LinkedIn has become an important source of growth in both large and small enterprises. Large firms do not face many obstacles when it comes to adding their followers since they are already well-known in the market. Their products and services are already under the public eye, hence the process of generating followers is automated. However, when it comes to small, blooming businesses that are new to the market and still trying to make a ‘mark’, there is still a long way to go. There is a great need to optimize their content strategy as they are new in the business. However, there is not much to worry about.
With these simple and practical tips, it can become convenient for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to grow their followers.
USEFUL TIPS TO OPTIMIZE YOUR CONTENT STRATEGY:
1. TARGET THE RIGHT AUDIENCE:
Small enterprises may have their content right and at the place, but if the target audience is not the right one, all the work goes down the drain. A disconnection between the two can cause the strategy to be a classic failure. Sure, you can create a LinkedIn page that describes your brand perfectly and share relevant and to-the-point content, but if the right members don’t see it, then your content will fail to make an impact.
One of the first things to do when this happens is to take a detailed overview of your page. Do your language, visuals, and information cater to the people you are trying to reach? Moreover, LinkedIn also has the advantage that if your page reaches 300+ followers, you can target specific sectors, departments, seniority levels, languages, and locations. This helps in filtering out the right people that you want to target and create a niche.
2. ENSURING THE PROMOTION OF RIGHT CONTENT:
This may also be the case. You may be having the right audience but if the content is wrong, all the work goes down the drain. This is indicated by low engagement numbers. There may be several reasons for having the wrong content. These include wrong focus, lack of images, linkage to articles, neglected SEO, and content not worthy of sharing.
Content may be losing focus if you are not relevant to your immediate customers, prospective customers, and the community. Content may also lose its spark if you are not adding your own opinions, and initiating conversations. By providing good information and insights, you can gain an edge over your competitors and hence grow your page followers.
Any sort of visuals or images is necessary to make any content look appealing. Images attract a follower towards the content which may eventually result in liking the page and regularly visiting it. These can be colorful images that stand out in your content. It is a researched fact that posts with images tend to receive 2x more comments than those without any imagery. Images must be featured in the majority of your posts to help gain traction.
If your content is always linked to articles, this may result in poor article quality as it disrupts the article flow. True, there may be some links in your articles, but your entire content should not be based upon article links. It should be balanced with a unique mix of your thoughts, anecdotes, videos, short stories, and product descriptions.
Search Engine Optimization should never be avoided. It is one of the widely used tools in today’s world. LinkedIn is highly visible in search bars. With a few clever tactics, you can easily boost up your LinkedIn -page’s SEO.
Lastly, your content should be worth sharing. It should provide relevant information, should be distinct, and grab your audience’s attention. A smart approach in developing the content goes a long way and it is also reflected in your results.
3. SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION TRACKING AND MEASUREMENT:
Your page’s metrics reflect whether the changes made by you are leaving a positive impact or not. Optimization refers to the measurement, analysis, and tweaking the results accordingly. LinkedIn offers some reporting tools, so it is made easy to track your page performance. However, one must be vigilant of what and what not to track and rectify the errors. Optimized content will result in more viewership and thereby a great number of followers.
4. ENGAGING YOUR EMPLOYEES:
Employees are the greatest strength when it comes to growing your page’s LinkedIn followers. Motivate them to market the page to friends and colleagues who may be interested in a company’s offerings. They may also engage themselves by regularly tagging the page in updates, and share the benefits of following the page with their close networks. This can greatly boost the number of followers with more second and third-degree parties visiting the page.
It must also be ensured that employees mention the Work Experience in their profiles, because each time they add a new connection on LinkedIn, the connection likes that page which only increases the page’s number of followers.
5. TRAINING YOUR EMPLOYEES:
The engagement of employees with the content is not sufficient. They must also be well-trained as to how they should present that content. This is a social media training for employees which relates to how to like, comment, and share posts.
6. LEVERAGE YOUR EMPLOYEES:
Update your employees regularly concerning the company’s key social media posts every week so that they can share those posts with their networks. This can be conveniently done by using the ‘@’ sign to tag your employees each time a new post is uploaded, along with the supporting text to be shared with the post. Your page followers can be increased from your employees and their network. If they share the page posts regularly, their followers will also be able to view your activities from time to time.
The outcome of this step is that you boost the number of page views which ultimately results in incremental followers.
7. INNOVATING WITH POSTS:
A lot of innovation can be done with LinkedIn posts to make them appear more attractive to the audience. Each piece of content can be reused two to three times by highlighting a quote or a statistic from the original post. This makes the original post look creative. Moreover, PowerPoints and PDFs can also be uploaded as posts to give a unique touch. These documents help the brand look more ‘intelligent’ and thus contribute to raising the number of page followers.
8. SHARE VIDEO AND VISUAL CONTENT:
It is not a novel fact that visuals appeal more to the audience than the content itself. Your posts, as already discussed, should include captivating visuals. These can also be created using Canva. Aesthetics and videos tend to stand out more on LinkedIn feeds. This helps the brand and the company gain a noticeable position. Recent LinkedIn data suggests that any type of visuals help elevate the levels of engagement on the platform.
Uploading photos of your employees also makes the audience interested in your company’s page and this is also likely to increase the number of page followers.
9. ENCOURAGE EMPLOYEES TO BECOME A PART OF LINKEDIN GROUPS:
LinkedIn groups hold the utmost importance especially when it comes to networking with new people in an industry or a business or simply for the promotion of your brand. You will meet new people on LinkedIn groups, some of who are likely to give better ideas regarding the promotion of your products/services and others who will be new people interested in your LinkedIn page and are, therefore “potential followers” of your page.
When the industry experts participate in these small communities, they also help create your brand awareness and also initiating a discussion on key topics that aid you in making your business better for successful growth.
10. FORMING AN EMPLOYEE ADVOCACY PROGRAM:
A formal structure revolving around the company’s employee engagement engine can make it very easy for your employees to share content and also promote the page at the same time for maximum reach. This works best when the content is shared during peak times in the target consumer’s time zone.
11. ENCOURAGING PARTNERS AND LEADERS TO MENTION YOUR PAGE USING “@”:
Prominent business leaders are influential in promoting your page and content, and with them sharing your content, there are very high chances of your page having a greater number of followers as these leaders have large professional networks. When they start a discussion and link to your company’s LinkedIn page, it raises your page followers through increased traffic.
12. PROMOTING ENGAGEMENT OF YOUR POSTS:
When followers engage with your content either by making comments or giving reactions on it, it widens the reach of that content to a greater number of people who can see this activity on their news feed. This audience may most likely be out of your first-degree connections. A plan can be developed to encourage positive comments and can be reciprocated with the same fervor.
13. KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIs):
One of the most important factors to be considered when it comes to tracking your key metrics is with the help of KPIs. The question of what metrics you will track has a simple answer: follower count. However, boundaries must be defined. A target should be set for a month, and this target should be ambitious, yet realistic, and achievable. For example, a 5% target rate is easily attainable. Other important key metrics may include audience reach, engagement of posts, etc. Just as is the case with follower count, a realistic target rate could also be set for these metrics.
References:
https://www.bluefountainmedia.com/blog/grow-your-linkedin-business-page
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/how-to-increase-and-engage-your-23067/
