LinkedIn is the social media platform that means business. Designed for connecting with like-minded professionals, the service focuses on linking up business contacts. At the end of 2015, there were over 400 million individual profiles on LinkedIn from business people across the world (LinkedIn, 2016).
Even if you’re already using LinkedIn as an individual, it’s worth understanding the benefits of using LinkedIn as a company. LinkedIn has plenty of potential for business-to-business companies, as well as businesses talking directly to individual customers. Over 60% of business owners say they use the networking site regularly (Salesforce, 2015) and, after Facebook, LinkedIn was the favourite site for marketers (Social Media Examiner, 2015).
The key feature for companies and businesses using LinkedIn are company pages. A company page is like a profile for your business, with which you can:
Start by visiting the LinkedIn Company Pages site and click ‘Get started’. You’ll need to fill out the form and make sure you’re using your work email address.
You’ll then be able to fill out the different sections of your company page. This includes a link to your website, your business address, your product or services and a short overview.
Make sure to include a banner image (646px by 220px) and a logo (300px by 300px) as this will be one of the first things your potential customers will see. It’ll also appear in LinkedIn’s search results. Your banner image could be of your business, you at work or an image you already use on your website. To help you, here’s a very easy-to-use online tool to help you resize your images correctly for LinkedIn.
If you have more than one employee at your business, encourage them to update their LinkedIn profiles and add your company to their profile as an employer. This will add them to the list of employees you have, which is featured on your LinkedIn company page and helps your profile appear more complete.
If people are interested in your company on LinkedIn, they can ‘follow’ you and stay up to date with your news. Your responsibility as a business is to keep that news interesting and relevant!
As a start, try and share at least two updates a week on your company page. These could be:
Make sure to include relevant words in your updates which are related to your industry. That way, when people search on LinkedIn for your type of business, your company page is more likely to appear.
If you’re running a promotion or a specific marketing campaign, you can share this on LinkedIn too.
For small business owners, it’s important to use LinkedIn as an individual and as a company. This will help you find potential customers and make the most of the platform.
Because LinkedIn is focused on professional individuals, there are some things companies (and company pages) can’t do which individuals can; for example, individuals can join networking groups on the site but companies can’t. Part of using LinkedIn effectively as a small business is to link the two together.
There are plenty of ways to do this – here are just a few
Start by making sure your personal LinkedIn profile is up to date and includes your position as an employee at your small business. Next, ‘follow’ your business by clicking the ‘Follow’ button on the company page.
When you update your company page, use your individual profile to share the update with your own connections. This will increase the number of people who see your company’s update. You can also write LinkedIn posts as an individual and then promote these by sharing them on your company page.
To get maximum impact from these techniques, choose different times to share the same update from your company page and individual profile – for example, you might share a company page update on Monday, then wait until Wednesday to share it as an individual.
As an individual, you can also join networking groups on LinkedIn which are relevant to you and your interests. Take some time to search for relevant groups, and take part in discussions wherever you can. This is a great way to demonstrate your expertise and help other professionals, which will build trust in your business.
Using LinkedIn successfully as a company can reap great rewards thanks to the professional, business-focused nature of the platform – try these simple steps to get you started.
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