We know that the key to success on LinkedIn is through personal profiles. Sellers who engage with decision-makers and build relationships close more deals than those who adopt a connect-and-pitch approach. But, we aren’t talking about social selling today, we are talking about how to grow your company page.
#1 Use your Lead Form
You can add a lead form by editing your company page.
If you are focused on building your following you can capture leads and enquiries using this simple form which displays when your page is visited.
The important thing is to go in and regularly download them so your sales team can follow up.
#2 Hashtags
Be careful which hashtags you use on your LinkedIn content. For example, I avoid using #LinkedInTraining and #SocialSelling because I don’t want my posts to be seen in those feeds. Typically those hashtags are dominated by LinkedIn trainers. I focus on using hashtags where my prospects hang out, like #manufacturing #leadership #technology. So choose the right hashtags to get your content in front of the right people.
Also, don’t makeup hashtags, search and find the ones which have a following in the 10K or more range.
#3 Avoid External Links
If you push people away from your page too much it will damage your engagement. This can then start a downward spiral in your visibility and engagement.
There are two reasons why external links can harm your company page.
- Users don’t tend to engage with the post after they click the link. This limits the reach of the post
- LinkedIn isn’t so happy if you send people off the platform and so often doesn’t provide any benefit to your post, even if you increase the dwell time.
#4 Watch your propaganda
We all want to land our marketing message through our company page, but it can also impact the success of our LinkedIn content strategy. Your content needs to be a mix of content that is promotional, adding value and engaging.
- Polls, memes and human content help engagement
- How-to’s, tutorials and explainers – add value
- Call links, lead magnets, and direct CTAs drive conversion.
The key is to not overuse conversion content as the engagement will always be lower.
20% of your content should be conversion.
#5 The first 2 hours matter
When you post on your Company Page, the first 2 hours are critical to success. Success is judged not by substance, or visual awesomeness, but by dwell time, comments, likes and reposts – in that order. Dwell time is top of the tree and reposts are bottom.
So, telling the whole company to repost isn’t the best idea. Weirdly, asking people to read the post and comment makes a bigger impact.
The success of your post is determined by the algorithm in the first 2 hours based on the metrics above. Getting engagement early makes a huge difference.
#6 Don’t look like an Ad
One of the downsides of a consistent brand image in our modern social media world is that consistent branding can confuse people. Yep, I said that. It can confuse people in two ways. First, it looks like an ad, having a consistent style can make everything look the same. Second, it can trick people into thinking they’ve already seen your post, so they browse past it.
This is the big dilemma for marketers as we know brand is important, but social media and its more ‘home-made-ness’ actually is more effective for stopping people from scrolling through their feed.
#7 Make your visuals TALLER
This is a really simple one. Make your videos and images taller. It makes it harder to scroll past them, giving you more opportunities to get attention in the feed.
The optimum size is 1350px high x 1080px wide.
For videos, make them square 1080px x 1080px or portrait 1920px x 1080px.
#8 Use LinkedIn Live
One of the common issues is keeping your content visible to your followers. This is an issue across every platform.
LinkedIn has some great features to help you keep your page engaging and in your followers’ worlds.
LinkedIn Live is one of them. When you go live, LinkedIn sends a push notification to your audience. This has the effect of drawing people back to the page. Unlike conventional content which can get missed, this is powerful in giving your page an injection of new life.
When I work with clients to build their brand and presence, we build a live into their schedule and their engagement grows, following grows and overall engagement improves.
Live is a great way to keep people engaged.
#9 Leverage the Newsletter
LinkedIn’s newsletter feature is awesome, especially for Company Pages. First off, the newsletter feature on average has a 20% subscribe rate. The newsletter feature is an evolution of the article feature allowing you to get subscribers to a series of articles and get more reach on long-form written content.
So, why would you want to create a newsletter?
Well, LinkedIn ingeniously, made the newsletter feature one of the marketer’s best tools on LinkedIn. LinkedIn helps you convert followers into subscribers by suggesting it to your followers – that’s how you get your 20% sign-up rate.
When you publish your newsletter, your subscribers get a notification and LinkedIn sends them a copy by email. It’s a great way to drive engagement and keep your page and content in the feeds of your followers.
Your newsletter doesn’t need to be an article, you can embed videos, blog summaries and hyperlinks. It’s pretty versatile and I know a lot of people who use them as roundups with multiple content pieces embedded.
It’s a game-changer for Company Pages.
#10 Hold back the value for 20 seconds
This is a simple one. If you want more reach and visibility on your Company Page content, do this one simple thing.
Delay the delivery of the value until 20 seconds into the post.
Every post should have a point. Otherwise, it’s just drivel to fill the feed.
If you want your posts to get more traction, don’t deliver the substance of your post – the value too soon. Remember, dwell time is top of the tree.
So, whether it is a video or written post, tease the value, but don’t deliver the value until they have read 60 words or watched 20 seconds. It’s a simple tactic, but it will increase the visibility, reach and engagement of your content.