LinkedIn has become an invaluable platform for businesses looking to establish their brand, network with other professionals, and generate leads. With over 800 million members worldwide, LinkedIn offers unparalleled access to a massive audience of engaged professionals. For businesses seeking to leverage LinkedIn to support their growth, there are several key strategies to keep in mind.
Building a Strong Company Page
Every business should start by creating a complete and optimized LinkedIn Company Page. This functions as your business’s profile on the platform. Take the time to completely fill out all sections, including an eye-catching banner image, detailed description of your company and its offerings, employee headcounts across locations, and any applicable industries, specialties, or awards. Also be sure to list the key members of your leadership team and link to their personal LinkedIn profiles. This helps give your business a deeper look at the faces behind your brand.
Once your Company Page is fully built out, focus on growing your follower count. You can do this organically by sharing valuable content that gets engagement, and also through LinkedIn’s targeted advertising options. The more followers your company has, the broader the audience you can reach with your status updates and posts.
Engaging Your Existing Connections
While getting visibility with new audiences is important, you also want to better engage your existing network on LinkedIn. Start by encouraging all of your employees to have complete, professional LinkedIn profiles that are associated with your Company Page. The more complete profiles associated with your business, the higher potential engagement and resonance your content will have.
You’ll also want to reach out proactively to your employees’ connections to see about growing your company’s follower count and getting connect with potential partners or customers. For example, an employee could message a connection whose company could be a good fit for partnership and suggest they follow the Company Page stay up-to-date on helpful news and insights from your business.
Sharing Valuable Content
Posting regular content that brings value to your LinkedIn followers is key for building engagement and trust with your audience. Consider sharing a variety of content types that align with your brand identity and industry focus:
- Thought leadership articles on industry news, trends, and insights
- “Behind the scenes” content that gives a peek into your company culture or operations
- Expert perspectives from your leadership team or subject matter experts
- Case studies highlighting client success stories
- Slideshares, infographics, and videos
- Polls and discussions to encourage audience participation
Try to maintain a regular content cadence, whether it be daily or a few times per week. This keeps your business top of mind. You can also repurpose content from your website or blog.
Sponsored Content
In addition to organic content, leverage LinkedIn’s powerful targeting capabilities through sponsored content. You can create standalone posts or link to existing content on your Company Page or website. Sponsored content appears directly in the LinkedIn feed of your target audience. This is a fast way to expand your reach, views, and engagement beyond just those who already follow your page.
Utilizing LinkedIn Groups
Joining and participating in relevant LinkedIn Groups related to your industry or interests is a great way to tap into niche professional communities for sharing content and networking. Monitor the group discussions and chime in when you can provide valuable expertise or perspective. Avoid overt self-promotion. The connections and brand visibility you build organically by being helpful will pay off.
Running Targeted Ad Campaigns
LinkedIn advertising goes far beyond sponsored content. You can run highly targeted campaigns based on member demographic, job role, skills, interests, and more. Campaign types include:
- Sponsored InMail for directly contacting prospective leads
- Dynamic Ads to serve personalized content to site visitors
- Text Ads that appear on the side rail
- Message Ads for attention-grabbing branded content
Take time to understand all of LinkedIn’s advertising options and how they could support your customer acquisition and brand awareness goals.
Promoting Your LinkedIn Presence
To drive more visitors to your Company Page and follower growth, promote your LinkedIn presence across all other marketing channels and collateral. Here are some ideas:
- Link to your LinkedIn from your website footer.
- Include the LinkedIn follow or share buttons on blog posts.
- List your LinkedIn URL in email signatures.
- Promote your Company Page in other social media channels.
- Encourage customers to follow your page in receipts and invoices.
- Have booth staff promote your page at conferences and trade shows.
The more places you can showcase your LinkedIn presence, the faster it will grow!
Leveraging Showcase Pages
LinkedIn Showcase Pages are specialized company pages focused on a specific brand, business unit, initiative or location. Consider launching standalone Showcase Pages if you have multiple brands or sub-brands to promote. You can also create event Showcase Pages to generate buzz for an upcoming conference or product launch. Dedicated pages allow you to target content and followers in a more personalized, segmented way.
