There are more than 400 million LinkedIn members in the world: only in USA the Social Network have more than 10 million users, of which 2 out of 3 are professionals. 92% of recruiting companies use LinkedIn to select personnel and 57% of companies have a LinkedIn page for companies.
These are the data collected from the screening of the Social Network itself and from the market surveys, numbers that highlight the undisputed positive trend of LinkedIn.
But what is LinkedIn? And why is it different from other social networks?
LinkedIn is the largest professional networking platform in the world: it is present in 200 countries and covers about 150 economic sectors. Unlike the classic social media, it was born with a specific and exclusive mission: to put more professionals in communication to optimize company performance and income.
The Social platform provides two different types of profiles for its users …
- Personal profile, with which you can create a network of professional contacts, make your CV visible and apply for job positions;
- Company profile or “Company Page”, a business page that allows the company to generate new professional contacts, to make their open job positions visible and to promote their business.
LinkedIn for companies: Why is it important?
The US magazine FORBES states that “LinkedIn is the most advantageous social network available to job seekers and professional businesses today”, we then find out what benefits LinkedIn offers companies …
1) Online visibility
By creating a LinkedIn page for companies, it is possible to share some information and characteristics of the company itself with users: sector, website, geographical location and general description of the activity. Sharing this information on the Social Network facilitates the search for potential customers and aspiring employees.
2) Possibility of job recruiting
Thanks to a LinkedIn company profile, companies wishing to expand their workforce have the opportunity to publish job advertisements and view their applications directly from the Social Network.
3) Customer loyalty
Users interested in the company profile can interface with the company directly on LinkedIn: sharing content and their daily activities allows customers to come into direct contact with the company and thus build a real stable relationship.
4) Optimization of corporate web reputation
By choosing LinkedIn for companies, the company has the possibility of constantly improving its online reputation not only by publishing specific posts, but also by creating a real network of professional contacts based on recommendations shared by other companies.
LinkedIn for companies: 10 tips to grow your business
LinkedIn for companies is a fundamental tool for companies that want to perfect their online communication strategy, but to achieve significant goals it is necessary to use the Social Network optimally.
Here are 10 simple tips that will allow you to make a considerable profit from LinkedIn …
1) Write an adequate and effective Company Profile
The Company Profile is a text of about 2000 characters that allows the company to present itself and describe its activity. To design an effective and intuitive content it is essential to clearly identify the purpose of the company page (select candidates, increase sales, improve web reputation, etc.), use simple and clear sentences, divide text into paragraphs and use more than one language to make your commercial identity international.
2) Choose a clear logo without payoff
The logo chosen for the Company Page must be published with the right graphic and technical characteristics, but above all it must be intuitive and clear. Payoffs often make the logo difficult to read and therefore the image of the company hard to recognize.
3) Ask the staff to specify their job position within the personal profile
Employees of a company, specifying their working position, automatically become followers of the Company Page and therefore make it possible for the company to interact with new users.
4) Create a Showcase Page
A Display Page is an extension of the company page created to advertise or describe a specific product, it is therefore a fundamental tool for sharing its contents and promoting its services.
5) Publish content correctly
It is essential to share with your users optimized posts: an effective text is made up of about 1300 characters, contains @name of company or private profiles, reports #hashtag of trend, is equipped with images or video and mentions external links that give the contents authoritative.
6) Create an editorial calendar
The publication of posts or articles planned and analyzed in advance is essential for obtaining considerable results: to start, it is recommended to publish about two or three posts a week, gradually deepening the study of interesting topics for one’s followers.
7) Experiment with innovative multimedia content
Several surveys regarding user behavior on social networks clearly show that followers are more attracted by posts containing images and multimedia content of different types: experimenting by publishing different multimedia formats can be a winning strategy.
8) Use the website and corporate blog as sources of shared content
Sharing information from the blog or company website with followers is useful not only to optimize the company’s web reputation, but also to improve the page ranking of web pages on search engines through inbound links.
9) Follow collaborating companies to get recommendations
Creating a solid network of interaction between professionals in your sector is an excellent method to obtain recommendations and thus increase the authority of your content and of the company itself.
10) Analyze the results obtained
To reach significant goals it is essential to analyze the results already obtained, select successful activities and identify those with little response. It is essential to examine periodic visits to your company profile and above all the behavior of your followers.