LinkedIn is the largest social networking channel in the world for working professionals. 3M™ Window Film dealers have an opportunity to reach a range of industries with messages about flat glass, auto tint and design film.
There are many reasons why your company should be engaging on LinkedIn. While a personal profile on LinkedIn is a great way to provide information about your products and services directly to your connections, a company page allows the public to find you and your content.
According to LinkedIn, company pages with completed information get 30 percent more weekly views. Here are some tips to consider when setting up and managing your company page.
Setting Up Your LinkedIn Company Page
Adding LinkedIn to your marketing strategy helps ensure that you are reaching professionals. Your page should provide information that someone would need to understand what it is that your company offers and how to contact you.
Adding a Logo and Cover Art
First and foremost, LinkedIn recommends adding a logo and cover image to help brand your company. Your logo art for LinkedIn should fit into a 300 pixels by 300 pixels square. In addition, your cover art needs to be sized to 1536 pixels by 768 pixels to be able to be viewed on the different sizes of screens, including mobile phones and computer monitors. Online design software like Canva.com can help you create this.
Writing an Overview
LinkedIn’s company Overview section (found in the “Learn More” section of the page) provides you the opportunity to describe your company throughout several paragraphs. Use this space to state your organization’s mission and purpose as well as your services. Be sure to sprinkle relevant and popular keyword search terms and phrases throughout the copy. This will increase the likelihood that your company will be found via LinkedIn’s search.
Providing Information
LinkedIn’s Organization Information section is designed to let users know how to reach you and get brief information about your company quickly. This is found directly under the Overview section. Be sure to provide your company’s website URL and location, your industry and company size.
Unfortunately, LinkedIn does not have window film as a listed industry. We have seen the following work well for window film companies and manufactures: Automotive; Glass, Ceramics and Concrete; Construction; Graphic Design and Mechanical or Industrial Engineering. Please choose which industry you feel is more in-line with the services you provide.
Add a Call-to-Action Button
Setting up a call-to-action button can assist your lead generation efforts using LinkedIn. There are several buttons to choose from, including learn more, contact us, visit website, register and sign-up. Choose the language of the button and then identify your website URL. Link the home page of your website or consider creating a landing page for your company specifically for your LinkedIn audience.
Creating Content for Your LinkedIn Company Page
Ultimately, developing relevant content for your audience is key to managing a LinkedIn page. Just like Facebook, LinkedIn provides a variety of tools and methods for you to create interesting and engaging content. Here are some of the top ways to help spur engagement, as identified by LinkedIn.
Photos
According to LinkedIn, posts with images are twice as likely to get comments than those without. LinkedIn offers the ability to post just one image or custom image collages (3-4 images in a single post). Ideas for photographs include:
- Before and after images of projects
- Installation-in-progress photos
- Images of the outside of your shop
- Images of employees performing work
Remember the adage, “a photograph speaks a thousand words.” Choose images that are compelling and interesting.
Videos
LinkedIn reports that posted videos gets five times more engagement on LinkedIn and LinkedIn’s Live Video feature gets 24 times more engagement. Just like you would do on Facebook, consider uploading informative videos on LinkedIn to share with your audience. Once you’ve mastered that, LinkedIn will allow you to apply for access to LinkedIn Live.
Documents
In 2014, a LinkedIn-led study showed business professionals spend an average of 8 hours a week on LinkedIn, consuming content as a way to educate themselves on industry news. This means that the LinkedIn audience is looking for information to increase their knowledge. Upload PDFs or PowerPoints about 3M™ Window Film, including case studies, brochures or white papers. 3M’s Dealer Advantage website offers a variety of product resources that you can share.
Kudos
LinkedIn is a great place to spotlight employees. The LinkedIn news feed is typically filled with professionals highlighting their newly earned credentials or being celebrated. Join the trend and recognize your own team members, including important team accomplishments or a specific employee’s success. Be sure to tag your employees and watch as they get kudos from their own LinkedIn network.
Content Suggestions
LinkedIn provides trending topics and articles that you can share based on your target audience. This feature, called Content Suggestions, can be helpful in creating information that is relevant to your target audience – and getting more eyes on your posts.
Mentions
Under your page’s Activity Tab, you will be able to see when your company is @mentioned. Reshare these mentions to your page to further your content and reach.
Hashtags
Hashtags, first invented by the founders of Twitter as a way to index posts by subject, has become increasingly more popular in recent years. Be sure to use relevant hashtags on your posts. Those who follow those trending hashtags are more likely to see your content.
Targeting
Did you know that you can organically target your organic page posts? This means you can reach a specific language, location, region, university, function, seniority, industry or company size. This feature is free on LinkedIn. Making posts about security film for schools? Be sure to target principals and facility managers. Making posts about retail? Be sure to target retail store owners. Here’s how.
Attracting New Page Followers to Your LinkedIn Company Page
When you first start interacting on LinkedIn as a company page, you will start with a blank slate. Once you reach 150 followers, LinkedIn reports that growth will happen exponentially. It’s important to attract page followers. Here are some suggestions from LinkedIn on ways to do this.
Follow Button
Add a follow button on your website. (In fact, we recommend that you do this for all of your social media channels.) We recommend adding this button within your header and/or footer. It can also be added to a Contact page and at the bottom of a blog. These buttons give your website visitors the opportunity to engage with you on more than just your site.
Community Hashtags
LinkedIn gives you the ability to identify three hashtags that are relevant to your brand or service. Once you have identified these three hashtags, LinkedIn then provides you the ability to click on those hashtags and engage within the community conversations. This is a great way to earn more followers – by engaging in dialog with them.
Employee Notifications
Utilize the power of your employees and their personal networks. Your employees – especially any sales or territory reps that you have on staff – should be encouraged to engage on LinkedIn and build their audience. LinkedIn gives you the ability to “notify employees” once a week of a post that you made. Your employees can then share that information out to their networks – thus helping to further your reach and audience.
Invite to Follow
Once you have developed a page for your company, you can invite your own personal network to follow your page. This feature is offered as a button on your contact list. Simply press the button “Invite to Follow” and your contact will receive a request.
Page Analytics
LinkedIn provides powerful analytics so that you can understand how your content is performing. Pay attention to the type of content that is getting high amounts of engagement. Be sure to look at this information monthly to track trends.
LinkedIn has more than 675 million monthly users from every industry and sector of the marketplace. Whether you own a flat glass or automotive window film company (or both), LinkedIn should be considered among your communications marketing strategies.
Accent Distributing provides marketing assistance as part of its value-added benefits. For more information about using LinkedIn for your business or to speak to a marketing professional about other ways to enhance your efforts, contact Inside Sales at (941) 922-5268 or [email protected].
