Want to hear a fun fact? LinkedIn was created in May 2003. That’s before Facebook (February 2004) and even MySpace (August 2003). Though it was created almost twenty years ago, it wasn’t until a little over a decade ago that LinkedIn started increasing in popularity. Now, in 2021, LinkedIn is one of the top social media sites with +750M users. It’s known for being one of the best places to promote your B2B businesses, connect with fellow professionals, build your personal brand, hire talent, and find a new job. With so many employees, managers, business owners, and members of the c-suite all in one place, you may have wondered how to promote your business on LinkedIn. Lucky for you, this article is going to answer that burning question.
Here is our breakdown of how to promote your business on LinkedIn:
Keep Your LinkedIn Business Page Active and Engaging
First and foremost, your company needs a business page on LinkedIn. It’s a great place for potential clients who spend time on LinkedIn to visit and learn more about your business. Not to mention, LinkedIn company pages are extremely SEO-friendly and can appear on the first page of Google search results when someone searches for your company. Also, with a LinkedIn company page, your employees are able to connect to your company which can increase your organic exposure (more on that later).
With a company page, rather than connecting with professionals, you’ll gain followers. Gaining followers can happen organically or admins of the page can invite their connections to follow. Once you have followers, keeping your LinkedIn company page active and engaging is key. Though company posts don’t typically have the same reach that personal posts do, they can still appear on your followers’ news feeds as they scroll through LinkedIn.
While LinkedIn may differ from other social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter, you should still apply basic social media best practices on LinkedIn. That is to say, you should still post engaging content on a regular basis. Consistency is key. People need several touchpoints before they’ll do business with you. That’s where social media shines. If they see your posts every day when they’re scrolling through their news feed, there’s a better chance of them engaging with your content and eventually doing business with you.
Keep in mind, if you’re going to share the same content you post on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to LinkedIn, make sure that it’s applicable to a LinkedIn audience (aka professionals). Your audience on Instagram may love the Reel of you and your friends dancing, but your LinkedIn followers may find it out of place. If you’d like to reuse content from one social channel to another, be sure to repurpose it so that the voice, verbiage, and tone all match the platform and intended audience.
Need help creating a LinkedIn company page? Follow these simple steps:
- Click the Work icon in the top right corner of the LinkedIn homepage.
- Click Create a Company Page.
- Select the Page type you’d like to create.
- Enter your Page identity, Company or Institution details, and Profile details information.
- Check the verification box to confirm you have the right to act on behalf of that company in the creation of the page.
- Click Create page.
- Click Start building your page!
Invite Your Employees to be Brand Advocates on LinkedIn
Want to know what’s even better than a post from your company page? A post from one of your employees.
According to LinkedIn, employees have 10 times more 1st-degree connections on LinkedIn than a company page has followers. Think about it this way: your company page could have a thousand followers. That’s great! But if your company has thirty employees and they each have at least five hundred connections, imagine how much further their posts can reach. Especially if they all interact with each other’s posts.
Research shows that employees are 60% more likely to engage with posts from coworkers vs. non-coworkers. If your company uses something like Slack for internal communication, consider creating a LinkedIn Slack channel. When someone posts to LinkedIn, they can share the post via Slack with the rest of the team. Then, the whole company can jump in and Like, comment on, and share the post—helping create greater reach and visibility for the post.
At Set Fire Creative, our employees typically include their title and company in the first line of their headline. That way, anytime they share a post or comment on a post, people see their name, their title, and what company they work for. Then, when our employees are super active on LinkedIn, not only are they building their personal brand, but they are building up Set Fire Creative’s brand as well. We also have a Set Fire Creative banner that employees can use on their profiles as well.
Over the last year, thanks to Google Analytics, we’ve tracked the impact LinkedIn has on our business. Organically, more traffic comes to our site from LinkedIn than any other social media platform. We also receive more leads organically from LinkedIn than any other social channel. A big part of Set Fire Creative’s LinkedIn strategy is allowing our employees time each day to post and engage on LinkedIn.
Promote Your Business on LinkedIn with Ads
If you’re a B2B business owner, you may want to consider running LinkedIn ads. An advertisement on LinkedIn looks similar to a regular post, but the word “Promoted” will appear underneath your company’s profile picture. Similar to advertising on Facebook and Instagram, ads are meant to be native and fit in with the rest of your news feed.
Thanks to LinkedIn’s large active user base, there are plenty of options in terms of targeting. You can target users based on job title, company name, industry, and interests. You’re also able to upload a contact list to LinkedIn and target people you already know. With so many targeting options available, finding your target demographic on LinkedIn is a piece of cake.
There are two downsides to running ads on LinkedIn. First, LinkedIn is a B2B platform. Therefore, advertising on LinkedIn really only makes sense if your company is in the B2B space. If you’re an ecommerce company or a B2C business, consider running ads on Facebook or Instagram. Second, LinkedIn ad costs are typically more expensive than advertising on other platforms. In 2019, the average Cost Per Click for LinkedIn ads was $5.26. The average Cost Per Click on Facebook was $1.72. If you’re going to promote your business on LinkedIn using ads, be sure to consider your budget.
If your company is already active on LinkedIn, moving into advertising on the platform is a natural next step for you to take. But make sure you’re crushing it on the organic side of things first. A lot of companies have seen a great amount of new business come from their organic efforts. Then, when they turn on their LinkedIn ads, it just adds fuel to the fire.
Get Started Today!
You know the old adage about planting a tree?
The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The next best time is today.
Think about that in terms of your LinkedIn efforts. If your company and employees haven’t been active on the platform up to this point, that’s okay. Get started today! Follow this guide on how to promote your business on LinkedIn. If you need help running ads on LinkedIn or managing your company page, reach out to Set Fire Creative today!
McCain is the founder and VP of Client Services at Set Fire Creative. When he isn’t busy helping his clients grow their business through digital marketing, you will most likely find him with his nose in a Stephen King book, eating spicy buffalo wings, hanging out with his wife and Blue Heeler Ozzy, or listening to Guns N’ Roses—sometimes all at the same time.
