10 Ways to Grow Your LinkedIn Business Page Organically

Social media continues to prove itself every day as one of the most promising and effective channels of communication for businesses across all industries. For B2Bs, leveraging this surge in social media to attract the right customers at the right time is incredibly important, and LinkedIn is increasingly becoming one of the best ways to do so. For social media content related to business, LinkedIn is undoubtedly the go-to social platform, and rightfully so - the platform's career-oriented focus and structure is ideal for thought leadership and makes it a perfect network for users to share professional insights. According to eMarketer, 72% of US business professionals think LinkedIn is the most effective platform to exchange professional ideas and interests, and 77% consider it to be the social platform where they expect to see professional content:

While you might understand the importance of an established LinkedIn company page for your business, it can be more difficult to determine what best practices to follow in order to grow your page organically. To discover the most efficient ways to achieve the kind of growth your brand is looking for, we've asked 10 industry experts to share their favorite growth tips. By employing these tactics, businesses everywhere can expect substantial increases in the value of their LinkedIn business pages:

1. Craft Creative Posts

The content you post on your company profile should be creative, compelling, and provide your readers with content they can't find anywhere else, explains Carly Fauth, Director of Marketing and Outreach at MoneyCrashers.com: "Draw upon your previous unique professional experiences for ideas. If you're only able to craft three quality posts or updates per week, stick with that schedule. Also, you can now add videos to your LinkedIn company page. So if there's a promotional video your organization uses for marketing efforts, add that in to your profile. Make sure you include a call to action at the end of your posts, even if it's just asking readers for their thoughts on your article. And when you get comments or questions of any kind, be sure to respond to them. This shows both the commenter and your potential followers that you're active on LinkedIn and that you value their opinions." -Carly Fauth, Director of Marketing & Outreach, MoneyCrashers.com

2. Build a Consistent Brand

Your company's branding should be reflected on your social media platforms-especially LinkedIn. Rachel Neppes, Vice President and Co-Manager of Digital Strategy at Buchanan Public Relations, explains how to foster this sort of brand recognition: "Make sure that your B2B company profile is optimized and consistent with your overall brand identity. Treat it as an extension of your website. Engage with followers (fans, customers, prospects, the media, etc.) on your social networks and drive traffic back to your company's LinkedIn page. Use your other social channels to increase engagement on your company's LinkedIn page." -Rachel Neppes, Vice President and Co-Manager of Digital Strategy, Buchanan Public Relations

3. Share Content Relevant to Your Industry

Kate Endres, Senior Social Media Marketing Specialist at Blue Fountain Media, highlights the significance of posting content that isn't overly promotional and provides value to readers: "LinkedIn's presence in terms of social media marketing is continuing to improve, and with such a tailored audience, it is important for companies to focus on the audience LinkedIn provides in order to reach businesses that might be interested in working with them. It's a business platform, and as a result it's the obvious choice for B2B companies to incorporate into their marketing efforts. A common mistake that I see when companies are trying to grow their LinkedIn company page is sharing overly promotional content rather than sharing content and news that is relevant to the industry they're in. By posting relevant content, a company may establish themselves as a thought leader in the space, giving users (and hopefully the target audience) a reason to visit the page. Remember, if the content posted is strictly promoting a product or service, wouldn't a user simply visit the company's website?" -Kate Endres, Senior Social Media Marketing Specialist, Blue Fountain Media

4. Schedule Time for LinkedIn

When the work day is busy, posting your insights on LinkedIn can easily be overlooked. Jennifer Vickery, President at National Strategies Public Relations, explains that scheduling time during the day to post is critical: Put a reminder on your calendar (so that it acts as your administrative assistant) reminding you to check in with LinkedIn, add new connections, etc. Don't be afraid to Like, say congrats, or other interactions. Many people know LinkedIn is for business purposes so they often skip the interactive part and leave that to other social media platforms. Interactive professionally however, is a great organic key to consistently growing your connection base and staying in the mind of your customer audience." -Jennifer Vickery, President, National Strategies Public Relations

