Today, I want to focus on some things that you can and should be doing with your LinkedIn profile before you start to advertise on the platform.
According to LinkedIn, there are more than 500 million members on the site with more than 60 million senior-level influencers and more than 40 million decision-makers engaged on the platform. It’s clearly the place to find the prospects you covet most.
But with most good things, it’s important do it right. Here are some things to consider before shining the spotlight on your profile.
Optimize Your Company Page for Key Phrases and Content That Matters to Your Target Audience
Your LinkedIn Company Page will provide lots of opportunities for prospects to learn more about your company and engage with relevant content. Optimize your Company Page for search to gain visibility with the people searching for topics or services that are relevant to your brand.
Dust off the list of important SEO and paid search terms and incorporate as many of them into your Company Page content as possible. Don’t go overboard, your Page should contain interesting content and clearly articulate who you are and what you do. But including words or phrases that your potential prospects use when searching on the platform will go a long way toward increasing your organic traffic and creating relevancy.
Creating links to your Company Page is essential for boosting search rank as well. It’s a good idea to create links to your Company Page from your website, blog, and any other marketing materials that you distribute.
Finally, the best way to improve rankings and visibility is to share quality content that engages your audience on a regular basis. When you regularly produce or share content that your followers engage with, your Company Page will appear in search results more often. More on that in a moment…
Add Company Page Followers
Before you drive traffic and interest in your brand through paid channels, it’s a good idea to have as many followers as possible. You want new visitors to your profile to see you as well-connected in your industry, or as an authority figure. This is also how you will extend your reach on the platform. When people follow your Company Page, updates that you post appear directly in their LinkedIn feed. The more Company Page followers you have, the higher the reach potential of each update you publish.
If your goal is to generate leads and raise brand awareness, develop a list of target companies, influencers or people that you want to become prospects. Define their general demographics (region, industry, company size, job titles, etc.) and start to understand what content is most interesting, relevant and useful to them. Then…
Publish Engaging Content on Your Company Page
Sounds simple, right? Well, content is an art form and I’m certainly not going to cover it all here. But the objective here is to produce and curate content that your audience finds engaging. It’s important that you have a good mix of content. On LinkedIn, people are constantly being pitched so you want to take the time to establish an online rapport or relationship with your audience.
People invest a lot of time on LinkedIn, so it’s a great opportunity to develop content that addresses and solves pain points. Or, offer your take on news and trends in your industry. Content that help people perform their jobs better, answers questions or shows how your products and approach solves their problems almost always gets noticed.
If you really want to crush this idea, create videos. LinkedIn favors video content (as of now) and typically gives it more reach than other traditional means.
Don’t think that you have to do it alone. It’s a great idea to share other valuable content with your followers, too. Again, it’s all about having a good content mix.
According to LinkedIn, 74% of prospects choose the company that was first to help them along their buyer’s journey. Even if it’s not your content, but you are making those initial connections and defining your company’s vision and values with your target audience, sharing others’ perspectives can be a powerful way to help build your brand and establish relationships with key decision makers.
Now, Sponsor Your Best Content or Make Your Best Offer
Now that you’re Company Page has a decent following, engagement is happening and the content is useful and flowing, it’s time to start taking your message to the masses. Identify posts with high engagement and consider sponsoring it directly in the LinkedIn feeds of the professionals you want to reach on LinkedIn. This is where LinkedIn can really shine.
Not sure how to target your audience with LinkedIn Ads? Check out LinkedIn Targeting – How to Create Targeted Audiences That Scale to get started.