With over 875 million members in more than 200 countries, LinkedIn is one of the largest social media platforms and is an invaluable tool for helping you grow your business.
This social media platform differs from others and its primary focus is to connect professionals and share business-related content allowing users to “strengthen their professional network”. Surprisingly though, LinkedIn is a great marketing tool you should probably be considering as part of your social media marketing strategy.
Although especially useful for B2B companies, LinkedIn can be used for businesses across a huge range of industries, whether it's to create new business relationships, find employees or promote content.
So you’re probably familiar with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok and how these can impact your business, whether it’s organically or through paid ads. But have you considered using LinkedIn for your business? Read on to find out how to properly utilise LinkedIn for your business.
Is your business a hotel? Check out why LinkedIn can be an extremely effective marketing channel for hotels.
How to create a business page on LinkedIn
The first step is to create a LinkedIn page for your business, which will allow people to discover your business on the platform.
Currently, to create a business page on LinkedIn, you’ll need to be using a desktop or iOS device and already have a personal LinkedIn account. Got all that? Let’s get started.
Desktop
Click on the ‘Work’ icon in the top right of your homepage
Select ‘Create a Company Page’
Choose your page type (Company, Showcase, Educational institution)
Fill in the details (Page identity, Company details & Profile details)
Check the verification box
Click ‘Create page’
iOS
Go to any LinkedIn page
Tap the more icon
Tap ‘Create a LinkedIn Page’
Select your page type (Company, Showcase, Educational institution)
Fill in the details (Page identity, Company details & Profile details)
Check the verification box
Tap ‘Create’ in the top right
So now you’ve got your page, what should you be doing with it? Whether you’re using your page organically or delving into LinkedIn Ads, you’ll want to be following a few best practices to ensure you’re getting the most out of your new page.
How to use LinkedIn effectively
So your fresh new LinkedIn page is ready, but you’ll need to ensure it’s optimised before you’re posting out content and attracting followers.
Ensure that all of the fields are populated with your company information (description, website, industry, logo…) the more succinct detail and keywords the better. LinkedIn states that companies with complete profiles get 30% more weekly views so it’s key to fill in as much information as possible.
Make sure you’re utilising everything the profile is providing, fill out relevant hashtags and ensure you choose a relevant call to action button.
Once you’ve got your page set up, you’ll need followers and content to post.
Building your LinkedIn followers
The first 150 followers are the hardest. Once you reach this milestone, the opportunity for growth becomes much larger. So how do you get more LinkedIn followers?
Ads
You can use LinkedIn ads to reach new people fast! Keep reading to find out more about LinkedIn advertising.
Invitations
You and your employees can invite your personal profile connections to follow your company page.
Colleagues
Encourage your colleagues not only to share the page but to update their personal profiles to let others know where they’re working.
Follow button
You can add a LinkedIn follow button to your digital channels to encourage followers. Add it to your website, emails etc.
Engagement
Engage as your page. You can comment, react and share any post from your company page showing off your brand to loads of potential followers.
Posting
Posting content 1-2 times per day helps to establish your page as a ‘trusted voice’. Not sure what to post? We’ll cover this next.
Cross Promotion
Promote your LinkedIn page on your other social media channels for extra exposure.
Posting Content
It’s important your posting regularly to keep your followers engaged and up-to-date. LinkedIn states that posting daily will get you 2x the member engagement. Wondering what to post on LinkedIn?
There are plenty of angles you can take here, but realistically, it’s anything you believe your followers may be interested in. This could be company news and announcements, your latest work or projects, introducing your employees etc. You can even post newsletters to strengthen your LinkedIn community.
Relevance over recency
Focus on relevant posts. Thanks to recent social algorithm updates, platforms are focusing on serving users more of what they want to see - so make sure your posts are relevant to your target audience.
Hint: If you’re struggling with ideas of what to post, you can also check out the Content suggestion tool to discover trending topics.
Using Hashtags
Hashtags are a good way to boost the visibility of your LinkedIn posts and reach new audiences. Find relevant and popular hashtags by using the search bar to discover what other posts use. You’ll want to find a balance between the popularity of the hashtags use and their relevancy. We’d recommend using 3-5 relevant hashtags in your posts.
Call to actions
Try to include a call to action to direct users to the next step.
Creatives
Include imagery, videos and infographics. Posts with visuals are said to receive 98% more comments than those with only text.
Can you go live? Live video gets 24x more engagements!
Targeting
If you want to hit a specific audience, you can target your organic posts by factors such as region, job function, industry etc.
LinkedIn Ads
If you want to boost your reach on LinkedIn, LinkedIn ads are a great way to complement your ongoing organic strategy.
Targeting
Thanks to some pretty in-depth targeting abilities, LinkedIn Ads are a great choice for advertisers to really reach their target audience, no matter how niche. Here, you’re able to target users in specific industries, with specific job titles - it’s all very granular.
LinkedIn Ad Types
Native Ads
Similar to newsfeed ads on Facebook and feed posts on Instagram, LinkedIn sponsored content are ads that show in the news feed. Similar to other social ads, labelled as ‘promoted’, these posts are a great way to reach a large audience, quickly.
Sponsored Messages
With LinkedIn, you can reach users directly in their inboxes. Although slightly more invasive, LinkedIn’s sponsored messages allow you to send direct messages in a more personal way.
You can do this using message ads (direct messages) or conversation ads (starting conversations).
Dynamic Ads
LinkedIn dynamic ads automatically adjust to your audience. Thanks to their personalisation, these ads are great to build brand awareness, drive traffic and boost conversions.
Text Ads
Text ads are basically PPC ads. It gets your ad seen by new customers and drives traffic to your website or landing pages.
How Much Do LinkedIn Ads Cost?
At first glance, LinkedIn Ads are slightly more expensive than other social media advertising platforms.
Obviously, as with any form of digital advertising, the cost depends on many factors including audience, objectives, bids etc. However, the average CPC on LinkedIn ads is $5.26.
LinkedIn Is Important For Business
Hopefully, after all that, you should see the importance of LinkedIn for your business.
If you have any questions or need any advice from a professional social media marketing agency, get in touch.