Using LinkedIn for business is standard practice these days.

It’s a no-nonsense social media platform that encourages “business talk” and self-promotion. This is great for brands and individuals who rightly want to shout about their amazing progress and expand their networks. 

Yet, many LinkedIn users fail to take full advantage of what the platform has to offer. We all know what LinkedIn can do, but few of us take advantage of its potential. Instead of promoting their LinkedIn account as much as possible, people often remain reserved.

If you're in this situation, this guide is here to help you rethink your LinkedIn marketing strategy.

From recruiting top talent and generating leads to gaining valuable industry insights, LinkedIn offers tools to help you succeed. If you're smart and strategic about how you use a LinkedIn business page, it's possible to quickly grow your network and establish yourself as a leader in your field by leveraging LinkedIn business solutions. 

In this guide, we cover:

This guide will walk you through the key areas of focus for any LinkedIn business page. We'll look at how to create the perfect company page or personal account, how to increase your reach, and how to measure your success.

Setting up and optimizing your LinkedIn company page

Any LinkedIn business strategy starts with preparing to create a company page. You may already have a page set up, or it may have been dormant for some time. LinkedIn has been around since 2003, so it's possible you have old LinkedIn profiles out there. LinkedIn's business tools can help you optimize your business page by providing valuable insights and features.

Here's what you need to do, whether you're starting from scratch or want to bring an old LinkedIn profile back to life.

1. Make sure your profile is professional and engaging

If you need to start over, first sign in to LinkedIn using either your personal or company email. You may have to set up an account. From here, click the “Create Page” button on the LinkedIn homepage. Select “Company” as your page type and enter your company name and details to create a professional LinkedIn business profile. Upload a high-quality logo and cover image that reflect your brand identity. Write a compelling “About” section that clearly explains what your company does and what makes it unique.

After that, you need to fill out your profile with things like your website URL, industry, company size, and location. These are the kinds of things some people put off when they create their LinkedIn profile and never get around to completing the task. Make sure you're not one of them. An incomplete LinkedIn profile looks very unprofessional.

Include relevant keywords naturally throughout your profile to improve search potential, and keep your information up-to-date and accurate to maintain credibility.

Remember to invite your employees to follow and engage with your page. Their interactions can help extend your reach and foster a sense of community.

2. Showcasing products, services, and achievements

Once your profile is live, you can start promoting what you do. The key is to optimize your profile by tailoring your content to your audience.

To start, use the Products tab to highlight your offerings. Add product descriptions, images, and relevant links to help potential customers understand what you offer at a glance. This is especially useful for online stores and suppliers who need to make business connections through LinkedIn.

From there, it's time to start creating LinkedIn posts. Be proactive and share company milestones, awards, and success stories. Celebrate team achievements and give employee shout-outs to showcase your company culture.

Being proactive with one or two posts a week keeps you at the top of other content feeds and means you're in the line of sight of many other LinkedIn users-maybe even your next client. In addition, using LinkedIn business marketing can help you effectively showcase your products and services.

3. Implementing SEO best practices for your company page

Of course, you can't have a successful LinkedIn business page or extend the reach of your posts without smart SEO. Optimize your page for LinkedIn's search tool and Google by using relevant keywords in your company description, job postings, and updates.

Use a custom LinkedIn URL that includes your company name. This makes it easier for people to find and remember your page.

When you post regular updates, make sure there's an engagement element to each one, as the LinkedIn algorithm favors pages with consistent activity. The more likes, shares, and comments you get, the more chance you have of getting even more.

A quick SEO practice is to add relevant hashtags to all of your posts. Make sure there's a mix of broader industry hashtags or specific tags relevant to your niche. If you're stuck, use LinkedIn's Content Suggestions tool to find trending topics in your industry.

Finally, your LinkedIn page will get more attention if you encourage employees to post and link back to it. Positive employee endorsements are highly effective on LinkedIn — often more so than ads or your own posts.

Building and expanding your professional network

Once your page is up and running, you can start thinking about networking. That's the whole point of LinkedIn, so don't be shy — it's what everyone does.

It's harder for brands themselves to network effectively on LinkedIn. Instead, it's often up to people within a company — such as the PR team or marketers — to build business connections on LinkedIn.

