LinkedIn has over 380 million users and, since it was launched in 2003 it has had a huge impact and is known as the world’s largest professional internet networking site, having the potential for companies to drive new business and cultivate communities, known as groups.
LinkedIn is all about business, but if you’re using LinkedIn Company Pages as a part of your social media marketing strategy, be sure to follow these best practices.
Optimize your page for search engines
When you create your company page, take your time, building it strategically.
Here are a few tips to you get started:
- Google will show the first 156 characters of your company description so make sure the description you script has specific keywords in those first 156 characters.
- The LinkedIn search tool allows users to type in keywords and phrases when looking for something or someone on the site. Take advantage of this by including keyword phrases, industry terminology, product information, etc. to make it easy for potential customers to find your company page.
- Make sure to use logos and header images that tie into those being used on your website and other social media platforms because having a recognisable brand identity is very important.
- Remember to update your company page on a regular basis.
Deciding how many times to post to a particular platform is always a worry and there is a fine line between posting too much, annoying your followers and not posting enough which results in little or no engagement. However, LinkedIn have provided a marketing report which claims that by posting 20 posts a month would help you to reach 60% of your audience, providing you are using the right content to post. This amounts to one LinkedIn post per weekday, but really what really engages your audience is whether your updates are of any value to them. Think before you post and remember Linkedin is used by professionals to boost their professional lives, increase their productivity or to learn something that will help either themselves or their company to become more successful.
LinkedIn research shows that just over half of their users are more interested in reading posts about industry insights and thought leadership. The second most popular type of content is company news, company updates and new about new products or services.
How To Make The Most Of Your Posts
- LinkedIn is used most on a Monday to Friday in the morning and midday.
- In your update use the word “top” and the numbers 3,5,10,25,30,50, or 100. Their research shows this combination can increase engagement up to 40%
- Include links in all of your updates. Links have been shown to receive up to 45% more engagement than those without links.
- Updates with images get 98% more comments than those without.
- Updates with links to YouTube videos or your own company videos that have been created have a 75% higher share rate than those without and get twice as many likes and comments. People prefer to watch a video nowadays than actually having to read something, but keep them short and snappy.
- Keep conversations going with posts that have been interacted with.
Get your company employees involved
This applies to any social media platform that your company has, and it is very important that your employees and colleagues get involved with ‘liking’, ‘sharing’ or ‘commenting’ on any posts that are posted. You will probably find that they will begin with a flurry, but the novelty of working on your company page will soon wear off as they have their own profiles already that they interact with. Keep on at them, it really does pay dividends.
How do you keep your employees motivated to interact with your company pages?
- Sometime just asking will spur people into action. Remind them on a weekly basis to increase the page activity.
- Make it into a competition whereby the employee who engages most on their company page over, say a month, gets a prize.
- If there is something important or new that is being posted out onto your company page, send an email to your employees alerting them of the fact, and ask them to share, like or comment on it.
Promote your LinkedIn Company Page
Gaining followers to a LinkedIn company page can be quite difficult. Simply setting the page up and just leaving it there will not attract anyone. You need to promote the fact that the page has been created. Simple ways of doing this is to have a ‘Follow Us‘ button put onto your website, email signature, newsletters. Blogs etc. Even when talking via the LinkedIn messaging system, simply asking people to follow your page could work by including a link in your message to your page.
If you follow the tips given about you will be well on your way to LinkedIn marketing success, but always listen to what your followers have to say. Track your insights using LinkedIn tools and be ready to make changes if needs be, personalising the way your company uses LinkedIn.
If you need any further help or advice, please do not hesitate to contact us here at marknorthall.com
You can ‘Follow Us’ on LinkedIn here