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How to Set Up LinkedIn to Increase Online Sales for Your Company

March 20, 2017 | 8 minute read

LinkedIn offers a large number of top professionals networked together in one location, which is available to you 24/7 through your nearest device. Understanding how to set up LinkedIn to increase online sales for your business is an opportunity that shouldn't be passed up.

3 LinkedIn Stats that May Surprise You

LinkedIn is the #1 social media platform for content distribution
94 percent of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content
Content gets 15 times the interaction of job postings on LinkedIn

13 Ways to Optimize Your LinkedIn Company Page to Increase Online Sales

The purpose of the LinkedIn Company Page is to “raise brand awareness, promote career opportunities, and educate potential customers on your products and services.” The more you educate and promote, the more sales you will make. There are various lists of top LinkedIn company pages, including Hubspot, and BeBusinessed.com. LinkedIn details their best practices in several resources, including a Playbook and Weekly Webcast.

Here are 13 common elements of successful Company Pages.

Tell the Brand Story
Short overall company description (may include mission and vision statements)
Photos & rich media (can be organized in thumbnails)
Post frequent company updates, industry news, professional tips
Pin major announcements to stay at top
Post job opportunities and advice for industry job seekers
Organized, easy to find, diverse content (including concise summaries, relevant stats)
Link to own blog and other relevant blogs
Share employee stories
Cross-promotion
Acknowledge your followers directly (contest or offers; ask what they want to see more of)
Bright, positive, attractive, colourful, fascinating
Optimize text

Why Should You Use LinkedIn’s Showcase Pages to Increase Online Sales?

LinkedIn If you have multiple products or services, or multiple target market personas, use the Showcase pages to divide information. Breakdown target audiences/personas so that each group only gets the information that is relevant to them. A large, periodic event could have a Showcase Page as well, such as an annual conference, so that information and updates are made easily accessible to those followers.

The Showcase Pages facilitate the development of long term relationships and increase sales with a specific segment of your target market. This should be part of your long term marketing strategy. For one-time events or short term marketing campaigns, LinkedIn has other advertising products. LinkedIn Members can choose to follow one or more of your Showcase Pages, in addition to following your Company Page. Space for 10 Showcase Pages is provided.

“For business lines or initiatives with unique messaging and audience segments, consider creating a dedicated LinkedIn Showcase Page.” -- LinkedIn

You can find out more about Key features of a Showcase Page and find great examples of quintessential Showcase Pages by checking out Adobe Creative Cloud and Marketing Cloud.

Comparing Features: LinkedIn Company Pages vs. Showcase Pages

Feature	Company Page	Showcase Page
Analytics (calculated separately)	x	x
Notifications (calculated separately)	x	x
Sponsor updates from the page	x	x
Feature groups on the page (up to 3 groups per company page)	x	x
Managing content through social media management (write and schedule posts, manage comments, and monitor analytics from one place)	x	x
Appear in search results for searches and Ads business accounts	x	x
Followers select pages to follow individually – follower counts not shared	x	x
Associating employee profile with a company	x
Associating job posting with a company	x
Career Pages to showcase employment brand & culture	x

Additional LinkedIn Tools

2017 Desktop Redesign
- Simplified navigation (consistent for mobile)
- Me Tab (formerly profile – to access privacy and settings)
- My Network Tab streamlined (easier to manage connections, invites and to find other professionals)
Targeted company updates
- For specific marketing groups – Free
Sponsored Content
- Expand reach beyond current followers with targeting criteria selected by the advertiser – Paid
- Drive traffic to your landing pages and funnel to a lead collection form
Premium LinkedIn members pay for additional features

Get More LinkedIn Followers to See Posts, Engage with Content, and Become Leads

Followers are your brand advocates and key drivers of word of mouth, recommendations, and referrals. To increase the number of LinkedIn followers, use the same strategy you use to manage the rest of your content. Create relevant, quality content that you share across your platforms to encourage target market engagement. Post your content frequently to build relationships with increased trust and solidified credibility. Use your Calls to Action to direct traffic to your lead collection forms. Making LinkedIn a regular and planned part of your long term content marketing strategy to increase your online sales.