The last time I demonstrated LinkedIn company pages to a senior executive, with the goal of getting him to do it for his company, he was incredulous that it was free. He was looking for the price tag.
It’s odd that in the rush to cover all the leading social media platforms that companies have neglected LinkedIn. It offers many benefits from a business perspective, especially for business-to-business companies, and the cost is basically staff time.
A LinkedIn Company Page gives a business a sensational opportunity to promote its products and services, recruit top talent, acquire a following, and share important, interesting, and useful updates. Anyone with a company name and company email address can create a LinkedIn Company Page within minutes. The best part is that it’s free and easy. There are many available guides to doing so, here’s one from LinkedIn itself.
The basic format of a LinkedIn Company Page is an online brochure of your products and services. There are visual and attractive design options. Video and other media can be included.
Once your page is set up the fun really begins. You can post updates from your company page just as you would from a Facebook page and it’ll appear in the newsfeed of all of your followers. Employees can comment on the posts, share them in their own feeds, or also send them directly to contacts on LinkedIn. You can ask your customers to recommend your product, which will then be visible in their connections newsfeeds leading to more viral exposure.
In a B2B environment you can get the ball rolling by having your key employees link to each other and follow the page. Then perform coordinated outreach to get your key customers to also follow the page. Spread the word in your eblasts, collateral, and website. Get the virality going through an established publishing schedule.
You probably already have the content for a LinkedIn Company Page on your website and marketing materials. You can provide LinkedIn contacts for lead generation for each of your services on your page – experts on your staff handle the inquiries. Once your sales staff is inter-connected on LinkedIn you will discover a wealth of new opportunities to pursue. And that’s without looking at LinkedIn’s paid tools for sales, which can be very powerful. Customers can connect with you on the network and get a human touch. It’s a social network meant for business.
What are you waiting for?
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