How to promote your business on Linkedin

Warning this may be a slow burner but it will be worth the effort. So let’s start with why your business should be on Linkedin:

• It showcases your business and lets Linkedin users know about your business, latest updates, and jobs
• Good for SEO as you see it in your brand results in Google
• Looks professional
• Connects employees
• Linkedin targeted advertising
• You get analytics

Ready to start marketing your business? Let’s begin with the company page.

Complete your Linkedin Company page

An optimised company page makes your business look professional and legitimate on Linkedin.

Start by making sure you fill in all the important details about your business in your business page:

• Logo
• Company description
• Website URL
• Company size
• Industry
• Company type
• Location

Include keywords in your company page. Think about what words or phrases your customers may search for and use those. Linkedin provides some great tips on using LinkedIn for marketing.

Post consistently and make sure it’s relevant

Even once a month can make a difference. I recommend that you post every weekday if possible. The most important thing is that you are consistent so if that’s only once a week that’s ok.

“Business buyers don’t buy your product; they buy into your approach to solving their problems.” – Laura Ramos from Forrester

Share other people’s content as well as your own. Think educate and inform instead of sell. They don’t care about your products. Instead, share how you can solve their problem.

By providing value they will want to find out more about you.

Be human

Engage, chat, connect, share, respond, like. Be social, helpful, and engaging. Help first and sell later.

If someone comments on your post, reply with a relevant response!

I think the worst you can do is invite someone to connect with you and then send them a pitch of your services. Yes, we are here to sell our services and win work but going straight for the pitch is not really going to work well. Would you walk up to someone you’ve never met and say: “Hi, nice to meet you” “Want to hire me now?” erm, no.

“If you help enough people get what they want, you will get what you want.” – Zig Ziglar

A more successful approach would be to find a way to help them or give them something for free. This then opens the door to opportunity.

Reuse popular content

Not everyone sees your content in fact only a small percentage will.  So it makes sense to share any content that has been successful previously again.

Recruit your colleagues and employees

Get them to follow and engage with your content. By sharing, liking, and commenting on the company page content they will be increasing the reach to their connections.

Encourage employees to fill out their personal profiles. Adding their experience will create a link back to the company page.

Build relationships with influencers

Find, follow, share their content, and interact. They may then share your content with their followers.

Networking is all about helping, contributing, and sharing.

You may think a quick win might be to connect with as many people as possible even ones you don’t know. Please don’t. Sending blank connection requests to people you don’t know can affect your profile negatively and could even get you banned.

Avoid these issues and only ask to connect with who you actually know or let others ask to connect with you first.

If someone likes and comments on an article this shows they have an interest in your content. This can give you an opportunity to connect especially if they are a second or third connection and have interacted with more than one article.

Market your business page outside Linkedin

Boost the ranking of your company page by linking to it from your:

• Website
  Add social share buttons and a follow button.
• Email
  Encourage all employees to include a link to the company page in their profile
• Other Social Media platforms
  Any that allow you to connect to other social platforms such as YouTube and Google.

Invite customers and key partners to follow your company page via emails, newsletters, and blog posts.

Monitor and measure success 

Do not forget to check your stats! What is working? What isn’t working. Use this to improve and refine.

Summary

To successfully market your business online it takes time, you need buy-in from employees, and need to committed to:

• Optimise company page
• Post consistently (5 times a week)
• Monitor online engagement and respond to any comments/messages
• Encourage employees to follow and interact with your company page, and optimise their profiles
• Identify influencers and engage
• Create original quality content
• Share your content and other relevant content
• Be human :-)