It’s one that seems to be at the bottom of the pile when people think about social media, but we think it’s a great platform to be on to increase your business’ presence, whether that’s to other businesses or potential employees.

Why be on LinkedIn For Business?

Digital Marketing is crucial for any business, so it’s vital that you figure out what platform works best for you and your company. But, in the last three months of 2019, LinkedIn reached a huge total of 675 million members. Although it’s not quite as many as the numbers on Facebook and Instagram, it’s especially reassuring to see that the platform is continuing to grow, meaning more people will be able to see and engage with your content. As the platform begins to grow and develop, it’s slightly evolving towards a more inclusive audience, rather than just B2B and recruitment, making it the perfect site for all your professional and work-related communications.

Microsoft also reported that in those last three months, LinkedIn saw 'record levels of engagement' while the platform also continues to expand its audience across the globe. Last year, we made a resolution to up our game on LinkedIn and start posting on the Business page every working day. Before we made the resolution in May, we weren’t the best at LinkedIn and seemed to neglect it slightly, with our content a little thin on the ground. Since we committed to posting on every working day, we’ve managed to stick to this resolution and have noticed a huge spike in the engagement on our page!

The platform is always adding new features and there are endless benefits to being on LinkedIn too. We think it’s a great platform for generating leads and increasing brand awareness, so be sure to get involved! Struggling with where to start? We’ve put together some of our top tips so you can hit the ground running with your business page.

Have both a business and personal page

Before doing anything in regards to building a LinkedIn page for your business you have to start with your own LinkedIn profile. Similarly to Facebook pages, you can’t create a business page without the personal LinkedIn profile as you need one of these to act as an admin.

Optimize your page

Once you’ve set up your Business Page, it’s time to add some content to the About section to let visitors know what your business does, where you are and who you employ. When creating content for your business it’s important to be attractive to users, while also being attractive to the search engine, in order to increase both your ranking in people’s opinions and also on the results page of Google! Make sure you keep your ‘About’ content accurate and up to date, including your company’s website URL, phone number, as well as having appropriate header and profile images. Throughout your profile section, include links to your website as well as relevant keywords to increase the chance of your page being found in Search.

Create Interesting Content

Like most platforms, you have to make sure the posts you’re putting out on LinkedIn are interesting to your audience and make them want to engage with you! Try mixing up your content and see what gets the best reactions, but keep in mind that in 2019 posts with links received 200% more engagements, and ones with images increased comment rate by 98%. Don’t forget, make use of relevant hashtags too, to make sure your content is seen by the right people for the right reasons! LinkedIn business posts are also ideal for lead generation and can help you to get new business while driving website traffic. Be sure to include calls to action in your LinkedIn posts and links to your website.

Whatever you’re posting, be sure to get the tone right. Remember, although you’re writing to professionals on a business basis, you’re still talking to real people who want to see relatable content. Save your Saturday night wine pictures for Facebook (or just your camera roll to be safe!) and keep LinkedIn for business updates.

Share, share, share

A huge part of LinkedIn that you don’t get as much on other platforms is the public aspect of the platform that allows users to see the content others have engaged with. Once someone has reacted to, commented on, or shared your content, your post will appear in each of their connections’ feed. So, by making sure you and other employees share posts from your business page onto their personal account, all their connections will see your content, and the number of people seeing your posts will increase hugely! This is ideal for getting your company name out there and spreading the word about what you do.

Don’t be shy!

Once your business page is all set up and you’re posting content, be sure to reach out to and interact with other users. LinkedIn is ideal for networking and offering your services to others so it’s great to chat with other users to build relationships with potential clients. It’s also great for building brand credibility so be sure to respond to comments on your posts, and comment on other business and personal pages too!

Assess your efforts

Sometimes it can be hard to know what impact your social media marketing efforts are having and if they’re successful, but that's where your analytics step in. Most platforms now have some sort of analytical insights into your page and its content to let you see your engagement rates, who is seeing your posts and what content is most attractive, including LinkedIn. When using LinkedIn analytics, you can check out your audience, your best performing posts and also have a sneak peek at your competitor’s engagement rates - so it’s great to see what your audience are loving.

So, there you have it, our top tips for conquering the LinkedIn Business world. Still struggling or not sure where to start? Why not check out our FAQ’s post, or get in touch with us for support in your digital marketing efforts - head to our contact page or drop us an email at studio@purplecs.com