If you’re in business, particularly B2B, and only participate in one social media platform, LinkedIn is the place to be. Here’s why LinkedIn should play an integral role in your personal brand as well as your company brand.
LinkedIn: The biggest professional network
LinkedIn reports 400 million-plus members in over 200 countries, making it the world’s largest professional network online. Two new members sign up each second, and 40 million students and recent college grads have LinkedIn profiles. If you’re hiring millennials, it’s where you need to be.
It’s a message you can control
Next, today’s self-directed buyer spends a substantial amount of time researching you and your company long before they reach out via email or telephone.
LinkedIn gives you a place to deliver a message you can control, since you own the company page and your personal page, or those pages of your leadership team.
“Your prospective customers are just a couple clicks in a search bar away from knowing a lot about you. Or worse—knowing nothing about you,” said Peter Kim, LinkedIn’s director of sales, relationship management.
Links back to your website provide an SEO boost and help drive traffic to your site for job seekers and those who seek your products and services. Ideally your company should have a professionally written profile for each member of your leadership team.
Your personal LinkedIn profile
At a minimum, your personal LinkedIn profile must contain:
- A professional photo
- A brief personal statement of 40+ words
- Work history
- Education
- Community activities
Remember, your LinkedIn profile says something about you and your company. This is not the place for that picture your wife snapped of you at the fish camp or the professional photo from 10 years ago. If several of your executives need new photos, hire a photographer to come to your office to make the process quick and easy for everyone.
Don’t have time to create a snappy LinkedIn profile for yourself? Assign your marketing department or hire a freelance business writer to create profiles for each company leader and one for the company overall. By looking at everyone’s profile together, you can present a cohesive whole about the company’s values and its focus.
As you become a more experienced user, you can add your presentations, speeches, white papers and CV to your personal profile. You can also add skills that your colleagues and customers can endorse, helping others get a picture of your professional strengths before they meet you.
Your company’s LinkedIn profile
Your company profile page should include your company logo, a brief description, number of employees (you choose a range), press releases, blog posts and job openings. Current and past employees who list your company as an employer then link to your company page, helping boost your company in searches.
Not sold? One company, The IT Media Group reports getting 60% of its website traffic from its LinkedIn company profile page.
Once your page is established, you can post messages that promote your business or are of general interest to your niche. Check out Generational Equity’s LinkedIn profile to see an example of how dynamic a company’s profile page can be.
© 2016 Generational Equity, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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