A smarter way to manage your LinkedIn Page
Introducing LinkedIn's Showcase Pages: A New Place to Promote Your Products and Sub-Brands.
When you follow a brand on LinkedIn, are you interested in every product they sell? Probably not -- chances are, you're interested in one aspect of the brand or its products, but you decide to put up with the irrelevant information in your news feed just because the payoff when you receive relevant content is worth it.
Fast-forward to a few months down the road. You're annoyed because you're receiving the 1,000th irrelevant post in your news feed. You've had enough. You go to unfollow that brand right this instant.
That's an all-to-common occurrence on LinkedIn. Even if marketers used LinkedIn's post targeting feature to make certain content and topics available to people in their news feed, people could still see untargeted messages on the company's page. Not quite the most personalized and interesting experience for your followers.
So you can understand how pumped we are to hear that LinkedIn rolled out a brand new feature that solves these problems. This morning, LinkedIn introduced "Showcase Pages" for brands -- basically, a niche Company Page that your followers can opt in to learn more about a certain product or sub-brand.
If you're interested in creating a Showcase Page for your company, know that each company can create up to 10 Showcase Pages -- and it's all free. You should be able to create one for your page over the next few days -- LinkedIn is slowly rolling them out to all users. And once your page is all set up, you can track its success with LinkedIn's built-in analytics program.
When you follow a brand on LinkedIn, are you interested in every product they sell? Probably not -- chances are, you're interested in one aspect of the brand or its products, but you decide to put up with the irrelevant information in your news feed just because the payoff when you receive relevant content is worth it.
Fast-forward to a few months down the road. You're annoyed because you're receiving the 1,000th irrelevant post in your news feed. You've had enough. You go to unfollow that brand right this instant.
That's an all-to-common occurrence on LinkedIn. Even if marketers used LinkedIn's post targeting feature to make certain content and topics available to people in their news feed, people could still see untargeted messages on the company's page. Not quite the most personalized and interesting experience for your followers.
So you can understand how pumped we are to hear that LinkedIn rolled out a brand new feature that solves these problems. This morning, LinkedIn introduced "Showcase Pages" for brands -- basically, a niche Company Page that your followers can opt in to learn more about a certain product or sub-brand.
If you're interested in creating a Showcase Page for your company, know that each company can create up to 10 Showcase Pages -- and it's all free. You should be able to create one for your page over the next few days -- LinkedIn is slowly rolling them out to all users. And once your page is all set up, you can track its success with LinkedIn's built-in analytics program. So these features are all exciting and wonderful, but what does this new feature really mean for marketers? Should you really jump on this new feature right now?
Showcase Pages = Company Pages on Inbound Overdrive.
This feature is a great improvement for brands with distinct and very different buyer personas that require fairly different content strategies. It's really an extension of the rest of your inbound efforts -- with Showcase Pages, superfans can opt in to certain products or sectors of your business.
More relevant opt-in choices for your subscribers means more relevant content in their news feed, which means potentially higher engagement metrics down the road. Solving for the needs of your customer and your business? Yeah, we're okay with any features that help accomplish both.
The only worry we see on the horizon is that maintaining these Showcase Pages could be hard -- you're already stretched thin across several different social networks, so adding another profile page to the mix might not be easy. Hopefully, LinkedIn will make it easy for third-party social media tools to publish to Showcase Pages -- and make it much easier for you to organize and schedule content.
It's important to note here that not all brands will need Showcase Pages. Sometimes, simple is better. If you have one or two audiences with similar behaviors and interests, it's probably best to stick with a Company Page. It'll be better for your audience and better for your business to not overcomplicate your marketing message. But, if you have very distinct and separate products with separate audiences, Showcase Pages are a new feature you should definitely think about implementing. While LinkedIn may be seen as a place for recent graduates and job seekers to identify potential job opportunities, it’s also a place for brands and businesses to actively engage.
With over 433 million users (and growing!), having an active and optimized Company Page is essential. You won’t want to create your Company Page and then just forget about it.
Building a strong presence on LinkedIn is essential for creating relationships and engaging conversations with prospects, customers, and even job seekers. LinkedIn Company Pages aren’t just for branding, but rather a hub where professionals can interact with your company and brand.
Highlight Business Entities with a Showcase Page
Does your company have more than one brand, business entity, or even initiative? If so, Showcase Pages are something you’ll definitely want to take advantage of.
With dedicated pages for a particular aspect of your business, you’re able to drive engagement and craft messages specifically for that audience and segment.
Companies effectively using Showcase Pages include:
- Procter and Gamble - Crest + Oral-B
- Microsoft - Office / Skype for Business
- Salesforce - Salesforce for Developers / Dreamforce
So, what exactly can you do with Showcase Pages and how are they different from traditional Company Pages?
