Dontcha just love LinkedIn? It’s the space where your professional connections unite. I’ve honestly gotten clients from all over the world by connecting with anybody who hands me a business card or shoots me an email. The power behind this social medium as a tool grows stronger when you start paying attention to all the sweet LinkedIn for Business tools. Then can you really start to open up the floodgate to potential leads clicking through to the content they want to continue reading on your website…
And the proof is in the puddin. Just look at the numbers. Did you know that there are 380 MILLION LinkedIn users in over 200 countries? More than nine in ten business to business marketers use LinkedIn, which makes it so critical for your B2B customer engagement.
Too busy? Read more: Monitor Social Media in 10 Minutes a Day
Aside from your personal LinkedIn page let’s focus on your LinkedIn Company Page. The company page is similar to your personal page except it’s not about any one person but rather about your company as a whole. Your company page will help others learn more about your business, brand, products, services and even job opportunities. I hope this list will help you to figure out if LinkedIn is a good fit for your business.
- Expand your company’s reach
By creating a LinkedIn page and timeline for your business, you’ll be able to share industry updates, pertinent company news and any new content you’d like to release. You’ll have the ability to tap into tons of potential new leads who are interested in these topics. When you post, your followers can then also engage with your posts right from your company page. Sweet. We all love communication, especially when it’s constructive.
- Engage your audience by answering questions
Answer any question that a potential customer asks on your company page. This helps show that you’re the expert in your field. If you can’t answer the question in a short statement, why not bring it to your blog or start an FAQ page? Boom. Content idea. You’re welcome. If you’re not getting enough chatter when you’re just starting out, why not probe an associate to ask a question pertaining to your area of expertise? Somebody’s got to initiate the influx of questions ahead… You might as well make the first one easy ?
- Cut out the noise of LinkedIn spam
By engaging followers on your page, you aren’t considered a spammy LinkedIn emailer. People follow your company because they WANT to know about what you’re up to and are interested in the content you’re sharing. Be careful though, since you should always go in with a defined content strategy so you get quality followers, not just quantity.
- Define the consumer perception of your brand
What distinguishes your products and services from the competition? The new digital consumer now makes buying decisions based upon how you do business and not just what you’re selling. Humanizing your brand builds an affinity for your business by other humans.
#protip: Be authentic and have an opinion. Use clarity over cleverness. Try a personal anecdote. Help start the conversation by being friendly and accommodating.
- Use LinkedIn to tell your story
You can now use LinkedIn’s new publisher feature to write and share longer posts. This is LinkedIn’s own internal, highly indexed (where top writers content is often likely shared) blog. Learn about prospects by paying attention to incoming comments and replying diligently. Now you’re engaging. Now that you’ve got their attention, why not suggest they follow your company page for updates on similar interest topics?
- Track the performance of your posts
There are analytics tracking tools hooked right into your LinkedIn Company Page. You can use these insights to understand what content resonates best with your audience and start creating more of it. In addition, it spits out your follower demographics and how you compare with the competition.
- Employees become brand ambassadors
If your employees are on LinkedIn (as they should be..) encourage them to add your company to their personal profiles and share your curated content with their networks directly from your company page. This can amplify your company’s reach exponentially.
7.5. LinkedIn’s new App, Lookup
LinkedIn’s Lookout app for web/mobile/IOS app is brand spanking new and looks to be sort of a company intranet. Lookup helps you easily find colleagues from the same company, learn about and message them right from within the app. Lookup uses one current company listed on your profile, and you actually NEED a LinkedIn Company Page in order to use it. So get on that. If you work with a bunch of people who are all on LinkedIn and you want to know what they’re great at according to their profiles, I suggest you check it out.
I hope I’ve given you a few incentives to go out right now and create your awesome LinkedIn Company Page to ultimately lead more people to your website. It’s a really great tool to engage your brand’s followers in a kind and human manner.
Have you stumbled upon something on LinkedIn that you’re a huge fan of? Let us know. We’re fans of new marketing tools too!
Don’t forget to add me to your LinkedIn Network while you’re at it!