LinkedIn is the leading social networking site for professionals, as well as a great avenue for B2B organizations when utilized to its potential. LinkedIn’s focus is on education, work, history, companies and professional themes. Companies can utilize LinkedIn to showcase products, employee networks, blog posts, upcoming events and status updates. Here’s some tips to assist you in creating a successful LinkedIn page for your company.
Users can follow your profile to learn more about your company. You can also post jobs on LinkedIn, making it a great venue for recruiting top candidates. The Products page gives you the ability to assign members of your organization to specific product offerings, so consumers get a direct contact when inquiring about that product. This also is a way to start conversations between prospects and different members of your organization. After you create your Products and Services pages, you can begin to use the Recommendations feature. Recommendations gives your customers and employees a forum to recommend your products and services to others. You can place videos directly on your Products and Services page. The best way to utilize this is by placing them next to product descriptions, to get the most visibility. You can include Promo offers to drive additional traffic to your website by adding a Promo Box onto your Products or Services pages. Encourage your employees to promote your brand and post your company blogs on their LinkedIn status updates. The more advocates you have on LinkedIn, the better the chance your business has to become a thought leader in your space. Make sure your profiles (as well as your employees) are as complete as personal. Including a photo is a great way to put a face to a name and “humanize” your profile. Pay attention to network updates you receive as they share updates about your connections and can led to new business opportunities for your company. Use LinkedIn Answers to ask thought-provoking questions and demonstrate thought leadership. Promote your events on LinkedIn, this promotes additional visibility and encourages sharing.
Shared Connections
The biggest feature of LinkedIn is that it gives you the ability to connect with a larger network of people through your already established connections. You can see the degrees of separation between you and other users and connect with those outside of your direct network through Introductions. Introductions can be used as a form of target account marketing by identifying potential prospects and asking your contacts to introduce you.
Groups
Groups is a great feature to demonstrate leadership around specific areas of expertise and focus. You can encourage customers to discuss specific topics and assign someone to monitor your group. The monitor would be responsible for posting responses and keep the conversation going. The Groups feature is a great tool for B2B companies to locate potential customers. An easy way to do this is to come up with a list of keywords that relates to your business and search for any LinkedIn Groups related to these keywords. Once you find Groups that best match your search, participate in discussions and make your new connections.
SEO
There are some avenues to use LinkedIn for SEO, depending on pages being optimized properly. Both companies and employees can boost SEO and organic visibility. Here are some ways you can make sure your pages are optimized to their potential:
– Include a professional headshot
– Include keywords in job position title
– Link to company blog under “Websites”
– Add Twitter Handle
– Move recommendations to the top
– Add as many skills to the “Skills” section as possible
– Include a summary in the first person and include as many keywords as possible
– Claim a unique URL and then utilize it in email signatures
Advertising
LinkedIn ads work like PPC, and are a great platform for you to reach your target information. LinkedIn holds specific demographic information and can be used to help target advertising. Create ads that hold a variety of keywords and target your particular audience. LinkedIn gives you the ability to select your demographics based on role, title, industry, geography and a variety of other criteria. Make sure that your call to action is appropriate to your target audience. Additionally, make sure you are utilizing one call to action per ad.
LinkedIn could prove to be a great marketing tool for your business as well as a way to gain many connections to further your business even farther. beMarketing can help you create your LinkedIn or build your existing account to its potential and make sure you are fully optimizing every avenue to the utmost. Give Brandon a call today and get your business’ LinkedIn profile to the top of its industry; 484-351-8820.
