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How to Use LinkedIn for Business
Repost: Original article by zabisco
For many companies, using LinkedIn to manage a professional identity is the norm. But how do you know if you are using it correctly and reaping all the benefits? Here is everything you need to know about using LinkedIn to benefit your business:
What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform, with over 100 million users. Through a set of trusted contacts, you can exchange information and share new opportunities with a broader network of industry professionals.
The best results from LinkedIn are obtained by treating it as a conversation. It is an important business tool, an opportunity to promote yourself and your company as experts in your field. It should be used to communicate with other influential users and potential clients and to connect with other professionals.. Networking is key; share your knowledge and promote your company’s content to build vital connections.
1. How to create a company page
The first step is to create a profile page for your company, which can only be done by current employees with a company-owned email domain. Just like LinkedIn profiles are for people, LinkedIn company group pages are for companies or organisations to use. This gives you a direct communication channel to your consumer, future work, potential employees and partners. It gives them a place to find out about your business and can really improve customer relations. Think of it as a marketing tool – it needs to be branded consistently and have the appropriate tone of voice for your company.
Once you have registered, click on the ‘Companies’ tab and ‘add a company’. You will then be taken to the ‘Create a Company’ page where you can input all the relevant information about your business, such as:
- Add an image – Give the face of your company a professional display picture
- Customise your page by adding descriptions, headquarters address, job opportunities, links to your company website and staff information.
- Current and past industry experience
Fill out your company profile fully and give contacts as much useful information as you can. Resist the temptation to talk about the past and try to focus more on how you can help them or what meaningful results you can achieve for them.
Make sure you regularly update your company status to something interesting and relevant to your target audience. You can include information on current projects, events or daily happenings. These can also be linked to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Why not watch other people’s statuses for opportunities to start conversations about your company and create relationships? You can also follow companies to get a general overview of what’s happening there.
The Zabisco Homepage
DO: Use a professional headshot or brand logo for your company website.
DO: Make it publically available
DO: Make your company page client focused – What do they want from you?
DO: Use status updates to remind potential clients what you can offer
DON’T: Leave the page unfilled or out of date
2. Customising your URL and having strong SEO content
LinkedIn allows you to customise your company’s domain name to better professionally market your account, just like you can on Facebook. If you place your full company name in your URL it should rank higher in search engine listings, as LinkedIn has a great authority in Google.
Throughout your profile, you should include lots of descriptive key words and content which is highly relevant to your company. This can also boost your company listings through link building opportunities. You can do this by changing your current URL by clicking the ‘Public Profile’ tab under ‘Edit Profile’.
Do have an informative title and subheading, treat this as your introduction to other members. Give contacts a reason to be interested in what you have to offer and how you can help them, which will be much more useful than just listing your company title.
DO: Customise your companies URL for better search engine listings
DO: Have a helpful headline to summarise what your company can give to clients
3. How to use LinkedIn groups effectively – share and acquire expertise
LinkedIn groups are a great way for your company to connect and share insights with like-minded professionals and contacts. Groups allow you to share ideas and knowledge with influential people whilst building up your contacts. The key focus for a company is not only to interact, but also to position itself as an expert on its own subject area and build a solid reputation associated with expert knowledge. Companies should use groups in two stages:
partake in other people’s conversations. This will allow your company to gain confidence in this and find your voice.
think about creating a group yourself, with serious thought about what the group is about and why other people should join the conversation. It’s a great way to start a good business conversation and can drive lots of relevant information your way, making you the connector of other professionals. For example, as an Interior Landscaper you might create a group to talk about improving your office environment.
Having your employees interact with different groups has two benefits. Firstly it increases the likelihood of the individual employee being known as an expert and adds content to their profiles. Secondly it builds the company’s reputation as a community of experts. This is great for potential clients to see.
How to create a Group on LinkedIn
If your not sure of which groups would be best for your company, you can click on ‘Groups You May Like’ section to look at what’s available. All of this adds value to your company profile and can help it to be discovered by other users. LinkedIn offer great tutorials on how to Create a Group.
DO: Use groups to increase your companies ‘expert status’ and get your employees involved
4. What strategy will you use to connect through LinkedIn?
Before you build a strategy for amassing connections and contacts, your company needs to decide how you are going to connect with businesses and individuals. This is generally done in two different ways: LinkedIn Open Networking (LION) and Trusted Partner Networking.
Many company pages grow the size of their network by connecting to as many professionals and other companies as possible. So if you were a LION and you were searching for useful contacts to form relationships with, you are much more likely to find something of interest.
