Not Only Jobs: How to Use LinkedIn to Grow Your Business

1. How LinkedIn can help your business
2. How to set up a Company page on LinkedIn
3. How to promote your business on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network for forging and nurturing your business relations. Entrepreneurs are using LinkedIn to search for clients and partners, boost recognition, and build authority. The platform is used by more than 50 mln businesses. What about your company? We’ve come up with a detailed guide on how to leverage the potential of LinkedIn for the best results.  

How LinkedIn can help your business 

With 722 mln users,  LinkedIn is a major social network for businesses worldwide. LinkedIn is among the top popular job search websites. On their personal profiles, users share their education information, career summary, skills, professional achievements, and more. 

However, job hunting is just a tiny part of what the platform can do for your business. For example, LinkedIn delivers x15 more professional content impressions than job postings. Having a Company page on LinkedIn comes with three significant benefits:

• Drive leads. Leads are your potential customers. These are the people who reacted to your marketing, e.g. signed up for your newsletter, gave their phone number, sent you a direct message, etc. According to this research, 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn. On top of that, 79% of marketers consider LinkedIn a potent source of potential clients.  
• Do networking. LinkedIn is a great way to search for employees, consultants, business partners, and more. Join your professional groups, participate in discussion boards, and spread the word about your business!   
• Boost recognition. 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for putting their professional content out there. Insightful articles, links to research resources, discussion of business ideas, etc. are all great ways to boost authority and make your company more recognizable. Narrow business focus is another advantage that LinkedIn has in store. Unlike on Facebook or Instagram, your LinkedIn content doesn’t have to compete for user attention with travel photos and cat videos.  

How to set up a Company page on LinkedIn

Creating a Company page is the first step for promoting your business on LinkedIn. Here is a quick tutorial to setting up a company profile:

Step 1. Click the Work icon on your LinkedIn homepage. Click “Create a Company Page”. Now select the Page type. The available options include: Small Business, Medium to Large Business, Showcase Page, and Educational Institution.

Step 2. Fill out the required fields. Enter your company name and URL address. Note that your URL address must incorporate your company name. If this option is not available, add another word or digit to your company name. Also, you can add a link to your company website. 

Step 3. Add information about your company (industry, number of staff, type of business, etc.). 

Step 4. Upload a profile picture. Using your company logo as your LinkedIn profile photo can get you x6 more visits. The recommended size for a LinkedIn profile picture is 300х300 pixels. Supported formats include: JPG, JPEG, and PNG. By the way, the ZenBusiness branding platform can help you create a neat logo for your LinkedIn page!

Step 5. Add a brief description of what you do, e.g. “Consulting services for small businesses”. Your company description will display right under your company name.  

Step 6. Confirm that you’re an authorized representative of the organization. Click “Create page”. 

Step 7. Start building your profile. Tell about your company’s products and/or services, backstory, goals, and mission. Your LinkedIn page will display in Google search results, so be sure to use the keywords to help your potential clients find you on the web.     

Step 8. Upload a cover image. The recommended size for a LinkedIn cover image is 1584 x 396 pixels.

Step 9. If you have a physical office or offline store, add its location.  

Step 10. Add your industry-related hashtags to make it easier for LinkedIn users to find you.

Step 11. Add a CTA (call to action) button (“Contact us”, “Learn more”, etc.) with your website URL or social media pages behind it. Also, add a UTM tag to facilitate tracking traffic channels.  

How to promote your business on LinkedIn

LinkedIn offers a bunch of promotion tricks and techniques to fit any business. We’ve put together a few tips on how to draw in new clients, nurture your business connections, and showcase your company’s expertise. 

Advance your page

Aside from paid ads, LinkedIn offers a variety of ways to build up your network:

• Send invitations to follow your Company page to your employees. Also, ask them to add your company as their workplace in their personal profiles. 
• Import contacts from your email list. To do that, click “Add contacts” and type in your email.   
• Add the LinkedIn icon to your website, blog, business card, etc. Also, share it across your social media pages.  

