5 LinkedIn Company Page Tips for Beginners

#Business

Having a presence on LinkedIn is more important for your business than ever. Not only is it the world’s largest professional social network, but new members currently sign up at a rate of more than two per second. Having a company page on LinkedIn gives you tremendous growth opportunities, including:

• Increasing brand awareness
• Connecting with and acquiring new customers
• Promoting events
• Engaging with influencers in your industry
• Recruiting talent

LinkedIn is also a proven traffic driver for B2B websites. In fact, LinkedIn accounts for 64% of all visits from social media channels to corporate websites. Did we convince you? If so, here are five tips to get your company up and running on LinkedIn.

1. Create Your Company Page with Conversions in Mind

To create a LinkedIn page that works for you and your business, follow these guidelines:

• Be thorough, and use all of the tools you have available to you. This means filling out all of the fields about your company, and including a banner image and logo. For ideas on how to get creative with copy and visual elements, check out your competitors’ company pages.

• Treat your LinkedIn page as a marketing vehicle. Many businesses treat their LinkedIn profiles as an extension of the About Us sections on their website. If you think of it as a marketing and sales tool, you’ll be more successful in getting visitors to click through to your website. Speak to your target audience the same way you would in any of your marketing materials. Make sure your company’s value proposition is near the top. Your copy should excite potential customers, influencers in your industry, and those who might be interested in working for you. Below is an example of LinkedIn’s company page:

 

2. Know When and What to Post

Every audience is different, so you should test posting on LinkedIn on different days and at different times to see when you get the best response. Learning what content drives traffic and conversions will likely take some trial and error as well. Think of these guidelines as a starting point for your testing:

• Post at the right time. Our 2015 data shows that peak times for shares to LinkedIn and clicks on those links happen on Mondays between 2:00-4:00 p.m. ET.

• Refine your content strategy to appeal to your audience. Buffer reports that 6 out of 10 LinkedIn users are interested in industry insights–the most demanded type of content among members. Second to industry insight, company news appeals to 53 percent of LinkedIn members. New products and services come in third.

• Follow publishing best practices. Keep the conversation balanced between posts that promote your company and posts that provide general value for your fans.

3. Tell People About Your Page

Building community engagement takes time. Promote your page with prominently displayed follow buttons on your website and make your content easily shareable on LinkedIn with social share buttons. Consider an email communication, blog post or posts on other social networks announcing the launch of your company page on LinkedIn.

4. Empower Your Employees to Participate

There’s a good chance that many of your employees are already on LinkedIn and know how to use the platform. Unlike other social networks, people expect employees to contribute to conversations about the companies they work for, which can mean valuable marketing for your business. Here are some ways to harness the value of your employees on LinkedIn:

• For employees that are already on LinkedIn, make sure their profiles are linked to the company and their job information is up to date. Encourage employees that aren’t on LinkedIn to sign up for a profile. Ask employees to share company content on their own profiles and tag your page and the original author of the piece. If employees are feeling a little gun shy, consider putting together a guide or share helpful articles with them.

• Encourage employees to join and participate in groups relevant to your company and industry and distribute your content to them.

• Create a process for having select employees publish long-form content on LinkedIn.

5. Keep an Eye on Your Analytics

The only way to know whether or not your LinkedIn company page is working for you is to analyze your metrics. In addition to your website analytics and social insights, LinkedIn’s company page analytics offers information on reach, engagement, followers and visitors. Measuring your analytics against your company goals to see what’s working and what isn’t will give you the tools you need to improve your LinkedIn strategy over time.

Many businesses miss out on the opportunity LinkedIn provides to help grow their business because they’re focusing their efforts on bigger social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Discovering which social outlets will bring you the most traffic–and more importantly, conversions–takes a bit of work, and more than a bit of trial and error. But when you figure out where your most loyal and vocal customers are spending time online and what they want to read and share, it will be worth the effort.

Source: AddThis