In its 20th year, LinkedIn is big. It has got more than 63 million companies listed and 930 million members. It’s a growing and diverse global network of professionals either looking for work, recruiting, networking, or showcasing their strengths as businesses and individuals.
At a time when social networks i.e., Twitter, are inconsistent, LinkedIn is refreshing. Still operating on the basic premise from 20 years ago of allowing people to network with each other for business reasons, LinkedIn still works, and is growing.
From a recruitment perspective, 61 million people use LinkedIn to search for jobs each week and 8 people are hired every minute. Marketeers that use LinkedIn advertising report seeing a 33% increase in purchase intent and 2% higher conversion rates.
Even without paying for ads, organic reach on LinkedIn is favourable compared with Facebook and Instagram. 77% of content marketers cite that LinkedIn produced the best organic results.
So as marketers of course we encourage our clients to make the most out of LinkedIn. Whilst there is still such a global option that is available and producing a lot of results for people organically.
Success isn’t automatic upon joining LinkedIn however. The way to succeed on LinkedIn is using it frequently, working with the algorithm and taking advantage of applicable features.
In this article we’re going to explain how to harness the latest LinkedIn features to boost your brand, assuming you have already built a good personal profile and your company page is well populated with content.
Scheduling Posts On LinkedIn
The long-awaited feature that has finally been released, is being able to schedule posts in advance. LinkedIn now allow you to pre-publish as many posts as you want, up to three months in advance, without using a third-party scheduling tool.
This is extremely helpful especially for small companies who can’t afford large-scale third-party scheduling software. It gives them way more control, and time, back.
The scheduling feature is very simple to use and gives you the option to see your entire content calendar. At the moment, this feature is only available on desktop but will gradually be rolling out onto mobile.
If you are not already using third party software for scheduling LinkedIn posts in advance, this will help you and it is a great habit to get into. Being able to look ahead at the next three weeks or posting ahead of schedule when you’re on holiday is invaluable. This feature will be a game changer particularly for a solo marketeer with no budget for add-ons.
If you are using third-party software to schedule posts in advance, you might find this current version of the feature a bit limiting as there are some restrictions such as tagging people.
Create A LinkedIn Showcase Page
The next update is the ability to create a showcase page. A showcase page can be used as an offshoot to a normal company page, that represents a specific brand or organisation initiative.
LinkedIn specify that showcase pages are intended to develop a long-term relationship with a specific audience, and not a short-term ad campaign.
For example, if we were to create a showcase page for onefoursix, we could have one dedicated to our website design service. Although website design is part of our wider product offering, it is also a standalone service we sell. Therefore, having a showcase page dedicated to it highlights that service clearly to visitors on our company page, as an important part for offering.
Showcase pages include analytics, notifications, social media and appear in search results so it is worth looking into if you have an applicable brand or similar.
Complete The LinkedIn Completion Meter
The Completion Meter on your LinkedIn allows you to see the areas of your company page that LinkedIn wants you to complete. Although some of the sections may not be applicable to your business, LinkedIn want companies to be filling out as much information as possible. The idea is that companies who complete their pages, seem more legitimate.
LinkedIn say that complete pages are more discoverable. As a way of encouraging us to use the feature, they say that it has the potential to receive 30% more weekly views.
Basics on the completion meter include listing your industry, company size, description, logo as well as company commitments, followers, hashtags, and work e-mail verification.
Follow Other Pages As Your Organisation
A simple, but important, update is that you have now have the ability to follow other pages as your organisation page. This is an advantage because following as a company page gives your company more exposure and reduces the need for individuals to use their personal profiles for work purposes.
When you come across a page you want to follow, you will get an option to follow as yourself or as your organisation.
List Your Products On LinkedIn Product Pages
A product page, separate from your normal company or showcase page, is only available for B2B software, computer hardware, financial services, insurance, education, healthcare, and pharmaceutical companies.
Basically, if you if your company sell products, you should be able to set up this page with information on the products available. This means people can find your company on LinkedIn through searching for products.
As you know you, you can already add products as part of your experience in a profile page; this is different. Product pages enable companies or individuals to search for products they are looking for, rather than people with the skills and experience of working with those products.
If you are a product-based company, creating a product page on LinkedIn is another way people can find your company and buy your products.
Use Lead Gen Forms On LinkedIn
Lead generation forms are already available in campaign manager as an option for advertising campaigns. However, LinkedIn have recently put lead gen forms on company pages too. Members can visit a company page or showcase page and below the About section, is the opportunity to fill in a lead gen form. This allows companies to collect basic information about members who are interested in their products and the forms prepopulate with the information of the member.
This type of lead gen forms are available for all pages and you do not need to be a creator or have products to access this feature. This means a service-based company can use this feature.
Setting a leads gen form up is very easy however you will need a URL to your privacy policy as that is required. Once the leads gen form is filled in you can download the leads by going to your analytics page.
Host Audio Events On LinkedIn
Setting up an audio event on LinkedIn gives you a way of broadcasting a webinar or other live event to your followers.
All members can join audio events however you must meet certain criteria to host them. When you turn creator mode on, or try to set up an audio event, an automatic check is triggered. If approved, you can go live. Audio events are not available for pages such as company pages, it is only something personal profiles can do.
The benefit of hosting an audio event through LinkedIn is that you can set the event up and invite members through LinkedIn. With it, you get tips and guidelines on how to launch a successful audio event. This is especially valuable for anyone just starting to host events.
On top of making the most of new features when they come along, here are some general good practice tips for LinkedIn success:
- Make sure the senior leadership team have bought in and are regularly using LinkedIn
- Join groups that your target audience will be in, or where you can learn from
- Use LinkedIn ads and sponsored content to reach a specific audience
- Create consistent, educational content that aligns with both sales and marketing goals
- Aim to post at the same time and day as you usually do. It doesn’t matter as much about how often you post (although at least once a week) but stick to the same time and day.
Keep harnessing the latest LinkedIn features to boost your brand whether they are organic or paid, personal profile or company pages. The key to growing your brand on LinkedIn is making good use of the features on offer when applicable.
On Thursday 25th of May 2023 at 12pm we hosted a live webinar where we discussed some of these features and demonstrated how they can be set up live. Watch the webinar on YouTube here or below ⬇️
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