A Showcase Page is a subpage of your Company Page, that allows you to promote specific products or services to a very specific audience.
Think of it as a mini Company Page - with its own followers and status updates. (Yes, people can follow Showcase Pages independently of your Company Page.)
Showcase Pages are especially useful to companies that offer many niche services or products. A good example is Google -- they aren’t just a search engine; they also offer additional platforms and services like Google Adwords, Google for Work, Think with Google, Google Small Business, and even Google Consumer Surveys.
Looking at those segments of their company, you might be targeting very different audiences.
If your audience only wants to know more about Google for Work and how they can help their organization collaborate and improve productivity that’s the page they’ll want to follow, whereas an up and coming small business will be more likely to follow Google Small Business.
You’re able to give your audience the content they’re looking for, without them having to search through your entire newsfeed.
The main differences between Showcase Pages and Company Pages are:
- Showcase Pages have large hero images, giving you more space to use imagery to capture your audience’s attention, making it feel more like a news feed.
- Two-column layout for posts
- Links directly to your Company Page as well as additional Showcase Pages
Share Content and Engage with Your Audience
Make users want to follow and engage with your company by creating useful, meaningful, and interesting content they will want to read.
Since you’re already creating relevant content pertaining to your audience’s needs, use your Company Page as a hub for sharing that content beyond your website.
Aim to post at least one update a week in order for your page to stay current. It’s not about seeing which company can post the most updates, but rather whether or not you’re providing your audience with quality content and actually engaging.
Like every other social platform, LinkedIn is a place for your brand to start conversations with your followers and add to others. With that in mind, don’t continuously post your latest blog post over and over, consider asking questions or sharing company wins.
Simply posting content isn’t the only way you can generate conversations and even leads.
Some other tips to remember when posting to LinkedIn:
Do you have an offer, piece of content, or company news story you really want your audience to see? Just like Facebook and Twitter, pin it to the top of your recent updates section, making it visible to those visiting your page.
Another tactic you can implement across your website to direct people to your Company Page is by adding a follow button to your pages.
And, don’t forget to add relevant images to your posts, we all know how effective an image is at capturing someone’s attention.
Make Your Page Keyword Friendly & Optimized for Search
As great as social media is for driving traffic and boosting engagement, it also plays a big role in SEO -- and LinkedIn is no different.
It all starts with a helpful company overview description that speaks directly to the audience visiting your page.
Whether it’s prospects, job seekers, fellow thought leaders, or even existing customers, you’ll want to tailor your description to get found quickly.
Google also features the first 156 characters of your description as a preview in search so make sure that it includes keywords your audiences are actually searching.
Utilize the Careers Tab to Target Prospective Job Candidates
Before I get too far ahead of myself and start talking about everything you can do with the careers tab, I have to mention that you’ll need a paid subscription.
Similar to a Showcase Page, a careers page lets you talk about your company’s culture as well as recent company news updates. You even have the ability to highlight testimonials from various members of your team.
Companies with really great career pages include:
A few things that HubSpot does on their career page that are worth noting: they’ve featured their culture code that was embedded from Slideshare, as well as a link to their Instagram page where you can see what it’s like to work at the compan
Capture Attention with an Eye-Catching Cover Image
What does your audience see immediately when they’ve landed on your company page?
Just like any other social media network, your company should have a fantastic cover image. It’s the first thing many people see, use it to your advantage. Use it to highlight products, upcoming events, your team, and even campaigns.
Having the same photo can make your page feel stale, so try to update it as regularly as possible.
So, how does your company page compare? Use the tips mentioned above to start optimizing your LinkedIn efforts to establish your presence and generate B2B leads. Here are 20 terrific LinkedIn Company Pages that are already successfully doing the same. One thing that I absolutely love about Four Seasons LinkedIn page is that they aren’t focused on pushing their hotel at you or the experience you can get there. Rather the accomplishments of their team members and the company as a whole are the star.
Whether you’re an avid Evernote user or considering making the switch, their LinkedIn page features content highlighting their software’s features as well as tips to help you improve productivity. They also have a ton of interactions from their followers and utilize Showcase Pages to highlight Evernote Business. A campaign that HP continues to highlight on their LinkedIn page is keep reinventing, which is focusing on the company’s motto to “create technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere.”
Like Evernote, HP also utilizes the Showcase Pages to feature segments like HP Labs, HP Software, and HP Developers.
LinkedIn for Business: The Ultimate Marketing Guide
With 562 million users, LinkedIn is all about building networks and connections. It’s not only about who you know, but about who your connections know.
