5 tips for creating and maintaining a LinkedIn for your business

Nearly every company knows they should  have a LinkedIn company presence. But many struggle to maximize its effectiveness.

Your business might be in the same boat.

Let’s talk about some easy steps you can take to make your LinkedIn company page and overall presence as dynamic and effective as possible.

First, however, let’s identify the biggest challenge facing companies like yours.

A Common Enemy

Far too many companies create a LinkedIn profile page and leave it orphaned and floating in digital limbo. What could have become a valuable marketing and business development tool devolves into a static directory listing that checks a box but doesn’t generate results.

Organizations don’t orphan their LinkedIn company profile pages intentionally. Rather, many businesses lack the time and people power to make LinkedIn—and social media in general—work for them. These businesses have multiple higher priorities and staff members wearing many hats.

There’s just no time.

And even if that time existed, many companies struggle to develop and implement a cohesive, company-wide LinkedIn strategy.

What we’ve found at many organizations is awareness that they need a LinkedIn profile page and presence (that’s good) along with a lack of consistent follow through for the reasons listed above. (that’s not so good but solvable.)

Let’s discuss five simple and efficient ways your company can bring its orphaned LinkedIn Profile page back into the fold to produce tangible results.

Tip #1: It’s Alive!

Dr. Frankenstein said it best when his creation came to life.

The first step to improving LinkedIn effectiveness is understanding the nature of LinkedIn and social media overall. These outlets act like living organisms. They change. They connect. They evolve and devolve. They are communal. They live and die in the digital world.

• A first step to getting more out of your LinkedIn presence is recognizing that LinkedIn and social media pages and sites need to be nurtured to stay healthy and productive
• When you recognize that your LinkedIn company profile can be a living, dynamic and impactful marketing and sales tool it’s easier to dedicate internal or even external resources to make it succeed and keep it thriving
• Generating results and wins via LinkedIn will justify resource and labor allocation to this task and also provide satisfaction to the team member/s and/or outside agency acting as the administrator

Say no more to dead digital brochures and stagnant, “ghost town” web pages.

Embrace your inner Dr. Frankenstein: experiment, create and send your creation out into the world.

Dr. Frankenstein was not so good at the nurturing part, but I’m sure you and your team can do better.

Tip #2: Feed Me!

Like any living thing, your company LinkedIn profile needs sustenance. You need to feed it, which will lead to increased engagement, an expanded network and higher profile thought leadership positioning in your market space.

What does your LinkedIn profile need to thrive? Here are its favorite foods:

• A high-res, high-quality logo, a compelling banner image and a fully completed company description (use every character available)
• A company description rich with Vitamin-SEO (copy driven by high-opportunity keywords)
• A LinkedIn follow button on your website and other social media outlets to bring in new nourishment on a regular basis
• Keep it fresh by having your LinkedIn administrator (the guy or gal with admin rights, not a full time position dedicated to this task) follow a consistent profile update schedule to refresh images and make tweaks as needed
• Take advantage of the strength of numbers by having your team contribute and drive traffic to your profile page through their own individual pages

Tip #3: Don’t Go It Alone

If you are a one-person shop, you have to do it all. You don’t have a choice.

If you’re three or five or fifteen or fifty strong, enlist your employees to be LinkedIn brand ambassadors once your company profile page is optimized. There is strength in numbers.

Here are some suggestions on how to leverage employee LinkedIn pages to help your business: 

• Inspire your team to be brand owners, not just employees. If you can get your team to genuinely become brand ambassadors on LinkedIn, there is no better fuel to increase your network reach, brand equity and lead generation.
• Make it easy for your team to participate. Create a LinkedIn guideline document to empower your team to post, share and contribute. This guide should also include best practices for their individual profile pages.
• Help team members understand that what’s good for the company brand is also good for their individual LinkedIn networking efforts. It's a win-win for the company brand and their personal brand.
• Let your team know that everyone in every position at the company has something to contribute and needs to represent the brand well for the company to grow and for individual contributors to rise to the next career level

Tip #4: No Dictators!

You need to recognize from the start that you cannot mandate how individual team members operate their LinkedIn profiles.

Their profile is their property, not the brand’s property. Employees are not obligated legally to use their own profile pages to generate brand awareness, build a network or increase leads for your organization.

That said, if you create a strategy and implement it the right way—make it easy, provide a handbook, don’t shove it down their throats and create a sense of ownership and communal benefit—most if not all of your employees will jump on board and help.

Tip #5: Ready. Set. Engage!

Everything is in place. Your profile is awesome. Your team is on board. You have a strategy and content calendar in place. You’ve allocated either internal or external resources to keep your LinkedIn and overall social media presence vibrant and responsive. Now, it’s time to start engaging your prospects, colleagues and market. Here are some ideas for how to do it right: 

• Never sell. Ever.
• Provide compelling and value-driven content on a regular basis that generates communication and increases you and your team’s position as industry-thought leaders
• Encourage your employees to join brand/industry relevant groups
• Create LinkedIn groups of your own to continue to build your network and thought-leadership status
• Build-in regular internal status meetings to analyze engagement results 
  • Talk about what’s working and what’s not
  • Identify what posts and which groups are generating results. See what messages are resonating best.
  • Make sure the LinkedIn administration work is not overwhelming
  • Then adjust your strategy to lose what’s flopped and capitalize on what’s working

The digital world, social media and even your business operate like living things that need to be cared for and nurtured on a regular basis.

Once you realize that LinkedIn and other digital platforms can be extremely productive and an economic way of generating quality leads and loyal customers if kept healthy and active, it becomes easier to make your social media strategy and its implementation a priority.

Remember, Illumine8 is here to help with expert advice or to lend a hand developing and implementing your social media strategy should you need external assistance.