5 ways for Manufacturers to put their LinkedIn Company Pages to Work
If you don’t already have a LinkedIn page for your company, here’s an interesting fact for you.
If LinkedIn members engage with a company then the chances of them purchasing from those companies increases by 50%.
With a LinkedIn company page you can engage with followers about your company news, provide product updates, share information about any events/trade fairs you may be participating in or just share interesting relevant content.
Not only that, relevant content marketing on your pages provides you improved lead gen opportunities.
Here’s how to put your LinkedIn company page to work for you:
#1: Optimize.Optimize.Optimize.
This is the online corollary to Location.Location.Location. (Often used by the real estate business) . Once you have a LinkedIn page, you have already made the right location decision for your business (in the online world that is). Now you need to showcase your business offerings. Build out your showcase pages to talk about your specific business lines and you are likely to attract 2wice as many followers.
Use this page well-tell members about the strength of your product or service.
Update your followers and remember to link to your catalogue, your product information/images/videos , white papers, client lists….in fact almost anything and everything that you think will help you profile yourself better and increase your chances of a sale.
Your LinkedIn Company page is search engine friendly. Make sure that you put in as much information, using the keywords that clearly point to your business expertise, products, services etc in your description section. This helps in members finding you in their LinkedIn searches.
#2: Engage
Sharing relevant content with your followers will help in engaging them with your company. You can post and share items like company news, promotions, relevant industry articles and YouTube videos. While sharing do not forget to include links.
And another tip- LinkedIn updates allow you to share content with “All Followers or with a specific “Targeted Audience” (a subset based on industry, geo, size of organization etc). Select carefully. More often than not, targeted updates drive higher levels of response and engagement.
You ( or other page admins) can directly engage with members by liking or responding to their comments , made in response to something you have posted.
Besides sharing your own content, it may help to share content from customers’ or prospects’ blogs/company posts etc to begin an online interaction. This shows your interest in what they are doing. And besides, talking about yourself all the time doesn’t help either. (more about this in the 1-1-4 rule later in this post.)
Here are two useful tips that will help you create content that will go further with your audiences:
Write as a journalist would – Grabbing the readers’ attention with a concise, snappy and important thought will ensure you retain their attention to follow your post through. Right upfront-give your audience a reason to stay on your page and post.
Keep your content “Snackable & Valuable” –.The success of content lies not only in its consumption but also in its “sharability”. Content that’s short and easily-consumed- is more likely to get shared by members with their networks & business connections. If you have a video, a chart, a picture or an article link- please include it as it adds immensely to the success of the content. If you don’t, then ask them a question to help drive engagement. Lastly, short content works because members are likely to view your update on a computer as much as they are likely to view it on a tablet or a mobile-so keep it short and snackable.
#3: More the Followers- the Better it is
Attract more followers with these simple but effective strategies-
Add a Follow button to your website. If you have a website or a blog then you need to include the ” follow” button. That way, LinkedIn members can follow your page with just 1 single click.
Use a multi-channel approach. Add a link (and encourage your employees/colleagues to do the same ) to your company page in email signatures.
Include your employees/ colleagues. Because employees are already highly engaged with your company , they are much more likely to engage with your updates (in fact research puts that number at 70% ). And that helps in creating momentum on the page and keeping it vibrant and active.
#4: Inclusion (The rule of 4-1-1)
“ You must share 4 pieces of relevant content (that others have written) and you must share 1 relevant tweet for each self-serving content you post .” Add a Follow button to your website. If you have a website or a blog then you need to include the ” follow” button. That way, LinkedIn members can follow your page with just 1 single click.
Use a multi-channel approach. Add a link (and encourage your employees/colleagues to do the same ) to your company page in email signatures.
Include your employees/ colleagues. Because employees are already highly engaged with your company , they are much more likely to engage with your updates (in fact research puts that number at 70% ). And that helps in creating momentum on the page and keeping it vibrant and active.
As soon as you apply this rule to your company page , you will end up engaging in authentic conversations/interactions and not run the risk of just appearing to be “all-knowledgeable”.
This rule helps to build deeper relationships with customers and prospects as it hinges on “informative dialogue” and “inclusion” rather than on one-way hand out of information. And most importantly you stay top-of-mind with your prospects as they go through the process of buying.
#5: Deploy. Refine. Redeploy.
As a Company page administrator you will have all levels of access for you to dive into deep levels of analytics offered by LinkedIn to see if your strategy is working. Use it to refine your communication and redploy your new-improved strategy to get even more out of your LinkedIn page. Some of the insights available are-
Engagement % or “What’s the level of engagement of people who have seen this update?”- Look closely at the updates with high rates of engagement to understand the content type, audience type and time/date of interaction. This will help you to Optimize your content better (refer to #1 above ) ,
Demographics or “Who are my followers”- You get information by seniority , by industry, by company size & function . This helps you tailor your content and decide which segments of your audience must receive it (refer to #2 above)
So remember- Optimize-Engage-Attract-Include-Refine and you are on the path to LinkedIn success.