Business benefits for your company with LinkedIn

Social media have become an ever more self-evident part of marketing by companies. For those companies that have B2B clients, LinkedIn is a natural choice with several ways of creating business benefits.

According to LinkedIn the world’s largest professional networks operate on the Internet with more than 150 million members in more than 200 countries (statistics from 9 February 2012). What possibilities exist then to market your company and create business opportunities with LinkedIn? Several are listed here.

Company profile in LinkedIn

Start by creating a company profile for your company on LinkedIn. But, first of all, check to see if your company is already present. Where several people have indicated your company as their employer, the profile has already been created automatically.

Fill in information about your company, for example contact details, description of the company and services/products etc. You can also link in RSS feeds from other social media, for example the company’s Twitter, Slideshare and blogs.  See an example http://www.LinkedIn.com/company/comaround.

Feel free to ask your employees what it’s like to work for the company. You can also obtain recommendations from clients and co-operation partners. Be proactive and send out a question via LinkedIn asking them to write a few lines on your company profile page.

Search engine positioning and optimisation in LinkedIn

As is common where web pages are concerned, it is important to specify relevant search terms and phrases which we want to end up high on Google’s search result list, in order to maximise search engine traffic to a webpage. This principle, of course, applies also to the company’s profile page on LinkedIn, something it can be easy to forget. Google loves LinkedIn, that is to say it has a high page rank and this makes it easier to come high up on Google hits on complex search terms and phrases. Even if you come high up on the search results with your homepage it is possible to take more positions on Google hits. See the example below where we wish to come high up with the term ‘web-based self-service’.  We have achieved first place via LinkedIn and place 2 and 3 via our homepage.

Since Google loves LinkedIn, it is also possible to improve your own company’s page rank. This is done through creating links from LinkedIn to your homepage.

Advertising on LinkedIn

With LinkedIn you can also create business benefits via advertising. You can create text ads similar to keyword advertising such as Adwords and text ads with a small illustration. You pay per click (CPC) or per 1,000 times the ad is shown (CPM).

Lead Collection is a function in LinkedIn which enables you to track leads directly through your LinkedIn ad campaigns. When this function is activated, persons (members of LinkedIn) who click on your ad can simply request that you contact them through clicking on a button ‘Request Contact’. This option is shown at the top of your target page. For each lead, you will see the person’s name, heading and a link to his/her LinkedIn profile. The person also has the possibility of sharing his/her e-mail address. You will be able to send a free follow-up message to them on LinkedIn.

Create or be part of a group on LinkedIn

Through creating a group for your brand or trade name/trade mark, you will be able to extend the reach beyond your own network.  Within the brand group you are able to initiate discussions, share news etc. or create sub-groups. This is a good way of creating a dialogue with key persons in your business sector and with potential and existing clients.

You can also participate in other groups in order to reply to questions that relate to your area of expertise. This is valuable because you can thereby expand your network or acquire updated news associated with your particular line of business.

Job advertising on LinkedIn

When there is a need to recruit new employees you are able to place job adverts via LinkedIn.

Events on LinkedIn

There are also possibilities for marketing events. You will find the function under the ‘More’ flap.

Polls on LinkedIn

You are able to create interest and find answers to important questions through creating your own survey or poll which you can distribute on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. You can also embed the voting module on your own website or blog.

You can learn more about how to market your company in order to create business benefits under Learning Center (under ‘More’ flap).

You are welcome to report how you have managed to create new business through marketing yourself via LinkedIn.

Source: www.linkedin.com