How to Use Linkedin for Companies

What is Linkedin?

Linkedin is a social network with over 225 million users that enable you to network professionally, post and find jobs, answer questions, and build thought leadership. It was launched in 2003.  As of June 2013, Linkedin Reports more than 225 million acquired users in more than 200 countries.  Today Linkedin is no longer for job hunting and recruitment purpose only. It is increasingly becoming a powerful platform for companies, especially B2B, to showcase their brands, product releases and news. LinkedIn should be an integral part of companies’ social media marketing. Linkedin can also be a very powerful traffic source.

Linkedin Company Page

Having a Linkedin Company Page is a lot like a brand page from Facebook. There are many reasons your company should be utilizing a Linkedin Company Page. 1) Company Reach. When your employees updates their personal profiles to show where they work, they will link their profile back to your company page. Every person that connects with that profile may potentially click on your company name and be navigated to your company page. Company pages provide a section for companies to showcase their products. While you can create a business page on Facebook where you can describe your various products as a while and see which friends “like” that page, Linkedin narrows that field and allows you to add multiple products so each stands out. Followers of the company page can recommend the products. All company pages also allows updates, attach files/images to any update. These updates will appear in the newsfeed of the page’s followers, and allow for interactions such as comments and likes. The updates will then appear in the newsfeed of everyone in these people’s network. Every employee has the opportunity to promote your company, having a respectable company page will boost your company reach and awareness.

Linkedin Analytics

Recently, Linkedin has rolled out Company Page Analytics. Linkedin Analytics allows companies to see how their updates are performing, identify trends across key metrics and understand more about their followers. Through updates analytics, companies can discover which updates resonate with their audience better. There are five key metrics: impression, clicks, interactions, follower acquired, and engagement for each update. Engagement % is calculated by adding interactions, clicks and followers acquired, then divide by impressions. Next, companies can monitor daily and monthly trends, track follower growth (followers are separated by acquired and organic), key demographic data of the followers, such as seniority, industry, job function, region, company size and employee vs nonemployee. The analytics page also provides stats on similar companies so you can compare how you are doing to similar brands.

Generate Leads on Linkedin

Another great feature on Linkedin is its groups. Join several groups that are relevant to your industry or your target customers’ industry and also groups that are outside your industry that might help you grow your business. By stretching out a little bit, you’re expanding your reach, which is always good for business. Post interesting articles or answer other group members’ questions. The more influential you become in that group, the more exposure you will get. Quality articles will bring tons of traffic back to your site. Linkedin is a great platform for inbound marketing. Advertising can be important in the initial steps of creating awareness, but creating content that has the potential of being promoted by Linkedin users, and therefore landing on multiple user hompages, is even more important.

Linkedin as a Marketing Tool

Linkedin is developing new tools and incorporate new services every day. It already has an impressive set of tools of marketers. It is the largest professional networking site available today. If your company does not have a solid presence, you could be missing out on valuable opportunities to connect with clients, customers and potential business partners. It is an invaluable goldmine if utilized correctly.