in five.”
To increase brand awareness and education on Asensus’s new positioning and category, the company engaged GMM to deliver our proven organic LinkedIn strategy and expertise in conjunction with our core business discipline of Category Design to drive a paradigm shift. With brain science at the core of this corporate growth strategy, our approach to Asensus’s LinkedIn strategy used the outputs of the Category Design process to ignite action, change behavior, drive demand, and create brand loyalty. The result: the creation of a distinct LinkedIn presence for the company and its employees, uniquely targeted messaging, and an entirely new visual brand identity.
The strategy consisted of the following four phases:
1. Category Design and Market Conditioning: GMM led Asensus through a strategic process that resulted in identifying where it can be the “Category King,” meaning it offers an unrivaled breakthrough solution. This also included a complete rebrand with a new tone, voice, and positioning/messaging. The research and analysis revealed where to influence the target audience and evangelize the problem to be solved. LinkedIn was a key avenue for this.
2. Content Themes and Strategy: GMM proposed content themes and a calendar template to create a more 3-D, humanized brand and more consistent, impactful messaging to drive interest in and support the new brand and narrative. The content themes provide brand support, value, and differentiation.
3. Employee Advocacy: GMM helped turn employees and company leadership into brand advocates by preparing materials, such as a LinkedIn best practices guide, canned responses to encourage employees to share company posts, and message training materials.
4. Community Management: GMM developed a process for how the company can successfully interact with its community. Our strategy was to grow and engage the company’s target audience to attract potential customers, create conversions, attract top talent, and nurture existing connections.
Execution:
Execution of the organic LinkedIn strategy included designing graphic templates to showcase the new brand aesthetic; rebranding the company’s LinkedIn page and employee profiles to create a holistic organic LinkedIn presence; and creating compelling post captions guided by the content themes to drive brand awareness and thought leadership, including a comprehensive hashtag strategy. The new LinkedIn company page communicates what Asensus does, who it helps, and more importantly why it matters. Rebranding of the company's LinkedIn profile included updating the profile photo, banner image, tagline, “About” section, overall aesthetics, and a synergistic content strategy to communicate the new branding and messaging. The LinkedIn strategy also leveraged employee and leadership buy-in, with branded banner images and management and execution of the CEO’s LinkedIn profile, including quarterly LinkedIn articles.
This is a B2B audience very focused on the abdominal soft tissue surgery space. GMM executed an effective organic LinkedIn strategy that increased brand awareness, drove thought leadership, expanded the community, and improved engagement particularly from February 2021 to February 2022:
Impressions increased by 40.8%
Post reactions increased by 79%
Post comments increased by 38.8%
Post clicks increased by 25.8%
Page followers increased by 56.3%
Into 2022, we continue to see these result trends on Asensus’ LinkedIn page, which demonstrate its ongoing growth, progress on corporate goals, and audience interest in the new category and messaging. Most notably, page followers increased by 41% and the company saw its highest engagement post on record with the following metrics:
Engagements: 3,661
Engagement rate: 8.7%
Clicks: 3,514
CTR: 46.7%
