5 Easy Ways Businesses can leverage on Linkedin for Growth

5 Easy Ways Businesses can leverage on Linkedin for Growth

Currently, with over 562 million users Globally Linkedin has turned out to be a marketplace that not only offers your professional services but also a place to source your newest employee, publish and showcase your best content and most importantly, a place to market your business.

The platform aids individuals and companies with a huge opportunity to connect, share and grow, not only locally, but in the global market. There are many features available on LinkedIn which are under-utilized by companies seeking to position themselves.

Here are a few pointers and tools that you can start using to position and grow your brand

1.Create and Optimize Your LinkedIn Company Page

Of course, this is your first step. Just like many social media platforms, LinkedIn also offers you the option of creating your own Business Page. On LinkedIn, your company page serves as a hub for your customers. Your page will include basic company information, company updates, and so much more.

However, the great challenge would be on how you position your brand. Setting up the page is easy, but here are a few details that you will be required to fill in as well:

Add a High-Quality Profile Photo

When it comes to uploading your company’s profile picture (usually a logo), you need to make sure it is 300 (w) x 300 (h) pixels to ensure it fits well in the frame.

Your profile picture not only appears on your company page but also on all of your employees’ personal pages, too. Make sure it is a high-quality photo that is an updated version of your logo like Nike uses.

Upload a Well-Designed Cover Photo

Now that you have your company profile picture ready to go, you can move onto adding a well-designed cover photo. LinkedIn recommends that your cover image is 1536 (w) x 768 (h) pixels. They require a minimum of 1192 (w) x 220 (h) pixels.

Your cover photo should relate to your company or industry. Think of it as an extension of your profile photo.

To help design your LinkedIn cover photo, consider using the online image editor Canva. They have a LinkedIn cover photo template that you can use, which makes the design experience quite simple for users of any experience level.

Optimize Your Overview Section

On the “Overview” page, visitors can find information about a company in both the “About Us” and “Recent Update” sections.

When you begin to fill out the “About Us” section on your company’s page, consider how you can use the best keywords to optimize your page description. The keywords you place in the description can help increase your chances of being discovered by those actively searching for a business in your industry. Take the time to craft a unique and catchy welcome phrase that will help you target users who might find your page on LinkedIn.

Grow Your Company Follower Base

Now that you have set up your page, you should focus on trying to grow your follower base.  One easy way to achieve this is by asking your employees to add the page to their profiles. This makes your page more visible through those who are invested and connected to the business.

Put out content at least daily

Your LinkedIn company page will serve as a “hub” for all your company updates, so you should post regularly. Your content will appear both on your company page and in your followers’ feeds. Take advantage of this feature and post once per day. In some instances, you can also leverage on sharing ‘the trending topics’ articles normally suggested by Linkedin as long as they are in line with what your company des.

Add a LinkedIn plugin to your website

You can generate a “Follow Company” button for your website to direct traffic back to your LinkedIn company page to increase your following.

Monitor Your Growth with LinkedIn Analytics

You can track and monitor your growth using the suite of insights in your company’s Analytics Dashboard. To access it, click the “Me” tab and then click your company page under the “Manage” header. Finally, you can click “Analytics” and see data to help you understand how your efforts are progressing. The analytics they offer fall under three broad categories: visitors, updates, and followers.

2.Leverage on LinkedIn Groups and Communities

Unlike most social platforms, finding your audience on Linkedin should be easy as most of your ideal clients are all gathered in communities focused on specific topics. These communities are called LinkedIn Groups.

By joining groups and participating in discussions, you will provide your business with increased visibility.

There are over two million groups on LinkedIn that cover a variety of topics. LinkedIn allows you to join 100 of them, so there is more than enough ground for you to cover.

Alternatively, you can start your own group and try to foster a digital community. To succeed, follow these steps:

• Give the group a focus. It’s best to drill down on quality and narrow your focus. You want to be specific rather than broad.
• Determine whether it will be a closed group or an open group. Both types of groups have their perks. Closed groups require you (or a moderator) to approve applicants for entry into the group. This is helpful for keeping the discussion between those within an industry, but it can also be exclusive and time-consuming. Open groups allow for anyone to join, which can be great for mass exposure. But it can also quickly get out of hand.
• Select great moderators. You want someone who will continuously post engaging questions and strive to get responses out of everyone in the group. There’s a lot riding on your moderator’s shoulders, so select wisely — the success of your group depends on it.
• Be active. After a while, people leave groups that become dormant. Make sure there are active discussions and content circulating through your group each week.

