Is your brand’s LinkedIn page frozen in time? No engagement, no new followers, and little to no activity coming from the page itself? It’s not just you. Out of over 700 million active users on LinkedIn, only 3 million users – that’s only .4% of ALL users – share or create content on a weekly basis. There are so many brand-building opportunities available on LinkedIn for B2B marketers – what are you waiting for?
1. Optimize your LinkedIn Company Page.
Before you jump into building out your LinkedIn content, you should first make sure they are landing on a page that correctly represents your business.
Start with setting a profile image and banner on your business page. Set your profile as an optimized, correctly sized image (400 by 400 pixels) of your logo. Your banner size should be 1128 x 191 pixels (this is specific to a LinkedIn Company page). In your banner, you can highlight:
- upcoming company events
- third-party speaking engagements
- or campaigns you are currently running.
After setting these two images, you can optimize the page for search by inserting your industry-specific keywords in your company description and in your specialties. This can help your LinkedIn Company page show up in related searches.
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2. Post the appropriate content for your audience to your LinkedIn Company Page.
Your LinkedIn content matters. Finding the best type of content for your audience starts with testing out different styles. These 6 content types can drive more engagement on LinkedIn:
- Blog posts
- Related industry news or research
- Quick tips (especially in video format!)
- Company updates
- Guides/eBooks
- Photo updates
While the tone on LinkedIn has been shifting to a more relaxed and traditional form of social media, at its core it is still a primarily professional platform. This can be key when deciding on the specific content you’re posting to your LinkedIn Company page, but it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun when posting. Your audience is unique to you – use analytics to evaluate which content types and categories resonate with your audience.
Find the right cadence for your LinkedIn updates.
Your LinkedIn strategy needs to include almost daily posts coming from your company page. At a minimum, you should be posting once a week to your company page. Personally, I would aim for a consistent cadence of 4-5 posts/week.
Following this pace will increase the odds of people seeing your content and help increase your placement within LinkedIn’s algorithm. A constant stream of relevant, sharable content will elevate your page and get your brand in front of more prospects.
3. Hashtags are your friends. Use them well.
When it comes to effective hashtag usage, LinkedIn is very different from other social media platforms. Twitter and IG have virtually no limitations on hashtags. But hashtags can and will make a difference with your LinkedIn reach. They improve your discoverability outside of your existing connections, but they do come with some limitations.
Try to limit your hashtags to three per post. According to LinkedIn’s former senior director of product management, Pete Davies, that should be enough to target your audience without spamming your post. This means the LinkedIn algorithm will note whether it believes you’re stuffing your post with hashtags just to appear in more searches, and that will impact your search results. It’s also key to use a mix of both popular and niche hashtags – this way you can stay relevant while still focusing on your target audience.
4. Take advantage of your employees’ networks
Another way you can work towards your LinkedIn marketing goals revolves around using your employee network. The LinkedIn algorithm empowers personal accounts, like your own personal LinkedIn account (or those of your employees). This means that when choosing what to show in someone’s feed, posts coming from personal accounts will always be shown before business accounts. If you aren’t pushing your LinkedIn Company page to personal accounts, it is very unlikely for your business to surpass your goals.
You can accomplish this in a couple of different ways. First, you can tag specific individuals in the post. Only do this if it makes sense, like if they wrote the post, or are directly tied to the offer you’re promoting. You also should get their assurance that they’ll react to the post within the hour. This elevates the post’s quality in the algorithm.
If you can’t always tag employees in a post, you have another option. After you’ve posted to your company page, you can select the nifty little “Notify Employees” tab in the menu shown below. This tool can notify up to five employees about your post. Getting your employees to support your company page will be essential to increasing your reach.
5. Make sure your followers know there is a person behind your LinkedIn Company page.
This seems like a no-brainer but is often overlooked on company social media accounts. It’s rare to find people on social media (and especially LinkedIn) who only push their own content and ignore all else. Instead, people usually respond to posts when they’re tagged, share third-party content, and like/comment on posts that are related to their industry.
You need to follow this kind of behavior when running your company page. Respond to followers who tag your account, or comment on your posts. Make sure to share relevant industry news from third-party accounts. Share uplifting news about your employees, company culture, or your industry, even if it isn’t tied directly back to one of your offers.
More simply put, acknowledge what you appreciate seeing on your LinkedIn feed, and start pushing that kind of content from your business page.
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The most important tip for your LinkedIn account: just get started!
No advice under the sun will help you improve your LinkedIn engagement if you aren’t active on the platform. To fine-tune your LinkedIn strategy, you need to start somewhere and see what your audience responds to. Once you start posting, evaluate your analytics, and focus on what’s working.
Jumping in headfirst can feel overwhelming, especially if you haven’t been posting much on your LinkedIn company page until now. We can help you get started. Reach out to one of our social media team members or click that orange chat button in the bottom right-hand corner.