There was a time when posting job vacancies – or being Apple – was the only way to grow followers on your LinkedIn company page.
Company pages were the neglected distant cousin of personal profiles, unloved and unnoticed. But LinkedIn has been busy giving them a makeover.
Analytics tools now provide rich visitor data, the mobile app has been vastly improved, community hashtags are making companies easier to find, and the new Content Suggestions tool (which, to be honest, could be a lot better) helps you find content to share that'll boost engagement.
New-look company page analytics show engagements
Here’s what you can be doing to make your LinkedIn Company Page worth visiting and following:
1. Complete your page
Make sure you have completed the company description field, that you’ve uploaded a logo and banner image, filled in your website URL, added a location, included the size of your organisation, and selected an industry.
2. Post consistently
You can’t expect to grow followers if you don’t offer anything interesting to watch, read or listen to. This could be news articles or posts created by other people and companies, blogs you’ve written, press coverage you’ve got, photos from events you’ve attended, written thoughts or short videos.
You can now upload rich media like PowerPoint presentations, infographics and PDFs as well. But everything you post needs to be relevant and of interest to your audience (not relevant and interesting to you).
3. But don’t get hung up on frequency
Far more important than how many times you post is whether what you're posting matters to your audience. For this, you have to know exactly who you’re speaking to. The most successful brands on LinkedIn take time to get to know their audiences.
On your Company Page (admin view), click Analytics and Followers. Under the section called Follower Demographics, use the ‘Select Data For’ options to find out who your existing followers are, broken down by location, job function, seniority, industry and company size. Obviously this doesn't work if you don't have a following - but you could find out by looking at your website analytics instead.
4. Check out Content Suggestions
This is a new tool, recently launched by LinkedIn, which shows you what content users are already reading and engaging with on the platform. You can refine this tool by job function, industry and seniority and you can can share articles that are already trending in real time. This suggested content already has a track record of being engaging.
5. Ask people to follow your company page
This one is often overlooked, but if you don't ask, you don't get. You could drive people to your page by flagging it from your personal profile. Explain, what's in it for them?
You can also share content from your company page on your profile, to encourage people to follow. Just choose the post, click the icon in the top right hand corner, and copy link. Otherwise, direct message your contacts, and add a note when making new connections.
6. Don’t forget these...
When posting content, be sure to add @mentions when including references to people or companies, and up to five hashtags (think about what your audience might be searching for). This will make your post more visible.
6. And finally
Company pages will never be as effective as your personal LinkedIn profile, because this is social media, and people prefer to engage with people. Your company page should always supplement your own activity.
Talk to Tartle if you need a strategy for your LinkedIn Company Page. We promise no jargon. Email me: emily@tartlemedia.co.uk for some friendly advice.