LinkedIn for Business: Everything You Need to Know

[Md. Anikuzzaman]

LinkedIn is one of the best networking tools for business owners and job seekers. Using a LinkedIn business page, you can attract top talent, position yourself as a thought leader in your industry, and promote your products or services.

Here are the basic features of a LinkedIn company page and how to use LinkedIn to your business's advantage. 

Create a LinkedIn Company page
A company page helps potential customers learn about your business, brand, products, services and job opportunities. To create a LinkedIn company page, you'll need a personal LinkedIn account and a verified email address.

LinkedIn guides you through the steps of creating a company page, and if you have questions, you can always visit LinkedIn's help page. Once you've created your page, you can start editing it.

LinkedIn requires you to include a company description, which needs to be between 250 and 2,000 characters, including spaces. Your description should include information about your business, such as what products and services you offer, your company's history and mission.

After crafting the perfect company description, fill in other company details, such as your website, where you are headquartered, company type, company size and your company's specialties. Be sure to upload your company logo and cover image before hitting Publish.

Share your login information with another employee in case you lose access to the page or leave the company. You should also let other employees know the page is active so they can edit their position on their personal account and add the company page.

Finding an employee who fits with your company culture and has the right skill set is a tough task for business of all sizes. A career page on LinkedIn allows companies to tell their story, find the best talent and measure the impact of their goals.

The Life tab gives job seekers an inside look at the company's culture. This tab allows you to showcase long-form written posts from employees, photo galleries, company leaders, company insights and videos. You can even create multiple versions of the Life tab to target different audiences. For example, you might want to tell a different story to a marketing candidate than an IT candidate.

The Jobs tab shows job openings, job recommendations and employee insights. Through the career page, job candidates will be able to assess whether they are a good fit for your company before they apply.

Join and create LinkedIn groups
Once you create a company and career page, it's time to promote your business on LinkedIn.

One of the best ways to do this is by creating a LinkedIn group connected to your company page, said Taylor Kincaid, social media director at Online Optimism.

"A LinkedIn group is a great place to build an engaged community surrounding your business and to grow your online community," said Kincaid.

To create a group, you'll need to add a title, logo and description, and decide on group rules. You can join existing LinkedIn Groups that fit your interests, such as a social media marketing group if you run your company's social media accounts.

LinkedIn Groups can help you establish yourself as a thought leader and industry expert. It also sends more people to your company's LinkedIn page. However, it's not a place to share ads for your business; instead, share valuable content with people who are interested in your business and industry, Kincaid explained.

Tips for using your LinkedIn Page
Once you have created a company page, career page and LinkedIn group, regularly use these assets and create content for them. Here are some tips on where to get started and how to build these pages.

1. Get followers.
Publishing and sharing content is pointless if no one is seeing it. You should be constantly looking for new followers on LinkedIn. You can post a widget to your LinkedIn page on your website, add your LinkedIn information to your email signature and have staff members promote the company page on their personal accounts. You can also add your LinkedIn information on your business cards.

2. Publish and share relevant content.
As with any successful marketing campaign, you need to know who your audience is and what they want to see on LinkedIn. It's important to publish and share content that benefits your followers – not just content that promotes your company.

"Do not be overly self-promotional," said Kyra Mancine, social media specialist at Oldcastle. "Only 20 percent of your posts should be sales driven. You want to provide content that is helpful, informational and interesting. Think about what you like to see in your feed. No one likes to be sold [to] or see commercials all the time."

3. Set up a content calendar.
Publishing regularly is key for any successful social media account. Mancine suggests setting up a content calendar for your posts, because it's important to be consistent. An easy way to set up a content calendar is through a social media tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite.

4. Vary what you post and play off holidays.
Seeing the same thing repeatedly can get annoying. Switch it up and post a nice mixture of visual, video and regular articles, Mancine said. She also suggests playing off special holidays or the time of year.

"There are so many days that are celebrated on social media now – National Coffee Day, etc.," Mancin added. "Nine times out of 10 you can come up with a creative way to tie your business in to those days."

5. Use tracking and analytics.
The best way to offer relevant content to your audience is knowing what they want. By monitoring and tracking past posts, you'll determine what works and what doesn't.

LinkedIn's Company Page analytics allows you to evaluate engagement on your posts, identify trends, understand your follower demographics and learn more about your page traffic.

6. Experiment with video and photos.
LinkedIn has a video and photo feature. Within the mobile app, you can take a video or photo and post it to your timeline. In March 2018, LinkedIn introduced Filters and a couple text styles to its video feature. Filter include "Work High Five," Side Hustle" and "On the Air."

Share behind the scene look of your company or share products and services with this feature.

7. Create LinkedIn Showcase Pages.
Tommy Burns, digital marketing specialist at Bluehouse Group, suggests using LinkedIn Showcase Pages to highlight your brand. With showcase pages, you're able to spotlight specific parts of your business and share content to a targeted audience.

"A Showcase Page is an extension of your company's LinkedIn profile," he said. "They allow your organization to generate additional content and publish messaging that is highly relevant to subsets of your target audience.

8. Use sponsored ads.
Like other social media platforms, you can create sponsored ads on LinkedIn. Sponsored ads do cost money, but they are more effective than regular content because you can target a specific audience.

"There's a lot of freedom and customization available with this feature," said Keri Lindenmuth, marketing manager at KDG. "You can select the geographic range you want your ad to target, the ages of the audience you're seeking, the profession and industries of the audience you're seeking, and more."

Source: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/10376-linkedin-for-business.html