Partnering with Influencers and Thought Leaders
Reaching out to industry influencers and thought leaders on LinkedIn for content partnerships, co-hosted events or webinars, and other collaborative initiatives can provide an instant credibility boost for your brand. Even something as simple as an influencer sharing one of your posts with words of praise can expose you to a whole new audience. Identify and build relationships with those who can amplify your brand and content efforts.
Building Your Sales Team’s LinkedIn Presence
Having a strong LinkedIn presence should not stop with your Company Page. To boost sales, ensure every member of your sales team has a complete, optimized LinkedIn profile. Offer profile guidance and training as needed. Their profiles should highlight relevant experience, skills, accomplishments and recommendations. This inspires confidence in your company when prospective customers check them out.
Empower your salespeople to leverage their own networks and Company Page followers to generate new leads. A personalized message from a sales rep a prospect is connected to already can often close sales faster.
Generating Leads Through LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms
LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms allow you to collect lead contact information right within the LinkedIn messaging platform. Visitors submit their details, such as name, email, and phone number, to opt-in to receive content from your business like an eBook, whitepaper, or brochure related to their interests.
You can place Lead Gen Forms within your Company Page content, in Sponsored Content, InMail messages, and on your website. It’s an easy way to capture and nurture leads from LinkedIn without sending them elsewhere.
Curating a Targeted LinkedIn Audience for Sales
LinkedIn Audience Targeting provides a way to identify the segments of LinkedIn members who match your ideal buyer persona attributes. You can target by geography, job role, company size, interests, groups, skills, and much more. Curate different audiences you can market and advertise to, as well as monitor content performance by segment.
Using Content Recommendations
Content Recommendations show personalized content from your Company Page to site visitors browsing LinkedIn, especially those who align with audiences you want to target. Essentially it pushes your content in front of interested prospects when they are most receptive as they browse the platform.
Following Competitors
Keep tabs on what your competitors are doing by following their Company Pages. This provides visibility into the types of content and campaigns resonating with your target market. You can get ideas for what is performing well and receiving engagement. It also allows you to monitor competitor job postings, new hires, and other company developments.
Connecting with Prospects on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the ideal platform for initiating connections and conversations with prospects in your target market. Here are some tips for effectively connecting:
- Personalize your connection request with a note highlighting why you want to connect.
- Use LinkedIn’s advanced search to find prospects by location, job title, company, interests, and more.
- Monitor posts from your connections for opportunities to offer your expertise.
- Join Groups your prospects are members of to connect organically there.
- Reference shared connections when reaching out to build credibility.
Getting Referrals and Endorsements
Testimonials, referrals, and endorsements on LinkedIn build social proof and trust with prospective customers. When asking your satisfied, long-time connections for recommendations, be specific about which aspects of working with you or your company they can validate. This adds more weight to the referral.
Networking Through LinkedIn Events
In-person events are coming back after the pandemic hiatus! Use LinkedIn Events to promote relevant conferences, trade shows and other local events your company is participating in. Events are another networking touchpoint for meeting potential partners, customers, and talent.
Showcasing Awards and Certifications
Displaying prestigious awards or certifications on your Company Page and employee profiles makes your business stand out as an accredited industry leader. Prominently display badges for things like “Best Place to Work,” Fortune 500 status, or Great Place to Work certifications. Individual employees can also list certifications that demonstrate proficiency in skills or specialties.
Posting Jobs and Internships
The LinkedIn Jobs portal allows you to post open positions and reach qualified active and passive candidates. You can target postings by location, experience level, skills, company followers and more. Jobs display prominently on LinkedIn across web and mobile. It is an often overlooked sourcing channel!
Posting internships is also a great way to get fresh talent in the door and build your employer brand.
Using Analytics for Insights
LinkedIn’s analytics provide a wealth of insights into your Company Page, content, ads, and other activity on the platform. Monitor analytics regularly for data like:
- Page views and follower growth
- Content reach, engagement rate, and amplification
- Demographics of your followers and their interests
- Lead conversion metrics
- Most popular content and topics
These insights help you continuously refine your approach and allocate resources to what is most effective.
