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On Sept. 6, LinkedIn rolled out its new "Company Pages," giving companies the opportunity to be more creative and present more content. Since potential clients, customers and employees are checking out your company page, it's worth your while to make it as attractive, informative and interesting as you can. Now that we've had time to digest these changes , it's time to take the next step and implement some best practices.
Lana Khavinson, LinkedIn's senior product marketing manager, has the following tips for PR pros on the agency and corporate sides:
If you're a PR professional working for a firm:
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Encourage all of your clients to create a LinkedIn Company Page and provide them with links to media hits about their company, so they can share those media wins with their followers through status update posts. LinkedIn's own Company Page is a good example to check out, as are the company pages for Philips, Citi, HP and Dell.
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If your clients already have a LinkedIn Company Page, make sure they have added a powerful image to welcome people to their page and that they are posting status updates on a daily basis to ensure that they are reaching their entire follower base. An example of a company doing just this is HubSpot.
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Teach your clients the best practices of posting: Post in the morning for best reach, add links when possible, share videos to drive viral engagement and tell people what action you want them to take on your post (like, share, comment).
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And of course, make sure your PR firm has a stellar LinkedIn Company Page by make your own daily posts and adding a Products & Services tab so potential clients know what offerings you have.
If you're corporate PR pro:
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Make sure that you take ownership of your LinkedIn Company Page as a channel for external communication.
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If your social media manager or HR team owns the page, ask to become an administrator of the page so you can post press releases, blog links, news announcements, articles about the company and events that you want to direct followers to.
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Encourage employees to like, share, and comment on posts. Employees are 70% more likely to engage with your post, thereby helping you spread your message across LinkedIn.
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Mix it up. Post unique content that your company has developed or share industry stories that you think your followers will find interesting.
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Lastly—test, test, test. Time of day, tone of message, content type, etc. can all have different effects. Use your LinkedIn Company Page engagement metrics to determine what works best for your company.
LinkedIn is the most-used social network by journalists, making it a media relations playground—92% are on LinkedIn—but PR pros better have their own company's bases covered before they attempt to connect with media.
Attend PR News Oct. 2 Social Media Measurement Conference in New York City to learn how to measure your media relations efforts on social networks like LinkedIn.
Follow Bill Miltenberg: @bmiltenberg
When is this option available to the masses?
Dee—We reached out to customer service at LinkedIn on the weke of September 10, and they said they hope it will be available widely in a “couple of weeks.” Hope that helps.