The Trusted Partner strategy on the other hand works well for individuals with fewer one to one relationships and connect only to people they really know.
DO: Register on the LinkedIn LION group
DON’T: add hundreds of people you’ve never met, as this will have no value to your network
5. How to use LinkedIn ads to target specific user groups
Consider using targeted advertising campaigns with LinkedIn Ads. Previously you could only target segments based on companies, job titles, gender age and location. However now you are able to target your ads by group membership, which is great for driving traffic to your company page and website.
DO: Make sure your ad campaigns are highly specific and targeted
DO: Make sure your ad links to targeted landing pages on your website
DON’T: Ignore the facts – check Google analytics and tweak your campaigns if they’re not giving enough impact
6. How to use LinkedIn applications – Consider Linking your profiles
LinkedIn has a range of different applications that enable you to enrich your company profile and share valuable content with your contacts and potential clients. With Tweets, you can display you latest Twitter posts on your company page and follow other contacts, reply and re-tweet them. You can also link your recent blog posts to display expert content on your industry area. Utilising all of your marketing tools can create new potential opportunities for your business.
DO: Link your company Twitter and Blog to show brand consistency
7. Use LinkedIn to find potential clients and jobs
Just having a presence on LinkedIn is not enough. If your company is inactive and passive, what business value are you gaining from using this network?
Using the LinkedIn search button is key and it allows you to be very specific in terms of who you would like to be referred to. For example you can search through your whole network with Company Search, or become more specific and look at an individual’s contact list. The potential for finding new work is very big indeed. There is also a new ‘Jobs’ tab under the ‘Groups’ settings of your page where the group manager can share different job posts with the members of that group.
DO: Search for potential clients for future reference
8. Using testimonials can carry weight
Testimonials are a great way for potential clients to get a positive review of your success stories. This word of mouth promotion can lead to future work and can help to build your reputation.
One way of increasing the number of testimonials on your company page is to give them out first. Genuinely praise other companies or people you have worked with, then if your testimonial is used by that company LinkedIn will ask them to recommend you. But don’t forget, they only useful if the content is meaningful. Many contacts will check the backgrounds of people they are interested in meeting.
DO: Give to receive testimonials, but be sincere!
9. Customising your URL and having strong SEO content
LinkedIn allows you to customise your company’s domain name to better professionally market your account, just like you can on Facebook. If you place your full company name in your URL it should rank higher in search engine listings, as LinkedIn has a great authority in Google. Throughout the profile you should include lots of descriptive key words and content which is highly relevant to your company. You can do this by changing your current URL by clicking the ‘Public Profile’ tab under ‘Edit Profile’.
Do have an informative title and subheading, treat this as your introduction to other members. Give contacts a reason to be interested in what you have to offer and how you can help them, which will be much more useful than just listing your company title.
DO: Sign up your brand to the Service Directory ‘a yellow pages of professionals you can trust
DO: Keep your profile and experience current and up to date
10. How to use LinkedIn Today
LinkedIn today is a summary of the day’s top news and stories, showing you what’s happening in your industry and the industry of your clients. It is tailored to you, with the content based on what your professional audience and industry contacts are reading and sharing. You can also get a weekly email complied with all the key topics and stories from the different industries you follow.
DO: Use LinkedIn today’s top trends to start a conversation with your peers.
11. How to use LinkedIn InMaps
Visual mapping is becoming very popular within social media. LinkedIn’s new InMaps feature allows you to see all your relationships and connections, together with the different channels you use and groups you are members of. All of this information is broken down into a colour coded visual map, so you can see all of your professional knowledge in one space.
DO: Use InSignal to see what’s happening in your extended circle
12. How to use LinkedIn for Mobile
The new Smartphone applications let take your LinkedIn network with you, so you can keep on top of network updates and your company profile. You can sync your LinkedIn contacts to your address book, send messages and invites, or get prepared for your business meeting.
Different applications for LinkedIn on Mobile
The applications are available on different smart phones. You might try:
- LinkedIn for Iphone (including LinkedIn Today)
- LinkedIn for Blackberry
- LinkedIn for Android
- LinkedIn for Palm Pre
DO: Read customised news on the go with the new Iphone app LinkedIn Today
DO: Stay connected with LinkedIn through your hotmail account with Active View, which allows you to connect to contacts via your emails.
Need more help?
If you want to find out more about different features available on LinkedIn, why not make use of the LinkedIn learning centre and users guides on their website for more detailed tips. Find them here
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