engagement

Linkedin is an excellent social media for professionals. If you have a business and want to enhance it, you really should have a page on Linkedin. It’ll help you connect with people and other business that have your interests in common, allowing you to exchange information and opinions with them. This is to say, Linkedin offers us, amongst other things, new business opportunities an entire network of contacts to take advantage of. Within Linkedin there are professional profiles, group pages, and business pages, but in this article we’re going to focus on the business page and how to use it as a marketing tool. This type of business profile were made in order to show your business’s info, share changes, show new projects, and even offer someone a job. Once you’ve created your business page following the steps on Linkedin, go ahead and start with the most important thing: adding content. It’s not good enough to create it and just leave it. If you really want this tool to grow you business and take it to the next level, you ought  to dedicate some time and make it part of the day to day for your business. The goal here is that you yourself, or a specialized company, insures that you profile demonstrates to the world the essence of your business, your values and your philosophy. In order to do this, here’s a list of recommendations that can help you to take your first steps in the professional social media.   Planning and publishing Create a posting schedule. This lets your followers know what to expect and means they’ll come back at the same time to see what’s new. Keeping your company’s profile up to date is very important, but don’t overwhelm your followers. Linkedin users usually check in in the morning or right after work. Don’t add more than two posts a day. You can publish as you want, but posting at least once per week will keep your profile useful. Your followers will become familiar with your business. You should typically follow a schedule, but also take a proactive stance in the case that there are new events and news that didn’t make the calendar. Be sure to space your posts throughout the week and leave room for your own content. Take the time once a week to share a recent endeavor, a notable service you offer, or one of your latest projects. Focus on what your business focuses on, and demonstrate that what you do is great.   Short and interesting content Your posts should have short titles and concise and interesting content. It is not okay to copy and paste content from another site. If your audience has already read the content elsewhere, they’re not going to read yours. Try to make the subject matter unique and interesting, what you would want to read. Also, add interactivity for the user, like links, graphics, Youtube videos, and appealing images. As we imagine you know, it’s important to have these elements in order to raise your audience’s engagement and participation. A tip: videos increase sharing by 75%. The image you show Linkedin users will be your cover letter, so it should be attractive, unique, and dynamic. Set yourself apart from the rest of the competition. To be afraid to be a little risky, without losing the essence of your business. Listen to your audience Ask interesting questions about new products, services, projects, or trends in your field. Posts with questions have 50% more comments, so be sure you’re asking your audience questions, and that they’re the right ones. Give some feedback to you followers who answer the questions, and to those who share your content. If there’s a useful comment, let them know and thank them for it. In some instances, you’ll have to delete inappropriate comments in order to maintain professionalism on your page, though Linkedin isn’t as prone to this type of conduct as other non-professional social medias.   Asking a good question is complicated and sometimes doesn’t work as expected. So be sure to experiment with your audience. Try different types of questions: inspirational, informative, entertaining, emotional, or some mix. Compare the results and you’ll find the secret formula.   Careful with Hypertargeting Your content should be interesting enough that you can consume it quickly. Focus it on your target audience but be careful: don’t over-focus your posts so that you’re hypertargeting and losing other audience members. There are times you’ll want to target the audience more. For example, when your company is doing an event or a new project in a specific place. Don’t close doors on yourself.   Analyze your successes Learn to use all the analysis tools on Linkedin in order to discover which posts have been most successful. Analyze audience tendency, the type of content, the time of day, and post frequence. All this information let’s you craft a content strategy that gives the audience what they want to read, when they want to read it. Go out and get followers Strength in numbers. Share your business’s content with friends, acquaintances, and professional connections on your personal Linkedin, amplifying their reach. And if you get them to share it, even better. If you do it well, you’ll get 30% more views on your posts. Using Youtube videos double the shares, so search through that infinite catalogue and give your followers the most interesting audiovisual content. People are the life of your business. So you should involve your company’s employees. Have their professional profiles optimized, updates, and linked to your business profile. They should be proud to belong and help you get more visibility. Leave a trail to your business profile. Have links to your Linkedin in your reference sites, like a blog or website, including other social medias that you’re active on. This way, you’ll secure as much traffic as possible. Join relevant groups or even your client’s groups. Participate in discussion and jump on the opportunity to help and collaborate with others. One last push Some investment never hurt. Sponsor your most successful posts. You already know it’s good, now let the rest of the world know. The sponsorship tools Linkedin offers include detailed statistics on sponsored posts. This information will help you adjust your target and make the most of you investment. Remember, life is too short to wait for long term results. If you let yourself give this extra push to your Linkedin growth, you business will grow right alongside it.   All these tips should help you get your business’s image up on Linkedin, optimized to the max. Consider that during 2015 Linkedin was the online tool that affected the business and employment world the most. In Spain alone, 68% of the internet said they use it to search for jobs and find companies that hire their services. You can’t stay out of this scene. If you don’t have time, you can always use a company that manages social media profiles and use that to put your business on the Linkedin map forever.   Main photo: Daniel von Appen