With over 750 million users worldwide, and more than 30 million companies, LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional social media network.
Whether you’re looking to position your organisation as an industry leader, support employee engagement or recruitment initiatives, there are many benefits for brands using LinkedIn. Take a look at our six top tips below.
Post varied content
With that many users and companies on LinkedIn, it can be difficult to shout above the noise and get your messages heard, so it’s important to post a variety of content to keep users interested.
Visual content is key, with LinkedIn revealing in its Pages Best Practices that posts with images typically have a 2x higher comment rate than those without, while video posts get 5x more engagement. Polls are also another great way to engage with users, as well as gaining an insight into opinions and behaviours on different, relevant topics.
The LinkedIn news feed automatically sorts content by engagement rather than date, so ensuring your posts attract reactions and comments helps to grow the reach.
Keep copy short and snappy
With LinkedIn, you can afford to be descriptive in your copy, but try to keep it short, snappy and engaging.
A study last year by Microsoft found that our average attention span is just eight seconds – one second lower than a goldfish! – compared to 12 seconds in 2012. So it’s crucial to write attention-grabbing copy.
Introduce your post with an engaging opening line, followed by a more descriptive paragraph and finally, a call to action. The latter can include things such as a question to encourage users to comment, link to your website or contact details. The tone of your copy should be professional and more formal than on other social media channels.
Use hashtags
Hashtags are not only a great way to increase your reach on LinkedIn, but also to see what other users and companies are saying about a specific topic.
A search for the hashtag #ukproperty shows that it is followed by over 5,000 members and is used by everyone from housebuilders to property investors to share news, updates, new business opportunities and more. Using a specific brand hashtag is a good way to collate your posts and make it easy for users to see what your organisation is talking about specifically. Try also using hashtags by sector, industry and location, but aim for no more than five hashtags per post.
Engage, engage, engage
LinkedIn is a two-way platform, and whilst receiving comments and reactions is great, brands should also engage with others. The reactions feature allows you to engage with posts and comments with Like, Celebrate, Support, Love, Insightful and Curious, so you can share your opinion and demonstrate passion and interest for the subject.
You can also share posts by other people and companies to your own feed and add a comment; this is a great way to share your knowledge on a topic, or simply show support for another brand or user. Another way to bolster engagement is by tagging companies and team members in posts to encourage them to engage with you.
Get organised
The key to successful social media management is to be organised. Plan your content in advance where possible, post consistently, and use a scheduling tool, like CrowdControlHQ, to keep on top of your posting schedule.
It’s also a good idea to create a yearly content calendar with key dates and events, relevant to LinkedIn users, that you can post around, such as National Apprenticeship Week and International Human Resources Day. CrowdControlHQ has a handy built-in function with important calendar dates to be aware of.
Shine a light on your team
An advantage of LinkedIn over other platforms is that it shows the faces behind the organisation. Make the most of this personal touch and ask as many team members as possible to complete their profiles on LinkedIn, to include a photo and information about their role and day-to-day activities.
It’s also beneficial to encourage employees to passionately talk about their organisation, as well as the wider industry. Sharing thoughts on pertinent issues and topics can help to establish your organisation as an industry leader and position your team as experts in their field. Employees can also reshare posts from their company’s page and add a comment with their own thoughts and perspective.
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