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How to Use LinkedIn Properly For Your Business
LinkedIn isn’t just for people looking for jobs or employers looking to hire. LinkedIn is the top business networking site, and therefore if you’re a business, you should most definitely be on it and using it to your advantage. When people search your name and they stumble upon your LinkedIn, you want it to appear professional and active. So how do you do this? We’ll tell you!
Refine your personal profile
While the main focus of your LinkedIn marketing will be the company page, you also want all of the employees and staff associated with your business to have their profiles nice and polished. Remember, these are the faces that make up your company. If you can, set aside some company time to hold a LinkedIn seminar to help your employees complete their profiles. If you want to go above and beyond, take headshots in-office to ensure every employee has a high quality profile photo.
Build up your company’s profile
This is where the magic happens. If you don’t already have a company LinkedIn page, go to the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions page to create one. Make sure you fill out all of the information necessary so that you have a 100% complete profile. You should have a concise, clear description of your company/business. People who visit your page are curious to know what you’re all about, so make sure your description answers all of their questions. While LinkedIn is great for networking, it’s also becoming an ideal spot to raise brand awareness, get results for your business, promote career opportunities, and inform potential customers and employees on your products and/or services, so think of your profile page as a big advertisement of sorts.
Make quality connections
LinkedIn is all about making connections, so naturally you will want to put a lot of focus into adding people to your network. But don’t just mass-add anyone and everyone. Be intentional about the people you invite into your circle. You may be asking, but don’t I want it to look like I have a lot of connections? Well, yes, but there are spam and scam accounts crawling LinkedIn who’s main MO is to mass-add users. And LinkedIn users are smart, they can sniff out when an account is fishy, so they may immediately write off your company if they see this pattern.
Optimize for search
Yes, even on LinkedIn you will want to be optimizing for search. This way, when people search for your business (or just keywords associated with your business), you’ll be the first result, or at least on the first page. This will boost your visibility and brand awareness. According to LinkedIn, these are the best ways to optimize for search:
Insert keywords. Be sure to incorporate keywords into the company profile information, clearly representing who you are and what you do. If you’re not sure which keywords to use, think about it this way: What words or phrases would a potential customer use when searching for your product or service?
Link to your Company Page. Creating links to your Company Page is essential for boosting your ranking in search. An easy win here is to link to your Company Page from your website, blog, and other marketing materials. Another easy win is to make sure the LinkedIn profiles of employees and colleagues are up to date. When they add your company to their work experience, a link is created back to your Company Page.
Share relevant content. One of the best ways to improve your rankings and search results is to share relevant content regularly. When you publish updates from your Company Page they also appear on your public page, allowing your content to be indexed by Google. The more frequently you share content your followers engage with, the higher your Company Page will appear in search results.
Speaking of relevant content…
Relevant content is key. While the initial look and description of your page will draw people in, it’s the value you provide that will ultimately lead to conversion. Determine who your target audience is and what they want, and tailor your content around serving your main audience. If you have original content that you can use to link to your website, this is optimal. However, there’s also nothing wrong with linking to outside articles that you know will provide the value that your connections are looking for.
In conclusion….
Don’t let LinkedIn intimidate you. Yes, it is very oriented towards professionals, and the stakes are definitely higher, but this atmosphere can really lend itself to establishing your brand as a legitimate, reputable entity.
