Social Media Spotlight: LinkedIn
Not sure about LinkedIn? This professional platform is a great place to market your business to potential employees and connect with other businesses. But it can also be intimidating if you aren’t familiar with how it works and LinkedIn is so much more than a place to park your resume. Here, we cover important information about LinkedIn so you can be comfortable with marketing your business on this social media platform!
LinkedIn was officially launched on May 5, 2003 by Reid Hoffman and a team of his former colleagues. Growth was initially slow, with as little as twenty new registered users on some days. However, features such as Groups and offerings to entice small businesses helped grow the platform. With the launch of public profiles in 2006, LinkedIn began to grow as the quintessential professional online profile. By 2008 and 2009, LinkedIn hit 50 million members. By 2010, LinkedIn reached 90 million members. In July 2011, LinkedIn launched a feature allowing companies to include an “Apply with LinkedIn button on job listing pages”, and in 2012 allowed members to endorse other members’ skills. LinkedIn continued to grow as a networking and professional online profile platform, and by 2014 hit 300 million users.
LinkedIn is primarily a professional profile platform focused on building professional networks and connections. Individuals network by creating online profiles that showcase their employment history and skills. They can then connect with other individuals, expanding their network and reach. Companies can create public-facing profile pages that individuals can follow. These company pages can share information about the company, potential job opportunities, events, and other information. Individuals and companies can make posts that populate a person’s newsfeed. LinkedIn is focused on professional development over personal interests. Boasting a user base with an average income of $46,644 per year from all around the world, LinkedIn is a great social media platform to use if you want to make strong professional connections virtually. With LinkedIn, social distancing isn’t a problem, because you are networking in “the cloud!”
Marketing on LinkedIn is focused on showcasing your brand or company to prospective employees and business connections. LinkedIn is the No. 1 channel B2B marketers use to distribute content! With 51% of US college graduates using LinkedIn, and 17 million opinion leaders and 10 million C-Level executives on LinkedIn, your LinkedIn company page is often the first thing prospective collaborators will see. So, it is important to develop an engaging company page that showcases your company in the best light. To share your company page among LinkedIn users, encourage your employees and customers to connect with your company’s page. This will allow people to see the content you post on their feed. Just like other social media platforms, it is important to include images and media in your posts to increase engagement. Posts with an image included get 90% more comments! Users on LinkedIn tend to be focused on networking and making connections, so it’s more important than ever to publish valuable content such as articles or company updates, as well as blog posts or news articles that are relevant to your employees and customers.
LinkedIn also includes features that can help you market your company to potential employees and customers. Since 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn, compared to 13% from Twitter and 7% from Facebook, utilizing these features is important to build connections with other businesses and professionals. LinkedIn Groups can help you and your business network with other professionals and businesses in your field. Members in a group will often discuss industry issues, and participating in a discussion can drive views to your company page. Additionally, you can create Showcase Pages to spotlight a specific area of your business, such as any initiatives you are currently running. And, just like other social media companies, LinkedIn offers the opportunity to promote your company via LinkedIn advertisements, which can range from posts that are amplified to reach a wider audience, to messages sent via LinkedIn’s InMail system. LinkedIn also offers an analytics page for your company, making it easy to see who is engaging with your content.
Social media is becoming more and important for marketing, and LinkedIn is one of the most popular platforms for professional networking out there. Have any questions or issues with LinkedIn? If you have a small business and need help navigating LinkedIn or any other social media platform, reach out to us!