5 Creative Ways to Use LinkedIn Company Pages

Does your business have a LinkedIn company page?

Have you noticed how other businesses are using LinkedIn lately?

A number of larger brands are creatively using their LinkedIn company pages, and some of them are doing some cool things.

Here are five brands using their LinkedIn company pages creatively.

Check out what they are doing to learn how you can tell your story, generate leads and engage your communities through your LinkedIn page.

#1: LinkedIn—Develop a Campaign

Let’s start with LinkedIn. Why not learn from the source itself? LinkedIn’s own company page offers some insight into what works for effectively engaging your target audience.

In many cases, LinkedIn’s company page status updates are tied to an ongoing, larger campaign. Most recently, LinkedIn posed a question to its identified “influencers” who contribute their unique thought leadership content to the site. The question asked of these thought leaders was, “What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?”

 

LinkedIn shared updates to create community dialogue.

Seventy LinkedIn influencers contributed their answers to this question. LinkedIn posted many of the responses to their LinkedIn company page as status updates in order to share the content with followers and build engagement.

What was great about this idea was that it has provided LinkedIn with a series of ongoing, fresh and interesting status updates for their company page. Not only did LinkedIn share the answers from various influencers, they asked followers to also answer the question to create community dialogue.

Developing a campaign that drives a related series of status updates on your company page can increase engagement and keep the conversation going and expand your company’s visibility as followers share and like your content.

Here’s how to develop a campaign on your LinkedIn company page.

Create a campaign that poses an interesting question to a group of influential bloggers in your industry who can respond via their own blog post.

Not only can you highlight each of these contributors on your own company blog, you can also create a series of shareable and engaging status updates for your page!

Remember to ask your followers to answer your question as well.

#2: HubSpot—Create Leads

It’s tough to find a company with a presence on LinkedIn making better use of the LinkedIn company page than HubSpot. HubSpot has been quite successful in generating a consistent flow of leads for their software product through their LinkedIn company page!

What HubSpot has done so well is determine which types of marketing offers work best to generate business leads from their LinkedIn company page.

For example, under the Products/Services tab, you’ll find marketing offers for a free demo of the software and some free educational materials (ebooks) related to utilizing the software.

 

HubSpot shares lead generating updates on their LinkedIn page.

HubSpot has also done a tremendous job of gathering recommendations for their software product with almost 200 individuals weighing in.

 

HubSpot has many recommendations on their company page.

This “social proof” can be very powerful in encouraging a prospective customer to take that next step.

Here’s how to create leads with your LinkedIn company page.

Regardless of what products and services your company sells, create marketing offers such as free demos, a free consultation or free ebooks or special reports, and share information on these to generate leads from your LinkedIn company page.

Also, consider sending a LinkedIn message to your existing customers through your company page asking them to write a recommendation. These recommendations can easily be published directly to your page!

#3: CNBC—Cross-Promote Other Social Channels

CNBC is a global financial media brand with a fairly robust presence on LinkedIn. In fact, the company was named as one of the top LinkedIn company pages for 2012.

Aside from sharing timely financial and economic news on their page, CNBC is using their LinkedIn presence as an opportunity to promote their other social channels.

 

CNBC uses the LinkedIn company page banner to promote their other social networks.

In the first banner image, CNBC has a call to action to join them on Facebook. The second image as you scroll through is a call to action to join them on Twitter and the third is a call to action for a free trial demo of the CNBC Pro Product.

Using this real estate to blatantly cross-promote additional social media communities for CNBC is a great idea.

Here’s how to cross-promote your other social channels on your LinkedIn company page.

You are allowed to have up to 3 rotating banner images under the Products/Services tab. Within each banner, you can embed a link so the viewer can click through to an outside web page or to another social media profile.

Develop banner images and embed links for your company page’s Products/Services tab to cross-promote your other social media communities.

Keep in mind that businesses can run targeted ads on LinkedIn that lead directly to the Products/Services tab. (Running ads on LinkedIn is a paid feature.) Consider ways to use this to your advantage.

#4: Facebook—Find New Talent

Facebook is utilizing its LinkedIn presence primarily to attract and recruit talent on the world’s largest professional online network.

The Careers tab is a paid feature on LinkedIn, but many brands are successfully leveraging it to announce job openings and find new talent.

 

The Facebook LinkedIn page appeals to new talent.

Facebook showcases a compelling banner image and tagline: “Making the world more open & connected” at the top of their Careers page tab. They also provide a simple yet motivating description of what it means to work at Facebook: “Working at Facebook means doing what you love.”

Facebook links directly to its other Facebook web properties further down on the page, and provides a short video overview that gives potential candidates an inside view of what it’s like to work at the company.

Overall, Facebook’s Career tab is an excellent example of providing a compelling and attractive value proposition for drawing in potential candidates for employment.

Here’s how to implement this tactic on your LinkedIn company page.

If you’re in the market for sourcing and recruiting talent, a paid Careers tab on your LinkedIn company page might make a lot of sense.

Through the numerous features available on this page, you will be able to showcase your company story and job openings effectively.

#5: American Airlines—Engage Your Audience

American Airlines is doing a couple of things well on their LinkedIn company page.

First, the main company page banner is a big, beautiful American Airlines airplane flying through the sky. This is a captivating visual that grabs your attention as soon as you land on the page.

 

The American Airlines LinkedIn page banner captures your attention.

Why is a captivating visual important? Without a strong banner image at the top of your LinkedIn company page, the page just doesn’t look complete or attractive. It is doubtful that a visitor will want to further explore the page if it doesn’t have any visual appeal. Unfortunately, many large and popular brands still don’t have a banner image.

The other thing that American Airlines is doing well is that they are utilizing company page status updates to offer followers an opportunity to enter and qualify for a unique travel experience!

 

American Airlines posts updates to engage their audience on LinkedIn.

In order to enter the contest above, the visitor has to guess the landmark from an aerial view image that American Airlines has posted on the update.

These are exactly the kinds of status updates that have the potential to go viral!

How to engage your audience on your LinkedIn company page.

Make sure to create a banner image to insert at the top of your LinkedIn company page to make it more visually appealing.

Next, consider creating a series of contests or sweepstakes promotions that are relevant to your company and can be shared as status updates. This is a great way to generate buzz and build followers for your page.

Develop Your LinkedIn Company Page

LinkedIn company pages continue to evolve with newly added features and functionality.

These pages can help grow the visibility of your company and further engage with clients, prospects and advocates. Additionally, your LinkedIn company page can serve as a credible extension of your digital brand!

You don’t have to be a big brand to take advantage of and benefit from some of these same strategies on your page. It doesn’t matter if you’re just beginning to build a LinkedIn company page, or if you already have a few thousand followers on your existing page.

You can learn from the brands that are being smart and creative with their company pages.

Be sure to check out the new LinkedIn resource for Company Page managers.

What do you think? Do these creative ways brands are using LinkedIn company pages trigger some ideas for your own page? Are there other brands or businesses that you think are doing creative things on their pages? Please share in the comments section!

author:Stephanie Sammons

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-creative-ways-to-use-linkedin-company-pages/