LinkedIn Groups are a great way to casually network with prospects and even partners. Share knowledge and interact with others in your industry. You might find out that you have a solution through your product or service that will address one of their needs.

3.Become a Thought Leader by leveraging on LinkedIn Pulse

Originally, the Pulse platform was reserved for well-known influencers such as David Edelman, Richard Branson and Peter Guber, who used the platform to share their insights with followers. Now, all LinkedIn members are able to publish their own content.

LinkedIn Pulse is an online news aggregation feed within LinkedIn designed for members to share self-published content with their audience.

The platform generates news stories, blog posts and insights from businesses and individuals looking to build their profile and extend their reach within their target audience.

To ensure users receive content they want to see, LinkedIn Pulse can be tailored to each individual. Audiences are also able to search for stories of interest by category, popularity and based on who their influencers are.

For businesses and thought leaders, this is a good way to share knowledge and build their reputation and credibility.

Before you present yourself as a thought leader, you need to make sure your personal profile showcases you in the best light possible. Every LinkedIn profile has a few core areas that you should focus on: Ensure that you have the right profile photo, profile summary and also your background summary.

4. Make use of the SlideShare

Like LinkedIn Pulse, SlideShare provides another way to share your knowledge on LinkedIn and acquire customers in the process.

Users have shared 18 million pieces of content on SlideShare, and approximately 80% of SlideShare’s visitors find the content from targeted search. With so much potential, you should seriously consider tapping into this marketing resource.

When publishing content on SlideShare, here are some ways that you can improve your chances of getting users to notice you.

Link to your website

Including a call-to-action or a link to your website can direct your visitors straight to your website. This can be an effective way to acquire new customers and introduce them to your products or services.

In the example below, Blog-Growth.com made their last slide a call-to-action with a link to their website.

Perform basic SEO

As with many other parts of your LinkedIn profile, you should use keywords in the title and description (although not excessively) to help increase your presentation or publication visibility.

The keywords should be the perfect mix of what the piece of content is about and what your target audience might be searching for. For example, this presentation on “AI and Machine Learning” includes those keywords prevalently throughout its slides.

5. Make use of LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn Ads offers four different types of ads: sponsored content, message ads, text ads, and dynamic ads. Each serves a different purpose, and they appear in front of your potential customers in a variety of ways.

Sponsored content appears directly in the LinkedIn feed of professions you want to reach, and comes in three different formats: single image ads, video ads, and carousel ads.

Using Sponsored Content, you can easily Target your most valuable audiences using accurate, profile-based first-party data, reach a highly engaged audience with native ads in a professional feed across desktop and mobile and finally drive leads, build brand awareness, and nurture key relationships at every stage of your sales cycle.

Message Ads lets you reach your prospects on LinkedIn Messaging, where they increasingly spend most of their time – and where professional conversations happen. Using Message Ads, you can easily send direct messages to your prospects to spark immediate action, drive stronger engagement and response than traditional email marketing and measure the value you’re getting by seeing which roles and companies are taking action on your message

The Dynamic Ad format allows you to personalize your creative for each member in your target audience at scale. Dynamic Ads use LinkedIn profile data – like photo, company name, and job title – to personalize ads. Increase engagement with these three formats:

Follower ad: Promote their LinkedIn Page or Showcase Page and drive members to follow their LinkedIn page with a single click on the ad from the desktop experience.

Spotlight ad: Drive website traffic or spark an action like event registration or showcasing a new product.

Jobs ad: Increase relevant applicants by personalizing ads to top talent on desktop and mobile experiences.

Finally, The Text Ads are simple but compelling pay-per-click (PPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM) ads. Using Text Ads, you can easily create your own ads and launch a campaign in minutes, tailor-make messages to the professionals you need to reach and pay for only the ads that work – per click or per impression.