For a startup, LinkedIn is an invaluable ally because on this platform, in addition to promoting your products or services, you can build valuable relationships in the professional arena. Indeed, in the words of Reid Hoffman,
“in an increasingly connected world, LinkedIn has become the hub for startups looking to build professional networks and find top talent.“
So the next few lines will help you understand not only how to promote a company on LinkedIn but also, more generally, how to make the most of this platform to make your startup stand out and grow.
LinkedIn is not just a social network
At the beginning of November 2023, LinkedIn announced that it had hit 1 billion members, a milestone previously reached (in and around social) only by Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and TikTok. Woe, then, to underestimate its potential in your Social Media Marketing strategy. LinkedIn, in fact, is one of the most popular social networks in the world, despite being aimed at a well-defined target and scope: the platform now owned by Microsoft is rightly considered the “professional social network par excellence.”
The importance of LinkedIn in the professional landscape
The preceding sentence deserves a closer look: rather than for communicating with friends and sharing within one’s network of contacts moments and life experiences (as is usually the case on other common social networks), LinkedIn is generally used to search for jobs, connect with one’s colleagues, and (in the cases of startups or companies) find new investors, suppliers and employees, as well as new customers. It is no coincidence that most users of the social network are professionals or business managers. A natural consequence of this is that the area in which LinkedIn proves most useful is B2B (Business 2 Business).
Building a robust digital network and identity
The overriding goal of LinkedIn is to build a network within which various professionals in one field (but also in different fields) can easily and quickly connect with each other.
Connecting with other users, interacting with them and sharing interesting content within your network allows you to create a stronger identity and thus promote your business more successfully, taking advantage of all the tools LinkedIn offers. In the next few lines you will discover how to do all this.
Corporate page creation and management
For a professional, having a profile on LinkedIn can open the door to new job and career opportunities. For a startup (or company in general), creating a company LinkedIn page, curating and updating it can translate into a more concrete possibility of reaching out to clients, as well as professions and experts in the field (and getting found more easily by them). You should also know that with a company page you can also link to your employees’ profiles and build, in this way, your professional network and identity.
First steps for an effective page
When creating a company page on LinkedIn you need to pay attention to a few elements in particular, starting with the profile image and the cover page. Regarding the former, the advice is to include the company logo, while in the latter space you can use your startup’s claim or other useful elements to define (also visually) your business. Remember that in the header of your business page you can also include a Call to Action, such as an invitation to contact your company.
Choose quality images and content
Regarding images and content, the same rule that exists on other social networks applies on LinkedIn: they must be quality.
This means, first of all, that the images must be the size expected by the platform and be graphically appealing.
As far as content is concerned, when creating your business page, take care to fill in all the required information fields so that it is better understood what you are about. Remember that the more information you include, the more users will learn about your startup and the better your business page will be able to rank in users’ searches. In this regard, make the most of the principles of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by using the most relevant keywords in your text content.
How to promote your company on LinkedIn: content and engagement
Let’s keep talking about content: you should know that to promote your startup on LinkedIn from an organic point of view, you need to regularly and frequently post new content. There is no shortage of options available to you: in fact, this social network provides for several content formats.
Experiment with different content formats
Don’t be afraid to experiment with the different types of content LinkedIn offers you (from long-form posts to polls to native videos): only in this way (i.e., by testing and measuring) can you in fact discover what content is most effective for your audience.
The importance of hashtags and tags
Using hashtags allows LinkedIn’s algorithm to better understand the topics addressed on your company page. The criterion that should guide you in choosing which hashtags to include is relevance. There is no minimum or maximum number of hashtags to use but remember not to overdo it.
Like hashtags, tags can also prove to be valuable tools on LinkedIn: the social network’s overriding goal, as mentioned, is to foster professional networking, and mentions go precisely in this direction, since they create connections between users.
Call to action: driving the user to action
If you want to know how to promote a company on Linkedin, you cannot afford to neglect Call to Action. You need to know, in particular, the few simple rules to follow in order to properly place “calls to action” for users on the social network: don’t place more than one CTA per post, use the verb in the imperative, get straight to the point (minimizing distractions), and place the Call to Action at the beginning or end so that there is a better chance of it being read.
How to advertise with LinkedIn Ads
Like many other social networks, LinkedIn also provides an ad hoc tool for running paid advertising campaigns within the platform: this resource is called LinkedIn Ads.
With LinkedIn Ads you can create advertisements by defining the business goals to be achieved and the target to be addressed, setting the campaign budget limits yourself. Keep in mind that, as far as targeting options are concerned, as you can imagine by now, the focus on LinkedIn is not on interests or page views (as, for example, can be the case on Facebook) but on profession and, in more detail, job title, job function or industry.
How to create a campaign with Campaign Manager
Campaign Manager is the specific tool for creating advertising campaigns on LinkedIn. The formats you can choose from are:
- “sponsored content,” aimed at a target audience that does not follow your page;
- “sponsored messages,” which are LinkedIn messages sent to users outside your network;
- “textual announcements“;
- “dynamic ads,” which contain the LinkedIn profile photo, company name and job title.
The macro-objectives to choose from, however, are the classic ones: “Notoriety,” “Consideration,” and “Conversation.” As for the budget, you have to consider that even on LinkedIn advertisements are sold with an auction mechanism. You can choose the pricing model (CPC or CPM) and suspend the ad at any time.
The tangible benefits of a well-planned strategy
The costs of advertising on LinkedIn may seem a little higher than on other social networks, but you should not forget that this social network is ideal for generating qualified contacts based on their professional job characteristics. Of course, for this to be possible, it is essential to plan a precise strategy in good time.
The future of your startup on LinkedIn
To understand where your startup can go on LinkedIn you necessarily always need to keep up with the latest updates to the platform. As mentioned earlier, in November 2023 LinkedIn announced that it had reached the prestigious milestone of one billion members. On the same occasion, the social network also informed its users about the introduction of new features related to Artificial Intelligence for its paid subscribers. And that’s not all: in recent times, LinkedIn has been experimenting with other new features, such as Instagram Stories.
Monitor, adapt and continuously improve
In the wake of what has just been said, the secret to always knowing how to promote a company on LinkedIn is to monitor the evolution of the platform (and its algorithm) and continually adapt and improve advertising campaigns. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you can use the same modus operandi on this social network as Facebook or Instagram : LinkedIn, in fact, has profoundly different characteristics. Now that you know them, you can make the most of them for your business.
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