That’s the real power of LinkedIn for business: the ability to tap into existing connections and grow your brand through word-of-mouth. It’s also the top-rated social network for lead generation.
If your LinkedIn marketing strategy is limited to a personal profile—especially one with an out-of-date, bare-bones resume—it’s time to up your game. You need a detailed Company Page if you want to grow your audience and drive business results.
In fact, according to insights provided to Hootsuite from LinkedIn, completed Company Pages generally receive twice as many visitors than those with incomplete pages. And organizations that post at least monthly generally gain followers six times faster than those that don’t.
How to set up a LinkedIn Company Page
A Company Page helps LinkedIn members learn about your business, your brand, and job opportunities with your company. Company Pages are also a great way to establish industry expertise. For example, Hootsuite’s LinkedIn page has more than 190,000 followers tuned in to the valuable and timely content we share—and that’s not including the 1.3 million people that follow CEO Ryan Holmes’ thought leadership articles.
LinkedIn Company Pages used to be viewed primarily as HR landing pages for brands. Though this is still one way to use LinkedIn, the network is also becoming the perfect place to drive business results, raise brand awareness, promote career opportunities, and educate potential customers on your products and services. Rich content and compelling status updates can help to establish your brand as a leader in your industry.
Here’s how to set up a LinkedIn Company Page for your business. Note that if you don’t have an existing personal LinkedIn profile, you’ll need to set one up before creating a page for your company. If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile yet, set one up by following our detailed instructions and return to this post once you’re done.
Encourage your employees to connect with your company’s LinkedIn Page
Your colleagues and employees are your best resources to start growing an audience: according to LinkedIn, employees have on average 10 times more first-degree connections than a company has followers, and companies with a strong employee advocacy program in place are 58 percent more likely to attract top talent—and 20 percent more likely to retain them.
Employees are your biggest advocates, and by adding them as followers you also tap into each of their networks, expanding your reach tremendously. Encourage employees to add their position at your company to their LinkedIn profiles. Your Company Page will then be linked from their profiles, and their profiles will in turn appear on your Company Page.
Publish valuable content
The best way to grow your audience and keep your followers is to provide them with value by posting articles or company updates on a regular basis: LinkedIn recommends at least once per weekday. In addition to appearing on your Company Page, your posts appear in each of your followers’ news feeds.
If you know of a blog post or a news article from an external source that would benefit your followers, you can share that, too. Even if the content doesn’t originate from your team, it will show that you have your ear to the ground in your industry. This can also help foster important connections with other thought leaders. Be sure to provide value and context to your post when sharing—don’t just copy-and-paste the URL.
To share more in-depth expertise, try publishing articles on the LinkedIn publishing platform. Rather than sharing content from other networks or your website, you can create and publish articles within the LinkedIn ecosystem. You can’t publish articles directly from your Company Page, but the leadership team or key faces at your company can publish articles from their LinkedIn profiles and can help boost your company’s presence on the network.
Make sure you’re familiar with practices for sharing content on LinkedIn, outlined in the video below, before getting started.
Include rich media
Yes, LinkedIn is business-first, but you still need to make your content stand out from the crowd—and text-only posts are not the way to do that. LinkedIn figures show that posts with an image included get 98 percent more comments.
If you have a YouTube channel, try linking to your videos from LinkedIn. While other social channels require you to upload native videos for autoplay, on LinkedIn, YouTube videos play automatically in the news feed, and can generate a 75 percent higher share rate.
Take advantage of LinkedIn Groups
Being an active participant in a LinkedIn Group can help you and your business network with other professionals and businesses in your field, especially those outside of your immediate circle of current and present colleagues, classmates, and employers. Participating in a Group discussion will also attract views to your Company Page.
To find a group with interests that align with your business goals, use the search feature at the top of your LinkedIn homepage or check out LinkedIn’s suggestions with Groups discover. You can also create a new Group based on whatever topic or industry you’d like.
If you belong to an association, check to see if it has a members-only LinkedIn Group, which can be a valuable source of professional networking and development. The American Institute of CPAs, for instance, sponsors a LinkedIn Group with more than 69,000 members, where in-depth professional conversations can continue for months .If you create a group or join a group that you want to showcase, you can add it as a featured group on your company page. To do so, click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn Page, then choose your company page under the Manage section.
Select the Overview tab from the top menu, then scroll down to Featured groups. Start typing in the name of your group and it should auto-complete. You can add up to three featured groups to your company page.
Try Showcase Pages
Showcase Pages function like subdomains of your Company Page, allowing you to spotlight specific areas of your business, like a particular brand or ongoing initiative.
LinkedIn members can choose to follow one or more of your Spotlight Pages if they’re particularly interested in a specific aspect of your company. You can create up to 10 Showcase Pages by default. If you need more, you’ll need to submit a support request to LinkedIn.
To create a Showcase page, click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn Page, then choose your company page under the Manage section. While the main Adobe LinkedIn Company Page has 887,000 followers, the Showcase Pages have follower counts ranging between 5,000 and 64,000. Those are much smaller numbers, but the Showcase Page followers are getting updates and information about the specific elements of the Adobe portfolio that they’re interested in—so these are valuable relationships to foster.
Go global with multi-language tools
If you have customers—or want to have customers—in countries where English is not the primary language, you can create custom descriptions of your company in 20 different languages. The appropriate description will appear for each LinkedIn member based on the language settings they have chosen to use when viewing the network. You can set your company name to appear in these languages as well.
When you publish content and updates, you can post in different languages and configure the settings so that your global followers see your content in their chosen language. This is a great way to build credibility with LinkedIn’s international members and show that you care about working with them in a way that puts their needs first.
Understand the LinkedIn algorithm
While most other social networks keep their algorithm secrets closely guarded, LinkedIn provides quite a bit of information about how its algorithm works. Here’s how the algorithm rates and ranks your content, in a nutshell.
1. A bot evaluates your content as spam, low-quality, or clear. The takeaway? Quality is important, as you obviously want to aim for the clear ranking here.
2. The algorithm measures initial user engagement. Is your post getting likes and shares? Good. Are users hiding it from their feeds or marking it as spam? Whoops, not so good. Again, quality is key, but so is relevance. Make sure your posts speak to your followers, giving them reasons to engage with rather than hide your content.
3. The algorithm does some further checks for spam and credibility based on the quality of your account and your network. Engagement is also very important in this stage.
4. Human editors review content and determine whether it should continue to be displayed, or even boosted.
Of course, it’s not always quite that simple. For more details and strategies for making the most of the LinkedIn algorithm, check out our post How the LinkedIn Algorithm Works (And How to Make it Work for You).
Incorporate LinkedIn ads
LinkedIn members provide the network with detailed information about their professional interests, associations, and skills. That means LinkedIn has exceptional targeting capabilities, allowing you to make laser-focused strategic decisions about incorporating LinkedIn ads into your social media marketing strategy.
LinkedIn offers several different self-service advertising solutions. Here’s a quick overview:
- Sponsored content: Amplify your content to reach a wider audience than you could organically and draw new eyeballs to your Company Page.
- Text Ads: These are pay-per-click or CPM ads that appear on the LinkedIn homepage, profile pages, Groups pages, search results pages, and more.
- Sponsored InMail: Similar to email marketing, but within the LinkedIn ecosystem. Sponsored InMail allows you to send personalized ads to LinkedIn members’ inboxes. Messages are only delivered when members are active on LinkedIn, making them likely to be noticed.
Utah State University’s Jon M. Huntsman School of Business used LinkedIn Sponsored InMail ads as part of a campaign to attract qualified candidates to its MBA program. Using precise targeting, Utah State achieved a 27.5 percent open rate on its Sponsored InMail messages and a 71 percent conversion rate for requests for information.
These are just the self-serve ad options. LinkedIn also offers advertising products that you can purchase through an ad platform, or through a LinkedIn marketing partner. You can find all the details in our Guide to LinkedIn Ads.
Learn from LinkedIn Analytics
LinkedIn’s research shows that posts tend to get the most engagement in the morning, followed by posts published after business hours. This is a good starting point when planning your publishing schedule, but what works for the average business may not work best for yours.
Fortunately, LinkedIn offers detailed analytics to help you learn what kind of content your followers are most likely to engage with, understand your follower demographics, and track traffic and activity on your company page.
Here’s how to access LinkedIn Analytics for your Company Page:
Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn Page, then choose your company page under the Manage section. Click the Analytics tab and choose Visitors, Updates, or Followers.
Tracking who is visiting your Company Page—and how they interact with your content once they get there—will allow you to tweak your LinkedIn for business strategy based on real data, maximizing the effectiveness of this important business social network.
For more details on LinkedIn Analytics, visit our LinkedIn Analytics Guide for Marketers.
For more key ways to take advantage of LinkedIn for business, check out our post on how to give your business a LinkedIn makeover. The tips are hugely valuable even if you’re just starting out using LinkedIn for business purposes.
Above all, remember that LinkedIn is a professional network that allows you to build credibility, create a meaningful network, and glean insider expertise from established experts in your industry. It’s a valuable tool in your social marketing arsenal, so make sure you’re using every opportunity it provides.
Easily manage your LinkedIn Company Page alongside your other social channels using Hootsuite. From a single platform you can schedule and share content—including video—and engage your network. Try it today.
CRISTIANO MABUNDA