LinkedIn hits 300 Million – Are You In?

LinkedIn just announced that it has 300 Million members. As a small or medium sized business owner, are you taking advantage of that? Granted, it is unlikely that all 300 MILLION of those people are looking for what you are selling, but probably a lot more of them are – or know someone who is – than you can reach any other way.

So, it’s time to take 20 minutes and get your LinkedIn business page all spiffied up and ready for its close up.

First things first: start a page for your business. Then, have all your associates that use LinkedIn link their profiles to your company page. This is a great way for your company to improve its search capabilities both within LinkedIn and in general SEO. Click Here for LinkedIn’s help page on all things related to Company Pages – so you can get through the basics.

So maybe you’ve already done that. Great! Next up is creating Showcase pages. These are relatively new to LinkedIn, but this week, LinkedIn got rid of the product and services pages that previously lived within your business profile page. (If you lost your product and services pages, and the recommendations that were there, you can go here to get your content back).

So, if you want to highlight certain parts of your business, Showcase pages are the way to go. They are great because they have their own URL – an SEO benefit for sure – and can “showcase” more than just products and services. Think of things like “Success Stories” or “Recommendations” or “Meet our Crew”.

 The audience who is coming to your page probably knows about you a bit already if they found you on LinkedIn, so tell them about the things that make your business stand out. Showcase pages are a great way to do that.

Ok. You’ve got the basics down. That’s it. Whew! Feeling good? Then here are 3 other things you can do – I would recommend weekly – to keep things going.

1. Add pictures and video: People stay way more engaged with posts that use visual cues. Pictures of your products, or your team doing interesting things or in exciting places will keep get people’s attention. Have video of you giving a speech or winning an award? Link it to your page!
2. Make sure your pages are effectively using keywords. You only get about 200 words to describe your company at the top of your Company page. Put yourself at the laptop of a potential customer and think of the words they might use looking for what you do. Are those included? If you’re local, is your city name included? Text is optimized on both the main company page and the Showcase pages, so use this to your advantage. Fine tune it over time.
3. Go write a recommendation for others. Not one of those dinky endorsements either- but a true recommendation. If you have vendors or customers that you really like or have really done great things for your business, reach out and write a recommendation. At the very least your partners will feel appreciated, and maybe even write one back.

That’s it. LinkedIn is a big place. Make sure you’re making the most of it. And, if you’re ready to stick another toe in the Social Media Marketing pool, check back to our previous blog about getting started.