If you’re a company owner that sells products and services to other businesses, your marketing needs to target platforms commonly used by industry leaders and key decision makers. 

One of the most popular platforms frequented by such people includes LinkedIn. If you can gain a following there and maintain a consistent level of engagement, it could benefit your business by increasing brand awareness, boosting quality lead generation, and even raising your conversion rates. 

If you’re interested in gaining a following on LinkedIn, we can help. As a LinkedIn lead generation agency, we’ve used our expertise to outline nine simple ways to boost your following on the platform below…

Add credibility with employee reviews 

Your employees are the centre of your business – and their thoughts and opinions mean more than you could ever imagine. In fact, they can even help to boost your following on LinkedIn. For example, encouraging employees to share their thoughts on LinkedIn that provide insight into your business’s culture can add credibility to your online presence. Such positive feedback creates a healthy representation of your company – which is attractive to both prospective stakeholders and future employees. As a result, you could see your following increase on the platform.

StraightIn’s top tip: To encourage your employees to collaborate with you and share posts about the company, you could offer rewards for engagement – such as gift vouchers. 

Work with influencers in the industry 

Another way you could boost your LinkedIn following is by working with influencers and other key thought leaders in your industry. Not only do these endorsements add further credibility to your brand, it can also generate meaningful engagement and position your business in front of an entirely new – but relevant, audience. This type of collaboration can ultimately help you increase brand awareness, and the amount of people that could be interested in utilising your products and services. 

StraightIn’s top tip: When researching which influencers you want to collaborate with, try to pick ones who align with your brand values. If you’re a smaller business, reach out to smaller influencers – they’ll be more likely to work with you than bigger ones. 

Create a content marketing strategy 

Producing content on LinkedIn is essential for any business looking to increase awareness of their brand on the platform. Those on LinkedIn are actively seeking industry insights and unique perspectives about common trends – so ensure your business is creating content that fulfills these needs. Encourage engagement by asking questions, using polls, and responding to comments. Facilitating discussion allows people to voice their opinions whilst also helping them to learn new, valuable insights and expertise. All of which, helps to reinforce your brand as a knowledgeable, thought leader and ultimately increase your following. 

StraightIn’s top tip: Ensure you don’t dip in and out of creating content and have a consistent schedule – this will help maintain your presence in the forefront of your audience’s mind. 

Diversify your content 

Content creation doesn’t mean you must produce long white papers and reports. In fact, diversifying the type of content you create can be extremely helpful in engaging different parts of your audience. Experiment with different formats, such as videos, slides, infographics and quick tips. Track what types perform well and what formats don’t – then replicate your success. Remember, different demographics favour different types of content, so it’s important you identify what your audience prefers by experimenting. 

StraightIn’s top tip: Involve employees from the top and bottom of your business in your content to offer different perspectives and humanise your brand. 

Take time to engage with your audience 

Creating content for your LinkedIn profile is pointless if you don’t make time to engage with your audience. Interaction is key to boosting your brand’s presence and creating a positive representation of your business. Ensure that those in charge of content creation in your audience respond to comments and questions they receive. This helps to position your brand on the feed of people you’re not even connected with, as posts with high levels of engagements are favoured by the algorithm. Ultimately, this can help increase your following on the platform. 

StraightIn’s top tip: Try to set a time limit for which you can reply to comments, so they don’t get forgotten about. For example, one day is usually a good starting point – but this will obviously depend on the amount of comments you receive. 

Track and measure your performance 

Tracking and measuring your marketing efforts on LinkedIn is essential to continued success. Doing so helps you to better understand what parts of your strategy are working and what parts need improvement. Ensure you learn from your mistakes and emulate your success – it’s how you’ll create a strategy that is effective at increasing your LinkedIn followers. Monitor your progress in real time – it’s how you can better understand trends and change your strategy now rather than later. 

StraightIn’s top tip: If you’re a business, it’s worth upgrading your page to a Sales Navigator account so you can take advantage of the reporting metrics the platform offers.

Optimise your page for SEO 

Ensuring your company’s LinkedIn page is optimised for SEO and up to date. This means going back to basics. First, take a look at the appearance of your page. Have you got an up to date header image and profile picture? Is your branding consistent? Next, use relevant keywords in your company’s ‘about’ section as well as your profile heading. This will help improve your visibility on search engines such as Google when other businesses search for the products/services you sell. 

StraightIn’s top tip: Try to check in on your profile every few months to see its level of visibility and see if anything needs updating.

Use LinkedIn Ads to promote your brand 

You can also accelerate your company growth by using LinkedIn’s paid ads feature. These ads can be displayed in many different formats, including Sponsored Content, Messages Ads, and Dynamic Ads. Which format you choose will depend on the type of content you’re producing. For example, if you want to showcase a series of data, or multiple tips, a Carousel Ad might work the best. Whereas, Sponsored Content ads can boost your insights into the feeds of people you’re not connected with and can engage a wider audience – ultimately helping to increase your following on LinkedIn.   

StraightIn’s top tip: Ensure you take advantage of LinkedIn’s robust filters – which allow you to carefully select who you want your ads to target, based on age, gender, job position, and industry. 

Attend networking events 

Don’t underestimate the power of in-person networking. It might not seem effective, but it can have a bigger impact than you might initially think. These can help you improve your presence both online and offline, as well as aiding you in building authentic relationships with other industry professionals. When you attend a networking event, talk to as many people as you can and ensure you swap details, so you can both follow each other on the platform. Better yet, you could even host your own networking events and invite leaders to share their thoughts. This way you can further connect with others whilst adding credibility to your brand. 

StraightIn’s top tip: When attending networking events, ensure you create posts around these meetings and the insights you’ve gained from it – especially if the event has featured talks from important figures in your industry. 

Final thoughts…

There are various effective methods that you can use in combination with a personalised outbound campaign to boost traffic to your company page and website through LinkedIn. These methods include creating compelling and shareable content, joining relevant groups and discussions, engaging with your audience, optimising your profile, and utilising LinkedIn’s advertising platform. By implementing these tactics, you can increase your visibility, establish your brand as an authority, and attract potential customers to your website. 

Increase your company’s LinkedIn following with a strategy from StraightIn’s experts

Gain a following for your company’s LinkedIn page with help from the expert team at StraightIn. We take time to thoroughly research your industry and assess your current performance so we can design a strategy that gets the result you need. 

With decades of industry experience, our team is ready to build your business a LinkedIn strategy that delivers real results. Learn more and contact us today. 

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