In the last few years, LinkedIn has grown significantly and evolved into a vibrant professional network. Today, it’s so much more than resumes and recruiters.

LinkedIn is a social community. Like all other social media platforms, it’s built on conversation and engagement. Individuals and businesses are having thought-provoking discussions, sharing new ideas and different perspectives.

And according to Omnicore data, 80 percent of business-to-business leads are coming from LinkedIn.

Here are nine tips for growing your LinkedIn company profile.

  • Complete your company page profile. All of it, with a logo or photo and full descriptions. Seems simple, but not all companies have done this.
  • Encourage employees to complete their personal profiles and connect them with your company page. Also, encourage employees to engage with your company content. This will help increase your company’s search visibility and amplify your content to all of your employees’ networks.
  • Share content regularly. If you’re just starting, begin by posting original content once a month and work up to once or more per week. It’s not as much about the frequency but more about consistency.
  • Include visuals. Across social media, photos and videos are more effective and memorable. One source reports images get six times more engagement and videos three times more engagement than text-only posts. (Inc., 2015) Keep videos under 2 minutes, and include subtitles since most people watch without sound. Also, think about PDFs and PowerPoints on LinkedIn.
  • Make your content search friendly. Include keywords and descriptive captions. Create links back to your company page on your website, blog, and through your employees connecting their personal profiles to your company page.
  • Use hashtags. This increases the visibility of your content when users search for a topic. Hashtags should be directly relevant to your content, and keep them to five or less per post. You can associate your company page with up to three hashtags to increase the search visibility of your page on those topics. Look for the Communities Hashtags panel.
  • Tag others and share their content. If your content mentions a partner or employee, tag them. This amplifies your content to their network and encourages more engagement. Return the favor by engaging with those who tag your company. And when you share content from other sources, it helps increase your reach and show your involvement and comprehensive knowledge of your industry.
  • Post natively through LinkedIn’s content system. Content that keeps people on the platform can give you higher search results and better engagement. Think about the long game and hooking users to your brand first, then bring them to your website. Using LinkedIn’s native content system also sends notifications to your connections each time you post. You don’t have to hope they organically find the post in their feed. (SearchEngine Journal, 2018)
  • Join relevant LinkedIn groups. Not for promotion, but for conversation and connection. Groups are an easy way to join discussions that are focused and relevant to your industry. This is also a great way to hear what your audience is interested in or what problems they might be having.

As a professional social network, LinkedIn is about big ideas, thought leadership, and intellectual curiosity. Offer answers and insights to your audience, not a sales pitch. Share a new perspective on your industry or a behind-the-scenes look at your organizational culture. Make me think, and you’ll have my attention.

Now I’m curious, what would be your Tip #10 for growing your company profile on LinkedIn?