Social Media Marketing: LinkedIn Best Practices

Note: This is another in a series on social media for business marketing.

Updated: January 2020

With more than 660+ million users, there is no question that LinkedIn has had a big impact on the social media marketing scene since its launch in 2003. As the world’s largest professional Internet networking site, it holds great potential for companies and individuals to build authority, become thought leaders, cultivate communities, and drive new business through conversations and content.

Unlike other social media platforms, LinkedIn is all about business. It’s where people go to connect with and learn from experts in their industry or area of interest. Using your LinkedIn Company Page and your employees as a part of your social media marketing strategy is critical. Be sure to follow these best practices to ensure your LinkedIn company page is effective.

Optimize your page for search engines

As tempting as it may be to jump right to publishing tips for your company page, you don’t want to neglect the page itself. Companies are now using their company landing page on LinkedIn as a place to showcase their expertise, recent news and culture. Think of your company page as an extension of your website—where you want the same branding and tone to come through as it might be a potential candidate or prospect’s first impression of your business. Don’t rush through page set-up, rather build it strategically, and make sure you revisit the content and images quarterly to ensure it’s up to date.

Here are a few things to remember as you get started:

• Google will show previews of your company page text up to 156 characters, so begin your company description with keywords and readability in mind.
• The LinkedIn search tool allows users to type in keywords and phrases when looking for something or someone on the site. Take advantage of this by including keyword phrases, industry terminology, product information, etc. to make it easy for potential customers to find your company page.
• Forming a cohesive and recognizable brand identity is important. Be sure to use logos and header images that tie into those being used on your website and other social media platforms.
• Pages with complete profile information get 30% more weekly views, according to LinkedIn, so be sure to fill out every content area in the About section of your profile to optimize for searchability.

Provide updates regularly

One of the biggest conundrums of the social media marketer is deciding how many times to post to a particular platform. You don’t want to post too frequently and annoy followers but posting too little will result in low engagement.

So, what’s the magic number? LinkedIn suggests posting at least weekly to see a lift in engagement – as long as you’re posting the right content.

What is “the right content?” This boils down to publishing custom content geared towards your target audience that contains rich media such as images, videos, and documents.

Before you post, think carefully and remember that professionals use LinkedIn to bolster their professional lives, increase productivity, or learn something to help themselves or their company become more successful. According to research from LinkedIn, 6 out of 10 LinkedIn users are most interested in reading posts about industry insights and thought leadership content. Company news is the second most popular type of content followed by updates about new products or services.

Here are a few more insights from LinkedIn research to help you make the most of your posts:

• LinkedIn reports the most usage Monday through Friday in the morning and midday.
• Similar to other social channels, video is growing in popularity as one of the top ways to consume information. Keep it short (1-2 minutes) and include subtitles (many watch with the sound off), but most importantly, make it authentic.
• Include links and images in all of your updates. Links have been shown to receive up to 45% more engagement than those without links, and images tend to result in 2x higher comment rates.
• A new addition to LinkedIn in 2019 is Documents – where you can share PDFs, slides, papers or reports directly on your feed. It’s a way to bring to life the unique insights and information your company provides, both visually and conversationally, directly on your feed.

Get company employees involved

With LinkedIn, it’s especially important to get your colleagues involved in sharing your company content. Having your employees share your content increases your company’s reach and engagement as people tend to want to hear from other people. Fortunately, that may not be as hard as you may think since many of your employees likely have their own profiles already.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

• Many times, simply asking will spur people into action. Try sending out weekly reminders to all employees including the latest content or message to increase page activity.
• For some industries, LinkedIn can be a strong sales tool as those salespeople who regularly share content are 45% more likely to exceed quota. Engage your sales team by having them contribute in the content planning and development process so they are more inclined to share the content when it goes live on your page or site. (Also, don’t forget about LinkedIn Sales Navigator for outbound sales.)
• Create a challenge in which you monitor engagement: the employee who engages with the company page the most over the course of a month gets a prize.
• Send out an email when there is a particularly important page update you’d like everyone to share.

Promote your LinkedIn Company Page

If you’re using social media for business marketing, simply setting up a company page is not enough; after all, nobody can follow it if they’re unaware it exists. While putting out a press release announcing to the world that you’re on LinkedIn might be a bit much, you can easily promote the company page with a “follow us” button on your website, email signature, newsletters, email blasts, blog, etc.

Run ads to amplify your efforts

Now that you’re LinkedIn company page is optimized, your feed is fresh with content, and your employees are engaged, the final step is to reach beyond your network to engage new candidates and prospects. LinkedIn ads have come a long way in the past few years—with Sponsored Content, Dynamic Ads, Text Ads, and Message Ads (many refer to as InMail)—there is an ad format (and the robust targeting to go with it) for any campaign objective, just give it a try!

One last note

While these best practices will get you well on your way to LinkedIn social media marketing success, it’s important to always listen to your followers, track your metrics, and make strategy adjustments to further define and personalize the way your company uses LinkedIn. Happy posting!

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