5. Leverage Social Signals

LinkedIn offers a widget that can be embedded on websites to create an easier transition from your page to your LinkedIn profile, explains Brett Farmiloe, Founder of Markitors: "LinkedIn offers companies a widget that can be embedded on their website. Just plug in your company name, choose from their three simple display options, and generate the code needed to install the widget on your site. Once installed, web visitors will be able to follow your page from your website, and see who of their connections already follow your page. Not only is the widget a good way to grow your LinkedIn page, but displaying connections through the widget is a great way to increase engagement on your website." -Brett Farmiloe, Founder, Markitors

6. Join LinkedIn Groups

Using LinkedIn as a true networking tool by actively communicating with others in your industry will help grow your company's profile. Andrew Jung, Corporate Marketing Associate at Blue Fountain Media, offers the following advice: "Joining groups that are relevant to the field your company works in is the most effective way to stay on top of industry trends. Your company will benefit greatly by being aware of what your competition is doing, and by networking with peers and sharing your ideas in these groups, more and more users will begin to visit your company's page, and begin to consider your employees thought leaders in your business' industry." -Andrew Jung, Corporate Marketing Associate, Blue Fountain Media

7. Gamify Article Sharing

Cultivating a dissemination-centric company culture by gamifying research and article sharing can prove successful. Matthew McAlister, Content Marketing Manager at Novus, describes this concept below: "Every time an article or research paper is released, use a program such as ShareLinkGenerator.com or Google URL Shortener to send a concise link to employees urging them to share the latest content. Using these two sites, all they have to do is click the link, and an optimized post is automatically shared to their Twitter and LinkedIn networks. Using the analytics portion of Google URL Shortener, you can then see how many people have clicked on the link, which is how many people in the company have shared the content. The next time a post is sent out, you can then screenshot the data and show improvements in sharing percentage or point out that everyone is slacking off." -Matthew McAlister, Content Marketing Manager, Novus

8. Think About Search Engines

When optimizing your LinkedIn page for growth, considering SEO best practices as you develop content is important in order to achieve measurable growth, says Jason Abrahams, Vice President of Marketing at Root3 Growth Marketing: "In order to optimize a company's LinkedIn page and help it grow organically, it's important to update the profile to the fullest and consider SEO best practices when developing content. Businesses should do some research on keywords to determine which are best suited to their business and industry. Those keywords should be organically included throughout the content of the page. Businesses will also need to determine their LinkedIn target audience and create content directed at this group. Make sure to put thought into what's written in the company overview, description and specialties sections in order to get the best LinkedIn search engine results." -Jason Abrahams, Vice President of Marketing, Root3 Growth Marketing

9. Promote Your Profile With Every Email You Send

To increase the amount of users that visit your profile on LinkedIn, include a link to it in the signature of your emails, suggests Andrea Mocherman, VP of Marketing at Gravit8 Marketing: "You should add a URL to your company page from your Outlook signature. In general, I've seen a significant uptick in terms of clicks from the email signature to all of the social channels that are highlighted in the signature resulting in new followers, shares and 'likes'." -Andrea Mocherman, VP of Marketing, Gravit8 Marketing

10. Get Employees Involved in Group Conversations

Getting users to not only share your company's content, but actively inject it into a variety of different group conversations across LinkedIn is a great way to build your brand's LinkedIn reach. Megan Biondi, Social Media Marketing Specialist at Blue Fountain Media, discusses why this is so helpful: "Encouraging your employees to be involved in different LinkedIn groups is a great way to improve your brand's presence and eventually your company page's following. When your employees participate in group discussions on LinkedIn, it helps to position your team as thought leaders in the space and can help to organically spread the word about your business to eventually increase the number of people that are following your business." -Megan Biondi, Social Media Marketing Specialist, Blue Fountain Media

Establishing a Strong LinkedIn Presence for your B2B

A LinkedIn company page is the key to communication with your stakeholders that are looking to be enlightened and learn as much as possible about your brand. By implementing some of these tips into your brand's social media strategy, you can effectively grow your user base, ultimately leading to an increase in sales for your brand overall.