Here's what you can do.

Connect with industry leaders and potential clients

Once you've created a LinkedIn business page for your company, it's time to put your personal page to good use. Use a professional headshot and create a compelling headline with your job title. Fill out your experience section with key accomplishments to build credibility. You're now the professional face of the company you work for.

Then use LinkedIn search to find industry leaders and potential clients. Filter by job title, company, or location. Don't just click “Connect”. Instead, send a personalized message explaining why you'd like to connect. Mention the brand you work for and how you can benefit from each other as LinkedIn business contacts.

Engage with your network effectively

After you've spent some time networking, try to join relevant LinkedIn groups in your field. Join discussions to showcase your expertise. Ask thoughtful questions to start conversations. This can lead to deeper relationships and potential job opportunities for you or networking opportunities for your brand. 

You'll quickly get noticed, and when you link back to your brand's LinkedIn business page, your network will follow.

Remember to balance professional content with personal touches to build authentic relationships. It's usually best to keep politics out of your posts unless your brand values have a political angle.

Implementing content marketing strategies on LinkedIn

Business content on LinkedIn is essential, whether you're a freelancer or working for a company, because there are similar marketing strategies that work really well on LinkedIn. Below, we've selected three strategies that can help you make a quick impact on the platform.

1. Create and share valuable content

It goes without saying that you need to create a company page or personal LinkedIn profile that actually provides value to your audience. To do this right, start by understanding your audience's needs and interests.

Create posts that provide useful information, insights, or solutions to their problems. Share industry news, company updates, and expert tips.

See what works and what doesn't, and replicate the style of your most successful LinkedIn business posts. 

This is clearly what your audience wants, so give it to them.

If you hit a rich seam of engagement and need to find content quickly, consider repurposing your existing content from other platforms for LinkedIn. For example, pulling extracts from blog posts on your company website is a great little trick that's quick and inexpensive.

2. Take advantage of LinkedIn's publishing platform

LinkedIn's publishing platform allows you to share long-form content, including LinkedIn business articles, directly with your network and publish it however you want.

Don't be afraid to experiment with everything from videos and essays to full-blown photo shoots. You never know what might grab your audience's attention.

A LinkedIn business page has automatic access to most of the site's publishing tools, although you may want to subscribe to Premium Business to play with the full set of tools. 

You can also manage your LinkedIn page from an external tool like Brandwatch, which offers even more data insights and the ability to publish to other social channels.

3. Try LinkedIn Live and video content

LinkedIn business videos are becoming increasingly popular on LinkedIn. The site has developed a strong video platform that is different from other channels like TikTok and Instagram. You can be professional and promote yourself or your brand very easily.

With LinkedIn Live, you can stream events, host Q&A sessions, or conduct interviews with industry experts. Live video can help you connect with your audience in real time and increase engagement. 

But they can be expensive and time-consuming to run. If you don't want to go “live” for your video content, you can repackage commercials or ads and place them here. Or you can interview employees and happy customers to show other businesses how successful you are.

Using LinkedIn advertising for lead generation

LinkedIn doesn't rely on ads quite as much as other social media platforms because it generates so much of its revenue from premium subscribers. However, this means that your LinkedIn business ad is more likely to break through compared to other — more competitive — social media sites.

Overview of LinkedIn advertising options

If you're new to LinkedIn ads, it's worth reading this section. LinkedIn offers several ad formats for different marketing goals, depending on what type of user you are. One of the most successful is lead generation. We've broken down the different types as follows:

Sponsored content

Most sponsored content is published on users' news feeds, and include:

  • Single Image Ads – A post that includes a single image and written content below
  • Video Ads – A post that includes a video and written content below.
  • Carousel Ads – A multi-image post that includes written content below.
  • Event Ads – A event post that includes imagery and written content.
  • Document Ads – A post with a sharable, clickable document that takes the user directly to your uploaded doc. Perfect for sharing research or white papers.
  • Thought Leader Ads – Perfect for building your brand, these posts link to your longer-form discussions on your industry or market.
  • Click-to-Message Ads – Similar to a single image ad with the option to immediately message your LinkedIn business or personal profile.
  • Connected TV Ads – A post that streams video content on larger screens.

