Building your followers on LinkedIn

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on the Biznology blog claiming that “everyone needs both Pinterest and LinkedIn.” And while I’ve offered plenty of Pinterest tips over the last few months, it’s unfair to say I’ve offered similar coverage of LinkedIn. Until now.

Here are some of my favorite tips for growing the number of LinkedIn followers on your LinkedIn Company page.

Your LinkedIn Company Page

Why have a Company page on LinkedIn? Lots of reasons, really:

• Attract new employees
• Stay engaged with clients and customers
• Promote your products and services to LinkedIn’s 100 million+ members
• Effectively measure your LinkedIn visitors
• Improve search engine results for your brand name

So, to gain more followers, first they have to have a reason to care about your brand. In other words…

What are you using your LinkedIn Company page for?

You want visitors to your Company page to have a solid first impression of your business. What do you offer? Is it clear? Is it compelling? Are you doing a good job of telling your brand story? While it may be obvious, few people will follow your brand on LinkedIn (or anywhere else for that matter), if you don’t give them a reason to care about you. As I’ve noted before, make sure you promote your values and your value to your Company page visitors.

How to reach potential followers

Gaining followers for your LinkedIn Company page actually isn’t dramatically different from any other social network. The basic steps are going to be very similar.

First, begin promoting your Company page during your routine customer contacts. This includes places like:

• Phone calls
• Business cards
• Email signatures

Do each of your employees have your Company page in their email signature? Do you still provide business cards to your team? Why not place the URL for your Company page there, too?

Additionally, following a “hub ‘n’ spoke” model for promoting your business, ensure your company’s website, blog, and product pages all include a “Follow Company” button.

Additionally, you can promote your Company page on any of your other social outposts, whether Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, or this month’s social site of the moment.

Once you’ve started promoting your Company page, begin updating the page regularly, offering your followers shareable content. We’ve covered the idea before, but you want to engage your (real and potential) audience with relevant items that engage, enlighten and entertain. As LinkedIn attracts a more “corporate” audience, you’ll likely want to skew the content towards “work-related” items. But that doesn’t mean they should be stiff or dry. Make the updates fun as well as functional to drive your follower count.

Conclusion

LinkedIn connects your company to educated and business-oriented contacts. Whether you’re looking to attract talent, customers or media, it’s a great source of high-value leads for your business. The social network’s Company page represents an effective means of reaching those folks. Ask potential contacts to follow your brand on LinkedIn and offer them solid reasons to do so. The rest, like much content marketing, is just a matter of time.

Oh… and while I’m at it, you can follow Tim Peter & Associates on LinkedIn, too.

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