LinkedIn doesn’t get much love when compared to social media giants like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. A lot of people hear LinkedIn and think ‘oh, that’s just for finding a job.’ The truth is if you’re running a business, LinkedIn is actually an incredibly valuable tool that’s worth investing in. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. A business-centric platform like LinkedIn has the power to influence how people see your brand.
why invest time and resources into linkedin?
it targets a high-value audience
Professionals, managers and executives live on LinkedIn. Basically, LinkedIn is a great platform to reach people who have a significant amount of disposable income to spare, which tends to be a prime demographic for most businesses. And it’s not just a good platform to reach that audience, it’s the top social media platform used by managerial-level employees, beating out both Facebook and Twitter.
it’s the best B2B platform, bar none
If you rely on business from other companies, LinkedIn is the gold standard. LinkedIn is all about business and building professional networks, making it the perfect landscape to find and connect with potential clients.
it’s at the heart of your employer brand
As you probably already know, LinkedIn is an amazing tool for recruiting new employees. You can be certain that if you’re posting jobs on LinkedIn (and even if you’re not) potential employees are checking out your company page to decide if they want to work for you. Your LinkedIn profile should convey your company’s values and show off what makes you a great employer. A well-crafted employer brand plays a vital role in connecting your business with the skilled, star employees who will drive your business growth for years to come.
it’s the best place to establish thought-leadership
If you consider your business a leader in your industry, LinkedIn is the best place to share your research, trends and insights. LinkedIn is a well-regarded, professional network that’s cultivated a reputation as the social network of choice for the business world. People tend to trust what they read on LinkedIn, more so than other social outlets like Facebook and Twitter.
it’s good for your searchability
Google and other search engines use your social media engagement as one of the many factors in their complex algorithms. Though the main benefit is directing a little extra SEO juice to your website – just make sure to have reciprocal links to your website and LinkedIn page to benefit from it! A well-optimized page with a keyword-friendly description and content might even show up in search results on its own.
how to make your linkedin company page shine
ensure your profile is complete
A half-finished profile is an instant detractor for your brand. Though we’re told repeatedly not to judge a book by its cover, the reality is that appearances matter. People think visually and will make assumptions based on what they see. If potential employees or customers see an incomplete profile, with infrequent or incredibly low engagement, they might wonder how much your business cares.
To ensure your company comes across as professional and put-together, ensure your page is 100% complete. This includes having a crisp logo (no low res, pixelated images allowed!), a relevant cover image, and an engaging summary that describes your business. Also don’t forget to fill in your company’s specialties, stats, contact info, and include a link to your website. Information is power on social media!
be visually appealing; the optics matter
Your brand’s cover banner is the most important visual element on your page. Your cover is the first thing that people will see on your company LinkedIn page. This makes it a great tool for communicating a key message about your brand. It should be high-res, made to LinkedIn’s specifications and be consistent with your company’s branding.
Though don’t think that means you can’t change it up every so often. If you have a special event or theme that you want to be front and centre, by all means, create a limited time cover to promote it. Just ensure that cover matches your branding and marketing elsewhere online (and off, too!) Changing up your cover image every once in a while will also show your brand is engaged and active on the platform, and ensure your LinkedIn company page doesn’t get stale. Avoid being overly sales-y on LinkedIn, though. Save that kind of messaging for Facebook or Twitter. LinkedIn’s audience is more likely to respond to professional messaging relating to your industry or workplace.
Also, the be-mindful-of-visuals rule extends to anything you post on your LinkedIn channel, as well. Check out the previews of links to ensure they look right before publishing. Also, try to include some visual element with every post. Whether that’s an image, video, infographic, or link preview, visuals are eye-catching and will garner more social engagement.
get employees engaged
LinkedIn is a platform built for employees. Your employees are your best asset when it comes to sharing your content and extending its reach. According to LinkedIn, employees are 70% more likely to engage with their employer, than the average LinkedIn user. If they aren’t already, encourage employees to join and follow your company page. Also, remember to ask them to share your posts. Better yet, shoot off a quick email to employees alerting themof exciting new content, and providing links to share it. The easier you make it for employees to engage, the more success you’ll have.
As an added bonus, when employees include your business on their profile, it makes it easy for prospects to find the right person to engage with when they decide they want to do business with you. It also makes it possible for prospects to see if they have connections at your business, which can be a deciding factor in if they choose to reach out.
share valuable content that customers want
Once you’ve got your workforce engaged, the next step is to give them something great to share. As you’ve probably heard by now, content is king, and his reign shows no signs of ending! To be successful on LinkedIn, you’re going to need to create exciting content that intrigues your target audience.
Just remember, LinkedIn is a professional platform, so keep your content tailored to the business community. This isn’t Facebook or Instagram, where selfies and personal updates are welcome. If your target is business to business (B2B) LinkedIn is your jackpot. The platform is full of managers, execs and big decision makers. To reach them create compelling content that’s related to your business but also interesting and helpful. Blog articles, infographics and videos are all great to share on LinkedIn. While you can toss out a sales pitch every so often, self-promotional speak shouldn’t dominate your feed.
post frequently, but don’t go overboard
On LinkedIn, a post every day or so is usually enough to show you’re active and engaged. The magic number tends to be about 20 posts per month (which works out to about 1 per business day) is a safe amount. Avoid posting multiple times per day on LinkedIn, as you’re more likely to irritate prospects into hiding your posts. Unlike Facebook and Twitter which people check more frequently (and therefore will accept more frequent updates) LinkedIn is the kind of platform where even active users check their feed a little less frequently. So if your followers log in to find their feed is dominated by your posts, they might feel bombarded.
know your peak posting times and type of content
LinkedIn has a great analytics dashboard that shares valuable information you can leverage to optimize your content and feed. Once you have a few months of posting under your belt, you should be able to pull lots of juicy data from your LinkedIn analytics, like what topics tend to work best for you, your best posts types (images, blogs, videos, etc.) and ideal posting times.
Unfortunately, there are no universal answers. They will depend on your business and target. As a broad rule, LinkedIn tends to be most active during business hours (people check it most during their working hours.) However, you should be able to pinpoint a more precise day of the week or time that consistently works well for you. When you’re first starting regular posting, test a variety of times, subjects and posts, and gradually hone in what works best.
find complementary groups and join the discussion
One of the great things about LinkedIn is that it’s full of communities of like-minded people and businesses. According to LinkedIn, they host over 1 million different discussion groups, so anyone who says they can’t find a relevant group is a liar liar pants on fire, or runs an incredibly niche, one-in-a-billion business. But even then you can join discussions about business, marketing or HR that are relevant to every business.
Contributing on these discussion groups and sharing your thoughts and opinions is a great way to reach new people and build up your followers, and ultimately your total reach, when you share great content that they love and share with their connections.
leverage linkedin articles
LinkedIn publishing is an amazing tool that far too few businesses take advantage of. It’s basically a free blog hosted on LinkedIn. Often businesses think ‘I have my own blog on my website, why would I need LinkedIn?’ And yes, your website should absolutely be the first place where you publish all your articles and most valuable content.
After you’ve already done that is where LinkedIn comes into play. LinkedIn publishing is a great tool for repurposing your existing content and helping it reach a new audience. (And no, you don’t have to worry about it being considered duplicate content.) LinkedIn offers a massive audience – it’s ranked the 13th most popular website in Canada, according to its Alexa rank. So chances are, LinkedIn has a much larger audience than you could ever reach on your own.
Just keep in mind that articles can only be published by people, not businesses. Some businesses opt to have the CEO or president as the face of their posts. Others go with the marketing or content team members who write them. Prominent members of your team who have name recognition in your industry or employees who already have a large social media following are ideal. Just remember to follow all the regular blogging best practices, and conclude your piece with a call to action directing readers to your website. A great option is to end the article with a few links to related articles on your website, to direct some traffic to your website.
ensure your website links to your linkedin profile
Your website should have a clear link to your official LinkedIn company page (and all your social media feeds). Usually, the header is the best place to include your social media buttons, however, the footer is also an option. This makes it easy for job seekers to connect with you on LinkedIn and ensure they’re finding the right company feed. It’s also often where job seekers will go to check for current job postings. And as a final bonus, it’s good for your website's search engine optimization.
make sure your linkedin profile reflects your employer brand
Your employer brand is how your company presents itself as an employer. It encompasses how current and potential employees view your company as a workplace. Since LinkedIn is often ground zero for professionals who are looking for new work opportunities, it’s important to have an up-to-date LinkedIn profile (and content) that shines a light on all the great attributes of your company, not just to consumers, but employees, too. A strong employer brand is frequently the difference between having skilled employees knocking down your door, wanting to work with you, and tumbleweeds-blowing-by, ghost-town job listings that no one applies to.