In today’s world, most companies and their employees are on LinkedIn. However, lots of companies and individuals either underutilize or misuse their pages. In our business, we like to create career-based pages and recruiter profiles that engage current and potential employees while still remaining professional. LinkedIn put together a great SlideShare called Best Practices for Publishing Posts on LinkedIn and we feel that those ideas are a great base for a solid personal LinkedIn profile and by extension professional LinkedIn company pages. Here are some of the top ways to utilize updates both on company pages and individually.
First of all, it is imperative that as a professional, you understand exactly what happens when you share on your LinkedIn. If you are sharing on your personal profile, this is the way it works:
- Editorial posts become a part of your overall profile
- Updates automatically get shared with your contacts
- All posts push out to a bigger group of professionals connected to your network
If you are sharing on a LinkedIn company page, you can:
- Share an update with the page’s network
- Reach contacts associated with your page’s network
- Cross post to other networks automatically
- Share content from other social networks like YouTube for more traffic
- Ask employees to share updates on their personal profile
- Share open positions you’d like to fill
When posting on a personal LinkedIn page it is best to create updates and write posts about what you’re familiar with. According to LinkedIn’s presentation you should, “share your observations, impressions and firsthand experience with your job, company or industry. Write about your successes – or your failures and how you’ve learned from them. Or write about what inspires you to do what you do.” This holds true for company updates as well. Posts should be about your company or directly applicable to your recruitment brand’s message. The area, events, relevant news stories, mission statements, employee stories and awards are all excellent topics for LinkedIn company page updates.
One major aspect of LinkedIn updates people stress about is perfection and post quality. This level of stress just isn’t necessary. While you shouldn’t put out copy with misspellings or gross inaccuracies, the content itself isn’t as important as regular updates. Updating frequently so that you maintain an engaged audience is of paramount importance! As LinkedIn states, “write often – don’t worry about waiting for the ‘perfect’ draft – get your thoughts out there, then let the comments you get help craft your next big idea.”
Another great strategy for LinkedIn posts and updates is the use of images that interest people and wording that is catchy. Something relevant and to the point is perfect for any LinkedIn update. Updates should be easy to digest with content that is simple, yet effective. Sometimes all you need is a great video and a top-notch descriptive sentence to generate buzz. The best updates use real images, real videos, real writing…the more on brand and honest you can be, the better the response will be from your ideal audience.
*Pro-tip: when you share a video, picture or writing that is someone else’s intellectual property, make sure to give credit to the creator. If you share it directly from the source, it usually includes this information, but if it doesn’t, it’s important to give credit where credit it due.
Whether you are using a company page or your own profile, LinkedIn will help you in the following ways:
- It will grow your network reach
- It will help you garner followers
- It will serve as a conversation starter with those outside of your immediate network
- It will help you stand out as a thought leader in your industry
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LinkedIn is a great tool for all kinds of professionals. Before you get started though, make sure your profile is at the All Star Quality level with our free resource below:
