The LinkedIn platform offers small businesses an opportunity to level the playing field as they work to compete with larger companies. Your LinkedIn following increases your organic reach. In addition, the network provides a channel through which you can demonstrate your brand’s values, share your work, and build an online community. It is the professional nature of LinkedIn that helps it differentiate itself from other social platforms. More so than other social media channels, LinkedIn creates a sense of trust and credibility for your brand.
While LinkedIn pages will vary from business to business, there are some common traits to be found on effective, successful pages. An updated and complete page is the first item of business. If platform users visit your LinkedIn page and find outdated, vague, or minimal content, you won’t score well in the area of first impressions.
Here are some things you should be sure to include on your small business LinkedIn page:
Logo and Header Image
Companies with a logo image experience up to six times more page traffic than pages without. A branded header image or logo establishes a sense of trust and credibility with visitors. These are incredibly important visual cues to help LinkedIn members perceive your brand as one that is professional, polished, and ready to connect.
Company Overview
This section needn’t be a tiresome task to complete. Borrow from the “About Us” section of your website. You should communicate the products or services your company offers and what makes you stand out from your competitors. You Company Overview should share your organization’s mission and vision statements, your brand story, and your short- and long-term goals. Clearly and concisely communicate the value you bring your followers, partners, and customers.
Address
A physical address adds another layer of credibility to your LinkedIn page. By adding a location to your page, you show that you exist in the physical world as well as in digital space. If you have multiple locations, your LinkedIn small business profile allows for the addition of more than one address.
Brand Website URL
All of your social media profiles should have a symbiotic relationship with your company website. By providing your site URL on your LinkedIn page, you provide a quick link to drive traffic to your site. Page visitors might click the link to either get in touch with your office or to learn more about your products or services. Utilize the custom call to action button available at the top of your LinkedIn small business page to encourage page visitors to take action.
Company Size
You paint a more complete picture for page visitors by noting the size of your company. Some visitors make simply look at it as additional information, others may have a preference as to whether they work with small or large businesses. On a tangent, job hunters also find this information important as they are researching companies with which they are applying or hope to apply.
Industry
Many online business searches begin with an industry or business niche to start to narrow the scope of the search. Including the industry in which your brand does business will help searchers find you via the Advanced Search features offered by the LinkedIn platform.
Tips to Ensure Your LinkedIn Page is Optimized for Search Engines
Google processes an estimated 3.5 billion searches each day. Most people know the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) when it comes to website. Not as many people consider this strategy, however, when it comes to social platforms and LinkedIn pages. The good news is that the tactics you should employ are similar to those used for your website.
Keywords
Keywords are the words and phrases users typing into Google and other search engines in hopes of finding helpful results. Your company description is an excellent place to include keywords. Keep in mind that Google’s search previews 156 characters or less so place the keywords most relevant to search at the front of your description. Keywords can also be included in your specialties as you list what your brand is known for.
Content
Businesses that post weekly see an increase in engagement with their content so share new content regularly. Daily posting will help your brand to keep a consistent presence on the LinkedIn platform. Include relevant images, videos, and other rich media in your posts. This type of content will help to increase the number of comments your content receives.
Hashtags
LinkedIn’s Associated Hashtags feature allows companies to add up to three business- or industry-related hashtags to their business page. Leveraging this hashtag strategy helps smaller businesses associate their brand with trending conversations.
Updates
Update your LinkedIn small business page frequently to maintain visibility with your followers and to keep Google interested. Consistently fresh content will be indexed and help search engines recognize your page as active and a valuable source of information.
New Features for Targeting Your Audience on LinkedIn
One of the biggest challenges of advertising is reaching your specific target audience. To help businesses improve ROI and increase the scale of their marketing efforts, LinkedIn has introduced three new ways for brands to target more of the right audience from LinkedIn’s network. These features are lookalike audiences, audience templates, and the addition of Microsoft Bing search data to LinkedIn’s recently released interest targeting product.
Lookalike Audiences
Marketers are always searching for ways to reach new consumers who are comparable to their established target audience. The thought is that potential customers similar to those already engaged with a brand will be most likely to convert. Tapping into these lookalike audiences is key to growing a business.
LinkedIn’s lookalike audiences combine the traits of a brand’s ideal customer with the platform’s member and company data. This information is used to help businesses market to new professional audiences similar to their existing customers. The concept is that active LinkedIn members are in a professional mindset that will encourage them to engage with and respond to your brand.
Lookalike audiences help you reach audiences with high potential to convert as they are similar to consumers who have already expressed an interest in your brand by engaging with your website or providing you with their contact information. Lookalike audiences also help you expand the reach of your advertising campaigns to better-qualified prospects. Lookalike audiences also help you to engage new target accounts, companies you might not have previously pursued but that have a company profile similar to your brand’s ideal customer.
Audience Templates
Templates are often used for websites, letters, emails, etc. to help accomplish a task more quickly and easily than it would be without a template. LinkedIn audience templates serve the same purpose. They help you reach new audiences by offering a selection of more than 20 predefined B2B audiences without spending a ridiculous amount of time for setup. The templates include specific characteristics such as job titles, skills, and groups that may be used to create a list that will target exactly the professional audiences that you know will best respond to your brand.
Interest Targeting
LinkedIn recently we announced interest targeting in Campaign Manager. This feature allows brands to reach platform members with relevant ads that match their professional interests. Since the launch of the feature, LinkedIn has expanded its use to allow brands to target new audiences based on members professional interests as indicated on LinkedIn as well as the content and topics the target audience engages with via Microsoft’s Bing search engine.
Conclusion
To make the most of your LinkedIn small business page, be sure to include:
Logo and Header Image
Company Overview
Address
Brand Website URL
Company Size
Industry
To optimize your page for search engines, focus on:
Keywords
Content
Hashtags
Updates
Utilize LinkedIn’s new targeting features:
Lookalike Audiences
Audience Templates
Interest Targeting
Without an overwhelming investment of time, LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for companies looking to generate leads and build their brand. The platform is an invaluable addition to any business’ marketing strategy and will help make new connections and attract potential clients.
The experts at Strategy Driven Marketing understand the importance of leveraging the power of LinkedIn and other social platforms. Whether you are seeking assistance to make sure you are on the right track or are looking for an agency partner that will handle your social media efforts from start to finish, the team at SDM is ready to help. Contact us today!