Plan your content

The secret to drawing in clients and business partners is building a straightforward, sincere relationship with your audience. 

What to post:

• About your company: Background, case studies and lessons learned, employee stories, behind-the-scenes content, product announcements, etc.   
• About your industry: Feedback on attended events, reposts of useful articles and influencer content, industry news, your opinions on professional topics. 

How to post:

• When sharing other people’s content, always express your own opinion on the subject.
• Avoid making your posts too long. Nowadays, nobody has the time for long reads. Focus on the opening lines that will display on your followers’ news feed. Spark your audience’s interest by asking a provocative question, highlighting a problem, introducing a compelling piece of information, etc.
• Ask for your followers’ input, run surveys, and react to comments to boost interaction with your followers. 
• Tag other users and company pages to get more engagement and get eyes on your posts. 

When to post:

• According to LinkedIn, morning posts generate the highest engagement. The SproutSocial findings show that the best times to post on LinkedIn are on Wednesday between 8 and 10 am and at noon; Thursday at 9 am and 1-2 pm; and Friday at 9 am. Sunday posts tend to be lower on engagement.  
• Plan your content 1-2 weeks ahead. Prepare the texts and images to save yourself the hassle later on. Also, keep yourself updated on what’s going on in your industry. If everyone in your feed is discussing the latest news, be sure to tune in and give your opinion on the subject. 

Use graphic content

Photos and videos get x5 more engagement on LinkedIn. In fact, this is true for every social media network out there.

• Posts with photos receive 98% more comments compared to text-only posts. Keep in mind that generic stock photos won’t do the trick here. You need to share authentic photos from attended workshops and conferences, your office, offline store, etc. 
• Videos tend to get x5 more impressions than any other type of content. Remember that videos start playing when the user is scrolling through their LinkedIn news feed. With that said, make sure your video grabs the viewer’s attention from the first seconds. 
• One of the most efficient social media tools, live streams engage x24 more users than regular posts. Use LinkedIn Live to run interviews, webinars, FAQs, and other live events. Announce the upcoming live stream a few days in advance. 

Join LinkedIn groups or create your own 

If you want to grow your connections on LinkedIn, be sure to participate in LinkedIn groups. These are the hubs for professionals working in the same niche or industry. It’s a great way to showcase your company’s expertise, build authority, and boost your recognition.

You can capitalize on LinkedIn groups in two ways. You can either join other users’ groups, or create your own group. Share compelling content, give feedback on other people’ posts, engage yourself in discussions, and interact with industry experts. 

Set up a Showcase page

Showcase LinkedIn page is a niche page dedicated to a specific product, social initiative, industry event, business unit, etc. It’s another smart way to amplify your presence on LinkedIn.     

Showcase page complements your main Company page, allowing you to target a narrow segment of your audience, deliver a personalized experience to your customers, and grow your following. Moreover, your Showcase page may spark the interest of users who aren’t following your main page.   

Track your stats

LinkedIn Analytics is a powerful tool which provides you with important metrics on your LinkedIn page. Learn what channels drive traffic to your LinkedIn page, how many impressions your posts get, what demographics your audience fall under, and many more. Use the “Companies to track” feature to monitor how your page is doing compared to your competitors (follower gains and losses, user engagement, etc). 

Check in on your metrics regularly. Use the obtained information to optimize your marketing strategy and put together a bundle of promotion tools which work best for your business.

Final words

Among business owners, there is a tendency for underestimating the power of LinkedIn. We hope you aren’t one of them! LinkedIn is a versatile marketing tool for building trust with your target audience and business partners, improving your networking skills, and amplifying your social media reach. To make the most of your LinkedIn page, follow this checklist:

• create your Company page on LinkedIn and build up your profile;
• drive followers from different channels;
• make regular posts and plan your content for maximum productivity;
• do live streams;
• join your industry-related groups;
• analyze your page performance to adjust your marketing strategy.