How to Boost Your Business on LinkedIn

When it comes to social media marketing, many people overlook LinkedIn. However, with almost 700 million professionals using the platform, LinkedIn is a network you can’t afford to ignore.

What LinkedIn lacks in user numbers, it more than makes up for with effectiveness. Most marketers say it wins over other platforms in generating leads, driving traffic, and more.

Like every marketing channel, though, LinkedIn yields the best results when you have a strategy. If you want to boost your business on LinkedIn, this helpful how-to will give you the tools you need to be successful.

Create a Page for Your Business on LinkedIn

The first thing you need to do is make sure your business has a presence on LinkedIn. This is different from your personal profile.

LinkedIn company pages are designed to showcase the best your brand has to offer. The company page provides a centralized hub for all your employees. It also gives your organization more credibility.

When you create a company page, you’ll be given the opportunity to customize your URL. Make sure you take advantage of this. A unique web address makes it easier for your customers to find you.

Be sure to complete a company profile as well. In this copy, you’ll want to use keywords that are important for your business. This helps people find you when they look for certain products or services.

Much like links are important for website SEO, they’re also important for your LinkedIn page. You can link to your page from your website. Employee profiles can also link back to the page.

Highlight What Makes You Different

In your company profile, you’ll want to draw attention to what makes your business different. Your competitors are on LinkedIn too, so tell potential customers why they should work with you.

Don’t forget social proof here. If you can give some numbers or recommendations from trusted sources, you’ll build credibility with your audience.

Set Some Goals

What do you want to accomplish by promoting your business on LinkedIn? The platform is powerful but having specific targets in mind can direct your efforts.

A good goal might be to grow the number of followers you have on the platform. You might also think about driving traffic to your website. LinkedIn drives more than 60 percent of social media traffic to corporate websites.

You may also think about goals like generating more leads or making more sales. Remember that hard selling isn’t usually well received on the platform, though. You might choose “soft” goals, like increasing brand awareness or building customer relationships.

Create a Content Strategy for Your Page

Next, you’ll want to read up on content marketing. LinkedIn is a hub of professionals who are often looking for solutions to issues they face in their industry or their companies.

On any given day, someone might look for a product to boost productivity or ease communication. Another day, someone might be looking for insightful commentary on building company culture.

No matter what your business’s expertise is, chances are you have a unique perspective to share. LinkedIn gives you the platform to share it with both peers and potential clients.

The Best Content is Rich

Keep in mind that your audience on LinkedIn is largely busy professionals. Whenever you can, use images and videos to communicate with them. Media-rich content is more likely to stick with people. It’s also easier to process and to remember.

Even though they’re busy, many executives say they make time to watch videos on a regular basis. They feel it is useful for staying on top of trends and continuing their professional development.

Brief written content is still an important part of your content strategy. Be sure to use SEO principles, like adding keywords and links, to make your content easier to discover.

Share Others’ Content

LinkedIn operates on a “sharing is caring” model. If you only ever share your own content, you’re likely to alienate a large part of your audience.

Besides, you need to update frequently to get noticed on LinkedIn. Keeping up with that much content creation would be its own full-time job.

Instead, work to develop a strategy where you share content from other companies and users as well. A well-curated feed helps your audience discover other insightful professionals and companies. It can also help you begin building relationships.

You’ll want to be particular about what you share. Think about the impact an article had on you before you share it. Did it excite you, or did it make you think?

Your audience will appreciate content that’s helpful, informative, or insightful. Most are looking for updates on the industry or the business world at large.

If possible, aim for the 80/20 rule of self-promotion. Only about 20 percent of your updates should focus on the hard sell. The other 80 percent of the time, you can share updates and insights from around the company and the industry at large.

Engage Authentically and Curate Relationships

Customers are putting an increased emphasis on brand authenticity. That’s particularly observable with Gen Z and their attitudes toward brands on social media.

This trend will become more prominent in the professional world as Gen Z moves into the workforce.

This ties into another current idea in marketing, which is that you should focus on building customer relationships. Instead of going for the quick sale, think about cultivating a longer-term relationship with your clients. Clients who stick with you are more valuable over time.

LinkedIn is a combination of both your peers and your clients, so networking in an authentic way is even more imperative. You never know when a peer connection will reach out with a partnership opportunity.

Join LinkedIn Groups

One of the ways to engage in a more authentic way is to start joining some groups. LinkedIn often makes suggestions for groups or topics you might be interested in. You can follow some of these suggestions.

