5 Key Methods to Leverage LinkedIn for Your Company

LinkedIn is unique among social networks in that it’s specifically designed for business and professional use. This means that the tools it provides you are different from the ones on Facebook or Twitter, and the opportunities available are ones you wouldn’t have elsewhere. It also means that LinkedIn lends itself perfectly to marketing. So how do you use LinkedIn to take advantage of opportunities to promote your brand? Here are five key methods to leverage LinkedIn for your company.

1. Connecting with others in your field. All five key methods to leverage LinkedIn for your company boil down to this: professional networking. It’s what LinkedIn was created for. Look for groups that are specifically geared toward your field or adjacent fields. Talk to people with similar goals and see if they’d be willing to collaborate with you and form a mutually beneficial relationship. You can even create your own group if there’s a specific topic you’d like to explore that isn’t covered.
2. Establishing yourself as an expert. You can’t just show up on LinkedIn and tell people to check out your brand. You need to establish your credibility. Go to the discussion forums and help people out. Answer questions. Get to know them and let them get to know you. Then, when they’re looking for a brand they can trust, they’ll think of you.
3. Sharing content. As on any social network, posting increases your visibility. Post links you genuinely think your networks will find useful or interesting: articles, blogs, videos, etc. This goes hand in hand with establishing yourself as an expert. If people like what you post, they’ll be more likely to look at your own content as well and share it with their networks.
4. Gathering information. With a little ingenuity, you can create a LinkedIn Focus Group. There are a number of tools online that allow you to create a survey, which you can then put on your website. Use the survey to gather important information about your field and the people in it, then post the link to your LinkedIn profile and invite your networks to participate. It can provide you with valuable information, which you can then share with your networks by posting the results on your profile.
5. Increasing your search engine visibility. Search algorithms favor sites with higher activity. The more people share and talk about your content on LinkedIn, the more it increases its popularity and boosts your ranking in search results.

These five key methods to leverage LinkedIn for your company are just a sample of what you can do. There are tons of opportunities on LinkedIn to connect with people, expand your professional network and promote your brand in new and innovative ways.