Linkedin Company Page Best Practices

We know that keeping up with all the different social media channels that you should be using for your business can be frustrating, overwhelming, and time-consuming. However, we still recommend that you do it. And of those social media channels, we think LinkedIn and your LinkedIn company profile should be high on the priority list. Here’s why:

LinkedIn is the largest professional social network in the world, connecting more that 200 million professional globally. Within this pool of professional are many of the higher-level, decision-makers that B2B companies are trying to reach. For B2C companies, this pool represents mainly working professionals who are in a position to buy; in fact, 50% of LinkedIn members are more likely to purchase from a company that they follow on LinkedIn.

In addition, as a publicly traded company, you can see for your self what is bringing about its boom. However, some highlights from the 2014 Q4 reportinclude that 61% of the LinkedIn’s revenue comes from hiring solutions and 19% comes from providing marketing solutions. So, 80% of LinkedIn’s total revenue is coming from companies, brands, and businesses. This means that your company page is important and it will only become more important. Make sure you are optimizing it with these 5 LinkedIn company page tips.

1. Presentation Matters

Consider your LinkedIn company profile as your storefront window display. Your company profile plays a big role in the first impression your company makes on competitors, other businesses, and potential customers (or even potential employees). It’s worth the time to make your profile professional, up to date, branded, and generally visually appealing. Use the following checklist when constructing and maintaining your page to make sure you blow the basics out of the water:

1. Make frequent updates to your profile image and info to keep them both fresh and current
2. Present your brand through a compelling biographical story
3. Shine the spotlight on employees, products, and even customers
4. Feature your products and services to increase their visibility to potential customers
5. Use SEO indexing to maximize brand exposure through keyword searches
6. Get creative

2. It IS a Popularity Contest

Ready for some eye-opening stats? Once a user has connected with a brand or company on LinkedIn, that user is 8 times more engaged with the brand, 3 times more likely to buy products from the brand, and 2 times more likely to recommend that brand. Basically you want to gain as many LinkedIn connections and followers as possible, because you want to make these stats a reality for your company. But there’s no need to start from scratch. You already have a following on your website, blog, twitter, facebook, etc. You need to transition your existing following over to your LinkedIn too. Make sure you have LinkedIn “Follow Us” buttons on your sites, blogs, and other social media profiles and really encourage your users to click the button. These will make sure that your current reach is cross-channel.

Next you want to extend that reach. One great way to do that is through your employees. Each employee has his or her own professional network of friends, colleagues, and clients. They are your biggest brand promoters and can bring in a solid base of new interest. Encourage your employees to like and share your company profile posts; as well as engage in the comment section by responding to other users.

3. Get Active—and Interactive

Once you have built a following, you need to engage with them. Get a conversation started by posting status updates linking to your latest blog article, asking a question to invite response, or present other valuable, industry relevant material. Take advantage of LinkedIn’s audience targeting capabilities and adjust your updates according to whom you’re trying to reach. It’s helpful to have a clear idea of your various target audiences if you want to get the full value out of this feature.

Through your posts and updates, you can place your brand among industry thought leaders and become a go-to source of news and information. By asking questions and inviting follower feedback, you make your page a primary watering hole for potential customers looking for information and insights. Here are some tips for engaging your followers:

1. Post mainly during office hours, since LinkedIn is a network for professionals
2. Only post once or twice per day and keep posts clear, concise, and professional
3. Encourage your employees to post your company’s materials and be involved in comment threads
4. Ask followers for answers, insights, feedback

Don’t forget that every endorsement, recommendation, like or share of your page or your material drives traffic to your LinkedIn company page, extends your reach, and amplifies your brand. Engaged followers are more likely to become brand promoters

4. Use LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn social ads can help increase your company following and/or recommendations for your products or services and they are actually still affordable. Your LinkedIn social ads might ask members to follow your company or recommend your products or services.

The ads also increase your company’s visibility. Finally you can target these ads according to your campaign strategies.

Take a look at the some of the company pages case studies featured by LinkedIn.All evidence indicates that company page success is linked to followers, number of engaging posts, and number of product and service endorsements.Utilizing the social recommendation ads or follower ads may be very worthwhile for your company. It is definitely worth a look.

5. Fine-tune

First things first: we hope that you have made some marketing goals for your LinkedIn company page already. If so, refer back to the goals you made you for company page and see where you are meeting them and where you are falling short. Once you’ve been putting these tips into practice for a good quarter—promoting, posting, updating, and interacting—it’s important to review the response you are seeing and go back to fine-tune your efforts for greater effect.Note which posts are especially successful and those that are less successful and identify patterns for contributing factors. Note which posts didn’t take off and try to establish patterns as to why.

One important “KPI” (Key Performance Indicator) for LinkedIn is  “Engagement Rate.” You can use LinkedIn Analytics to discover your ratio of clicks, “likes”, comments and shares against the total impressions of each update.

If your company page was too new and couldn’t provide the data for you to make goals, make them now with the data you have.

A good LinkedIn company page is like having prime real estate in a massive shopping center patronized by serious shoppers. You are surrounded by potential customers, looking for information and ready to buy and promote. So don’t shirk. Apply these LinkedIn company page best practices and get in the game today. For even more tips, download out LinkedIn company page guide below.