While LinkedIn already has an established reputation as a superior recruiting tool for companies, more and more businesses are using the social network to market their brands. The best companies effectively spread awareness of their brands and grow their following while simultaneously establishing themselves as thought leaders within their industry. While accomplishing this is a time commitment, LinkedIn makes the process simple through its Company Pages and Groups features. Read on to learn what actions you should take to grow and maintain your company’s brand on LinkedIn.
On your company page:
• Post often and with consistency. The best company pages on LinkedIn drive content by consistently posting at least once per business day. When posting an update, however, it’s important to follow the 80/20 rule: post value-based updates 80% of the time, and promotional updates the remaining 20%. A brand that only promotes itself comes off as insincere. Additionally, you should always try to let your brand’s personality shine through in updates posted.
• Post rich content. Your updates should contain a variety of content types, such as links, videos, and images. LinkedIn reported that on average, an image generates a 98% higher comment rate than a post with plain text, and YouTube videos result in a 75% higher share rate. Rich content can also drive viewers back to other company resources like blogs or additional social networks. Above all, you should share as much of your company’s work as possible to show viewers exactly what your brand can do.
• Use LinkedIn Analytics. After you post a substantial amount of updates, use the Analytics tool to discover which types of posts have generated the most engagement. Then, increase the frequency with which you post of that type of update to consequently increase your brand engagement.
• Connect with your employees. When new employees join your company, request that they add their new jobs to their personal LinkedIn profiles. This effectively spreads awareness of your brand to each LinkedIn member in an employee’s personal network, which you might not have access to otherwise.
In groups:
• Establish a brand representative. Because only personal LinkedIn users (rather than company pages) can create and join groups, choose a high-level executive within your company to represent your brand in groups relevant to your industry. He or she can create and join groups and should act as an ambassador for your brand in all group activity.
• Be a facilitator. When interacting with groups, your representative should follow the same 80/20 rule mentioned above and only post about your brand a quarter of the time. All other activity should involve commenting on and sharing the content of others. Additionally, the representative should always establish a genuine reputation as a team player by interacting with others’ content multiple times before posting his or her own content.
•Do not sell or promote your brand’s products and services.LinkedIn users join groups to engage in thoughtful conversations that educate the participating parties. Any posts regarding company promotions would be seen as out of place, and they could damage your representative’s credibility as a thought leader.
Does your company use strategies not mentioned above to maintain and grow its brand? Have you found particular success with any of these tactics?