Retargeting Website Visitors
The Website Demographics tag from LinkedIn allows you to track visitors to your website. You can then create ad campaigns or custom audiences to draw those website visitors back in to re-engage them on LinkedIn. This gives you a second chance to deliver your messaging after getting them to your site.
Using Sponsored InMail Effectively
When using LinkedIn’s Sponsored InMail advertising, follow these best practices for higher conversions:
- Personalize each message with the recipient’s name.
- Keep subject lines clear and compelling.
- Write conversational copy that connects with the reader.
- Focus on value over product features and pricing.
- Send customized InMails to website visitors based on their activity.
Growing Your Audience with Lookalike Targeting
LinkedIn Lookalike Targeting lets you find new audiences with attributes similar to your existing followers or customers. You provide a source audience, and LinkedIn will find other members on the platform who closely resemble them based on elements like demographics, interests, job roles and location. This gives you new potential targets for ads and campaigns.
Connecting with Employees on LinkedIn Elevate
LinkedIn Elevate is an internal platform offering employee advocacy tools, content sharing resources, and analytics on employee engagement. Having a unified system where you can share approved content for employees to post and track reach helps maximize their impact as brand ambassadors.
Mastering Hashtags on LinkedIn
Using relevant hashtags in Company Page posts helps them surface in industry-related feeds. Monitor the top hashtags in your niche to see conversation trends. Join in on popular hashtag discussions where appropriate to expand reach. You can also click on any hashtag to see related content and who is using it.
Leveraging Your Team’s Collective Network
Encourage employees to include the #workingat hashtag + your company name in their profile descriptions. Profiles tagged as working at your company will dynamically appear on your Company Page under “Employees at this company.” This showcases your broader team member expertise.
You can also have employees re-share Company Page content to tap into their own networks for increasing your content visibility. Aim to build an “employee influencer” program of advocates.
Monitoring Competitor Company Pages
Keep a close eye on your competitors’ LinkedIn activity for useful intel by staying up-to-date with their Company Pages. Notice what posts get high engagement, which employees they are featuring, what content format they favor, major company news, and changes in branding. This competitive analysis helps inform your own strategy.
Connecting with Influencers
Reaching out directly to LinkedIn influencers in your industry provides a few options to collaborate for mutual benefit. You could invite them to guest post on your Company Page, participate in a joint webinar, or contribute a quote to your latest guide. Influencers are more likely to share content when they had a role in creating it.
Using Sponsored Content for Gated Assets
Sponsored Content ads can drive viewers to gated offers like whitepapers, ebooks, case studies or product demo videos. Require an email, LinkedIn profile information or Lead Gen Form to access the gated asset. This generates tangible leads from your LinkedIn ads.
Advertising Relevant Jobs
When leveraging LinkedIn to promote job openings, you can target ads specifically tailored to relevant candidates based on criteria like job title, company, skills, education and location. For example, target project manager job ads to those with PMP certifications. Hyper-targeted promotion increases qualified applicants.
Thanking Employees for Endorsements
When employees and colleagues take the time to endorse you or your leadership team on LinkedIn, be sure to send them a quick note of thanks! This motivates them to continue actively advocating on behalf of your brand.
Promoting Company Culture
Share behind-the-scenes glimpses into your company culture through photos, videos and employee spotlights. This gives candidates considering your open positions an authentic view into life at your organization. It also helps build your employer brand.
Leveraging LinkedIn’s Partner Program
LinkedIn’s Partner Program provides approved third-party developers access to LinkedIn platform data and APIs for building integrations and applications. If your business could benefit from custom LinkedIn tools or insights, explore vetted Partner Program members to find the right fit.
Conclusion
With more ways than ever to build your brand, advertise, publish targeted content, foster community and generate leads, LinkedIn is an essential platform for reaching B2B buyers and talent. While investing time in these strategies requires resource commitment on an ongoing basis, the high audience engagement and measurable results make it worth the effort. Focus on providing value to your audience above all else. With consistent presence and high-quality content, your business can steadily cultivate meaningful relationships that drive growth on LinkedIn.