Going Back to the Basics of Social Media: LinkedIn

**This post was updated on 02/22/17 to reflect LinkedIn’s new interface.

To continue with our series on the basics of social media marketing, today we will be focusing in some of the key elements that will allow you and your firm to successfully create a presence on LinkedIn:

1.Understanding the LinkedIn Jargon

• Connections

Unlike Facebook “friends” and Twitter “followers”, on LinkedIn you will have “Connections”. These connections are made through your personal profile, NOT your company page. From your company LinkedIn page you are only able to “follow” and get updates on individuals and other companies.

• Follow

Following is a way to get updates on individuals or companies without the necessity of “connecting” with them.

• Endorsements

These are used on individual profiles to certify or “recommend” others for specific skill sets. For example, I can recommend a colleague for “Digital Marketing”. You can be recommended for endless skills –  PowerPoint expertise, customer service, blogging, public speaking, etc. If you are a financial advisor, however, this can be problematic. FINRA and SEC guidelines state that financial advisors may have endorsements as long as they are not from a client or related to financial services and your ability to manage money. (Considering that is the majority of your profession – this is probably exactly what you’d be endorsed for). So, we simply suggest that financial advisors hide the endorsement feature on their LinkedIn profile as it could be a compliance issue, and in general endorsements don’t seem to hold much weight as is. 

• Like, Comment, Share

Much like on other social media channels, these features work the same way to engage with some of your followers and those you follow.

Tip: As you are building your follower count on your company page, one way to increase your number of followers is by “Sharing” any updates that are made on the company’s LinkedIn page to your personal page. This way all of your followers, who could be clients or colleagues, can see the updates and are more likely to go and check out the company page.

• Linkedin Pulse

Linkedin Pulse is the name of Linkedin’s own blogging platform. Financial advisors can post their own original content and when they click “publish” all of their followers and connections will be notified of their activity (which is a great way to get more eyes on your content!). However, some advisors are nervous about the ability for anyone to post a comment on their post, since lack of control is every compliance officer’s worst nightmare.

Tip: You’ll be happy to know that you can flag and hide comments on Linkedin Pulse! Just click on the three dots (…) next to any comment and a dropdown menu opens. Click on “Flag and Hide” to remove the troubling comment.

2. Accessing Your Company LinkedIn Page:

Start by going to your personal Linkedin page, then clicking on the picture on the far left then clicking on “Company Page – Manage.”

 

3. Editing Your Company Page

Part of having a great presence on LinkedIn is to offer people visiting your page all the information they need about your page. By going to the Edit Page you will be able to access the company overview page, where you can edit the Company Name, Description, and other fields such as Company Size, URL, etc. Make sure to have this information up-to-date and periodically check to ensure it remains that way.

Another great feature is being able to add “Admins” to your company page- what this means is additional people who might be able to post as on behalf of your company from their personal LinkedIn profiles. If you have multiple team members contributing to your social media marketing, this will allow you to collaborate without sharing passwords and the complications of having to rely on simply one profile.

Simply type the name of the person you want to add {they must be a personal “connection” (part of your LinkedIn contacts) for you to add them as admins”}. Additionally, if your business has multiple locations, you are also able to add details about these.

4. Changing Your Company’s Main Image and Background

Scroll all the way down and you will reach the area where you are able to change these two fields. You also have the ability to change the icon, which should be your company logo. Then another option is the company background, where (similarly to a banner on Facebook or Twitter) is another way to express the personality of your company.

 

5. Posting directly from your company page

If you are not using Hootsuite (or another auto-posting service), or if you simply want to post directly from LinkedIn, you can do so by typing a message into the text box below “Drive Engagement”. Here you also have the ability to add photos and links to your post. Important: When adding links, you will see that once LinkedIn registers the link, a preview will pop up below the text box. Once this happens, highlight the link in the text box and delete the link you pasted in (starting with https://), replacing it with a few sentences of what the article is about.

 

 

6. LinkedIn Analytics

If you are logged in as an Admin to your company page, and then scroll down on the main company page, you will be able to see your “Recent Updates”. Here you can view by post some quick analytic metrics to help track your progress. For instance, the below image shows 103 impressions or people who were exposed to the post. 2 Clicks, for how many times the link was clicked. These are the two key metrics that will help you figure out how well your posts are doing based on captions, times of day for posting, etc.

You can view this information as well under the “Analytics” tab. 

 

Interested in more ways to become a master at LinkedIn? Check out our posts Tips to Stay Active on LinkedIn, 5 Steps to a Great Profile, Linkedin’s New Company Page Features, and Prospecting on LinkedIn. Also, read these blog posts regarding how to succeed on social media: Twitter Basics, Facebook Basics, and Getting Started with Social Media Marketing.