Generate leads using a LinkedIn business page

This week’s Monday Cup of Jo sunrise is another taken in Ormond Beach, Florida.  Soak it in and get your week off to a great start.  Enjoy!

Last week, I was researching ways to use LinkedIn company pages with small business marketing. We’ve just started using this feature.  Much like your professional portfolio on LinkedIn, company pages offer the opportunity to showcase your business in many different ways.  A LinkedIn company page includes an Overview section, Products and Services Section, and an optional Careers section. Here are some ways I found for small business owners to effectively use the various sections.

Creative uses for your LinkedIn company page:

1.  Use the Overview section’s image feature to include a creative message that showcases your company.  The banner on the Overview section is the first section visitors see when they view your LinkedIn company page.  LinkedIn allows you to include an image with this section, much like the banner space on the Products and Services section.  You can use this space to highlight your marketing messages, make a new announcement, drive visitors to your other platforms, like Facebook, or drive visitors to your website.  We use our space to present a creative message about what myMarketing Cafe offers small business owners.  See our image here.  The Overview section also allows you to feature any LinkedIn group where you are a group administrator, which helps to create more awareness about your groups.

2.  Use the Products and Services section to share marketing information and lead-focused content.  At myMarketing Cafe, we have prepared ebooks that offer valuable information to our audience.  We offer these ebooks through the Products and Services section on our company page.  We recently sent out a request to our clients who have downloaded the books to please consider making a recommendation through LinkedIn’s recommend functionality.  Recommendations are an effective way to demonstrate the value of your products and services.

The information we offer on our Products and Services section is free and was created to drive small business owners to our website. This lead-focused content is also used to help build our opt-in membership database.  See our Products page here. This page can also be used to share links to your webinars and trainings.

3.  Optimize your LinkedIn company page with your industry keywords.  A LinkedIn Company Page offers space to share about your company.  In the space for company or product descriptions, include keywords relevant to your business and industry.

4.  Use the Products and Services section to drive followers to other marketing platforms. The Products and Services section allows you to include up to three banners that appear at the top of the page.  This banner space can be used for many promotional opportunities and can be changed as you have new announcements.  We use our banners to drive business owners to our company website, to drive visitors to our Facebook page, and to share company marketing messages. Other important uses include showing off your company team, a new product, new services, or creative marketing content. Each banner can be linked to a URL, which means you have three opportunities to drive visitors to various links. View these examples here.

5.  Use the video space available on the Products and Services section to promote videos from your website, Vimeo, YouTube or other web-based video channel.  The video space can be used in many different ways.  LinkedIn allows you to include a video for each product or service you list. You can also include a video that showcases your business on the main Product and Services section.  We used this space to highlight our Tour the cafe video.  Other ideas include creating a video invitation for an event, webinar, or job fair.

When building a LinkedIn business page for one of our nonprofit clients, we included a primary About Us video on the Product and Services section and then a separate video for each of the services they provide.  View this example here.

How to drive prospective followers to your Company Page.

1.  Use the LinkedIn Company Page status updates to share valuable content.  The status updates feature available through your LinkedIn Company Page works just like an update shared on your personal LinkedIn page, and it gives you the opportunity to share industry tips or other valuable information to followers.

2.  Use your personal Linkedin page to share the updates posted on your LinkedIn Company Page.  At myMarketing Cafe, our strategy is to offer information through our Company Page, like our free ebooks, that we can then share through status updates via our personal LinkedIn networks.  Since you are also a “follower” of your Company Page, you can then share the company updates through your personal LinkedIn network, creating awareness about your company. When anyone on our team shares about our Company Page, we invite our network to follow the page.  When your Company Page receives a new follower, an announcement appears in their newsfeed as an update.  It sends a message like, John Smith is now following myMarketing Cafe, and it includes a link back to your Company Page. This helps to drive awareness about your Company Page and has the potential of reaching an audience of thousands.

3. Invite staff members and clients to follow your LinkedIn Company Page.  Just like I explained above, for every new follower, a status update shows in the follower’s newsfeed.

For more visually creative examples, take a look at the company page created by Capman Video and Digital Production.

Do you have any questions about LinkedIn Company Pages?  Post a question and we’ll find the answer you need.