Over the past year Linkedin have stepped up their game in the Social Media world, and have made some fantastic changes to ensure that they are on top form when competing for our attention amidst the social circus. And one particular update hopefully has not missed your attention.
Linkedin Company pages have been preened and polished, and now are as important as ever as part of your online marketing strategy, so we’ve put together some ‘top tips’ to make sure you know exactly how to stay ahead of your competition on the worlds largest professional business network.
Creating Your Company Page.
It might be that you haven’t claimed your company page of yet, or its something you did a while ago and its been waiting on the to-do list since to give it a bit of a do-over. Well, now is as good a time as any.
The idea of the page is to attract users to ‘follow’ your company, and for you to stand out in their current newsfeed.
Use informative descriptions about your target market, your specialities, your highlights and your USPs (Unique Selling Point/s) – not forgetting clear calls to action. Let your customers (and potential customers) that you are a real person on the end of your page and they can contact you when they have a question or query.
Build up your products and services pages with images, descriptions and keywords to draw in your audience, and include and landing page URLs to your main website. Include video where possible, giving your page that extra dimension and level of engagement.
Of course, this process can be a little time consuming, and you can always ask a professional to set up your Linkedin Company Page for you (*cough cough* …hello!) and we’d be more than happy to help.
Build Up Your Followers.
By increasing your following on Linkedin, you will as a result, increase your company visability. Your updates will be seen through your followers and in turn, their professional networks, extending your overall reach. It is of course, an organic process, and one that involves a bit of time, much like building your community on Facebook or Twitter or other sites would.
- Employees and Existing Contacts chances are, you already have employees and a good circle of connections/clients around you, so give them a nudge and ask for a follow and the odd ‘share’ of a status or update.
- Say Hello Let your current connections on Linkedin (via your ‘personal’ page) that you now have a company page. Depending on how often they visit the site, they might have missed your set up altogether. But a friendly announcement will ensure a few engagements from your peers. Don’t forget to mention why they should like the page, give them a few concrete reasons and benefits they will get from clicking that all important ‘follow’.
- Similar Pages and People Look to your local community of businesses. Many will reciprocate, and everyone loves a good opportunity to network in the area.
Remember, its important to build a community of followers that are relevant, and the more relevant they are the more opportunities you will find yourself faced with in the long run.
Content, Content, Content.
As with all social networks, Content is key when it comes to your followers deeming you ‘interesting’.
Remember to post a variety of content and updates on your page. Breaking news, valuable resources, interesting stories, post questions and topics for discussion. Rich media and content gives your followers reason to engage with you, and share your brand. Which in turn, extends your social reach even further.
Engagement.
Engagement is half the battle when it comes to LinkedIn. Much like you can interact and engage with individuals on your personal page, you can follow the exact same process on your company page.
Follow fellow companies that you are looking to engage with, or individuals that you have shared interests with. Point people in the right direction for employment, or share content and provide answers to those looking for them.
By helping and engaging with these companies, you are not only helping their grow their own visability online, but you also pop up on their radar as an industry ‘expert’ and voice of knowledge.
By expanding your visibility, you also as a result expand your own influence, which is in itself a very simple concept, but one that is very effective when it comes to Linkedin.
Use Linkedin’s advanced search options to find groups, networks and other companies similar to your own, or those that you can add value to.
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