18 Jun Boost Your Company’s LinkedIn Profile With These 3 Tips
Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, told Business Insider in April that his company surpassed the 300 million mark for users, with nearly 67 percent of them being outside the United States. Business owners and job seekers know that a LinkedIn profile is a vital part of their overall success. But simply creating a profile for your company is not enough to take advantage of everything LinkedIn has to offer. These three simple tips will help your profile stand out to prospective leads, customers and clients.
Build and Advertise a Company Page
Like Facebook, you must have a personal LinkedIn page before you can create one for a business. Also similar to Facebook, your LinkedIn company profile should be all about the company, keeping personal views and comments separate from it. Other tips include:
- Add a banner image to the top of the page. This will help attract followers and reinforce your brand. You’ll need at least 100 followers for any significant engagement to occur, and an attractive banner is an easy way to potentially boost those numbers.
- Use lists. LinkedIn named NPR one of the top 10 company profiles of 2013 because of its its use of lists on the page. Lists help organize content so it is easily accessible and summarized for visitors.
- Post wisely. Mashable was also named to the top 10 for its content-sharing habits. The company post stories that are both engaging and easy to digest in a few seconds. Joss & Main, a Web-only home furnishing store, similarly posts image-rich content that’s easy for readers to consume and relevant to the business.
Though your company page cannot be updated via the LinkedIn mobile app, it still expands your reach to the growing number of Americans who solely use a smartphone or tablet as their primary internet source. Your LinkedIn company page will also create a search result in Google.
Get Busy Interacting
Seventy-seven percent of all job openings in the world are posted on LinkedIn, according to an infographic on Social Media Today that uses data from LinkedIn. One way to increase your visibility is to comment on others’ content. The key is to comment on a different connections’ post(s) at least once per day. This way, you are introducing your brand to all of their connections, who could potentially be seeking your product or service. Start a company blog and write compelling content that puts your brand on display.
Purchase Display and Content Ads
Good old-fashioned advertising is still an effective way to reach leads, and LinkedIn has these features built right in. Display ads for your company can appear in the sidebars of potential clients or at the bottom of their pages. You can control how much you spend by selecting either a pay-per-click or pay-per-1,000 impressions plan.
Your first foray into LinkedIn advertising may be a trial-and-error process. But don’t get discouraged if the first campaign is less than stellar. Take what you learn and apply it to your next campaign.
Brian Wilkins is a staff writer at Social Monsters and an Arizona State University journalism grad who has worked as a radio broadcaster and banking industry professional. He is an independent journalist, blogger and small business owner who loves life. He lives off-the-grid and has not owned a TV in more than six years.