Sponsored messaging

These types of sponsored posts are placed in users' LinkedIn inbox and provide direct access:

  • Conversation Ads – Generate leads from LinkedIn's database and talk to users directly, offering clickable buttons to drive the conversation forward.
  • Message Ads – Similar to conversation ads, where you message users inside and outside your network directly.

Lead gen forms

  • Lead Gen Forms – Point users to a lead gen form where they can automatically fill in their details to find out more about you and your service.

Text and dynamic ads

  • Text Ads – Appears in the 'Ads you might be interested in' section and is primarily text-based with a small image.
  • Spotlight Ads – Highlights your product or service and pull users directly to your LinkedIn business page.
  • Follower Ads – Launch an ad to encourage follower growth and promote your business page at the same time.

Measuring success and refining your LinkedIn strategy

Your LinkedIn Business Page will start to get a lot of attention if you use the strategies above effectively. Tracking and learning from LinkedIn business metrics is just as important as generating interest in the first place.

In this section, we'll take a quick look at the metrics to keep an eye on and how to use that data to improve your business and personal profile.

Analyzing key performance metrics

Here's a quick breakdown of the KPIs worth following from your LinkedIn page:

  • Follower Growth – Have your total followers increased over time? When did you see spikes in follower growth, and what can you learn from that?
  • Engagement Rates – What posts create the most engagement? And where is that engagement leading? Are people heading to your business page, or perhaps they're going straight to your website? Are they commenting but not engaging any further?
  • Post Reach – Who is seeing your posts, and how widely has it spread? Have people been sharing your posts or links to your LinkedIn business page?
  • Click-Through Rates – Have any of your CTAs worked? Are people clicking through to where you want them to go?

Use LinkedIn's built-in analytics tools to track these metrics over time, or use a powerful third-party tool like Brandwatch for even deeper insights. 

Set specific goals for each metric based on your business goals, and be sure to reflect on each metric as you go. This will allow you to adjust and improve your strategy.

Continuous improvement and strategy adjustment

Speaking of improving and adjusting your strategy, here's how to do it seamlessly. First, review your LinkedIn analytics to identify trends and patterns. Make an initial tweak to your strategy by changing your tactics, messaging, style, or anything else you feel is necessary. Don't change your goals because that's what you want to achieve.

Implement your new strategy and publish new content. Track everything that goes out and compare it to what you were doing before you updated your strategy. Are you making improvements? If so, keep going. If not, you may need to change again.

Continuous improvement usually only happens when you are willing to change your strategy. Remember, LinkedIn is a social media site that is constantly evolving — so you need to keep up with those changes.

Frequently asked questions

LinkedIn offers many ways for businesses to grow their presence and reach. Here are answers to some common questions about using LinkedIn for your company.

How can I set up a LinkedIn page for my business?

If you want to create a LinkedIn page, then you'll need a profile first. Sign up to the site and then go to the LinkedIn homepage and click “For business” at the top. Select “Create a Company Page+” and choose your page type. Fill in your business details, add a logo and banner image, and write a compelling description. Then it's time to invite employees and colleagues to follow your new page.

What are the benefits of using LinkedIn for a small business?

LinkedIn helps small businesses build their brand, find leads, and make connections. But every small business needs to be proactive on the site to be successful. You can share content to showcase your expertise, join industry groups to network, and use LinkedIn ads to reach your target audience. Video posts are becoming increasingly popular on the platform, and it's a great place to start. LinkedIn is also a reliable and inexpensive recruiting tool that can really help you achieve your business goals.

Does creating a LinkedIn business page incur any fees?

Creating a basic LinkedIn business page is completely free. You can set up your page, post updates, and interact with followers for free. There are LinkedIn premium features such as advanced analytics and targeted advertising. These features cost money, but LinkedIn has a sliding scale that means you can afford ads whether you're a small or large business. The core functionality of LinkedIn, though, is available without charge.

Are there any templates available to help design my LinkedIn business page?

LinkedIn doesn't offer pre-made templates for business pages, but you can use design tools like Canva or Pixlr to create custom graphics for your banner image and posts. A successful LinkedIn business page needs these visual elements and a strong description, so make sure you invest some time and effort into getting these parts right.