You can also use circles of connectivity to discover groups through your existing connections.

Once you’ve joined a few interesting groups, be sure to engage authentically. The point here isn’t to spam business promotion all over the group’s feed.

Instead, engage by commenting on other users’ posts and comments. You might be able to answer a question or provide valuable insight.

You can also share interesting content to the group yourself. Think about inviting discussion rather than pushing a message.

Always remember branding when you engage. If you’re posting from the company page, any comments you provide should reflect the brand voice. The last thing you want to do is answer someone’s question with a snarky reply from your company.

Start Your Own Group

Another easy way to engage is to start your own group on LinkedIn. You might think of this as a “fan group,” and it could start out that way.

Again, it’s best to think about stimulating discussion with group members. You can post interesting content or pose questions and survey the group for their insights.

Create a Showcase Page

A showcase page is separate from your business page. You can use it to highlight products or services.

Showcase pages are helpful for creating communities around your products or services. People who use your products, but don’t necessarily want to follow the business, can follow a showcase page instead.

One company that’s used showcase pages to great effect is Adobe. The software giant has a huge number of clients, but not all of them use all Adobe products. Not all of them want to follow the company generally.

There are groups that are interested in updates about the Creative Cloud, and they’d follow a showcase page.

Get Your Employees in on the Act

Your employees are probably on LinkedIn as well. Be sure to connect with them through the company page.

This will bring you into their spheres of influence. People in their networks will have an easier time discovering your organization.

Connecting your employees also puts human faces on your company. This is important for potential clients. They want to connect with real people, not a corporate logo.

Your employees can also help you spread your content further. Make sure they keep their profiles up to date. Ask them to share relevant posts and content.

You can also share their content, especially if it helps to highlight them. A great feature to run on your company LinkedIn page is a series of profiles about your employees. It helps potential customers connect with your company.

Ask for Recommendations

Recommendations are a key part of any LinkedIn strategy. You shouldn’t focus on getting business recommendations, though.

Instead, focus on helping your employees get more recommendations. This is especially important for employees who have customer-facing roles.

Recommendations are often the best kind of social proof. Your customers want to work with businesses they trust, which means they want to work with people they trust.

A recommendation is like a “seal of approval.” If it comes from another person in the client’s network, so much the better.

These recommendations then reflect on your business. If you have highly recommended professionals working for you, people are going to believe your company is reliable.

Use Analytics to Tweak Strategy

One of the best things about any form of digital marketing is how much data you can collect. It’s easier than ever for marketers to see how well their campaigns are performing.

LinkedIn has no shortage of data-powered insights available to you. Use the analytics information to inform your strategy. Then adjust your strategy to give your business an even bigger boost.

You can use data to discover everything from how many people are engaging with your posts to what time is best to post. Keep in mind that LinkedIn’s user base is different than Facebook or Twitter’s. Optimal post times will be different.

You can increase your reach by adjusting your posting schedule. You can also analyze your most successful content. Use that information to create future posts.

Social media platforms like LinkedIn are dynamic, which means they do change over time. Review your strategy often so you can stay on top of the latest trends.

Create LinkedIn Ads

You can run ads on LinkedIn as well. If your business is B2B, this platform is going to be the best choice for you. You can use audience targeting to reach specific groups.

LinkedIn offers several different types of ads, including Sponsored Content and Text Ads. Most of these options are self-service, but you can work with agencies to run more effective campaigns.

Ads can help you reach any number of goals, from gaining more followers to generating more leads.

Take LinkedIn Seriously

Finally, if you want to promote your business on LinkedIn, you need to get serious about your strategy. Many marketing professionals overlook this powerful platform. As a result, it often gets the short end of the stick in marketing plans.

Much like any other part of your marketing, you don’t want to approach LinkedIn without a plan. Posting haphazardly, neglecting your page, and other common mistakes will hurt your marketing efforts.

With a dedicated strategy and a commitment to executing it, you’ll find out what LinkedIn can do for your business.

Linking Up with the Rest of Your Marketing

Promoting your business on LinkedIn is a smart move. LinkedIn may not be as large as Facebook, but it can deliver convincing results. Following the advice in this guide will help you get started on the right foot.

Thinking about how your LinkedIn strategy will connect with the rest of your digital marketing? It could be time for a strategy review. Get in touch with the experts for a consultation and drive your business forward with a better plan.