With upwards of 180 million unique visitors per month and users that account for 1 out of every 3 professionals on the planet, LinkedIn has elevated the game of digital networking.
For marketers, that means the network is ripe to engage this treasure trove of business-minded members with professionally relevant content. On LinkedIn, the simplest way to communicate with the network’s vast audience is through Company Updates and creating effective LinkedIn Company Updates is essential.
LinkedIn launched their Company Updates feature in October 2011, opening the floodgates for marketers to communicate directly with employees, customers, and prospects alike. Previously, the network allowed users to “follow” company pages, but the addition of Company Updates marked the integration of company content within the user’s news feed, allowing individuals to like, share, and comment on company updates directly.
While individuals use LinkedIn to connect with thought leaders and broadcast (or improve) their professional positioning, for marketers, the network is a prime distribution channel to engage targeted audiences with professionally relevant content. In fact, content now garners 6x more engagement than jobs properties on LinkedIn.
Regardless of your target audience, updates on a LinkedIn company page can be used to serve several purposes, including brand awareness, lead generation, community building, recruitment, content distribution, and thought leadership. But what are some tactics to drive real engagement through your LinkedIn updates?
Well, according to LinkedIn’s own help center, a good update meets the following criteria:
We recommend that Company Updates stay authentic, relevant, and short. The better your content, the greater the chance it goes viral through likes, shares, and comments. Posts that feel like spam will not get shared and, in fact, could result in your business losing followers.
While those recommendations can serve as a concise compass for your Company Page best practices, we thought it could be insightful to take a look at a company that is leading by example. We put our platform to work analyzing one of the standout companies currently managing a LinkedIn company page: Hewlett-Packard.
Hewlett-Packard’s LinkedIn Milestone
In February 2013, Hewlett-Packard (HP) passed a LinkedIn milestone by becoming the first company to amass 1 million followers on the network. Now sporting a hefty 1.6 million followers, the computer giant has clearly figured out a thing or two about engaging and expanding their audience on LinkedIn.
We analyzed HP’s LinkedIn data from the past year, and found that the site sports an average daily LinkedIn follower growth of 504.16 followers. Over the past year, HP posted around one update per day on average (1.09 updates/day to be exact), but averaged 121 likes and 9 comments per update. That’s a huge social amplification in return for a consistent daily LinkedIn update.
Using our visualization tool, we can also see HP’s average interactions per Company Update and change in total LinkedIn followers over time.
Hewlett-Packard: Avg. Company Update Interactions & Change In LinkedIn Followers
Looking at the trends in the graph above, we can see that a spike or drop in interactions on HP’s updates is correlated with a respective change in their overall number of followers. In other words, as you might expect, more engaging updates correspond with the expansion of HP’s LinkedIn following.
Drilling down into the pieces of content driving HP’s largest change in followers, we can gain even more insight into the content driving HP’s swift audience growth on LinkedIn.
Here are six examples of HP’s top-performing company updates, and some takeaway tactics you can use to build your own company’s LinkedIn engagement.
1. Entice With Aesthetics
LinkedIn company updates support multimedia and URLs, including SlideShare presentations and YouTube or Vimeo videos, and all of these updates are putting that capability to good use. Remember, these updates will be appearing in the midst of individual user’s LinkedIn news feed, so using eye-catching images can help your update stand out from the clutter. Check out how HP cleverly incorporated a YouTube video in the update below.
2. Include Links
Each of HP’s top-performing updates contained links to drive you directly to the appropriate article, press release, or website. Company updates that contain links show up to 45% higher engagement than that those without links – not to mention the potential for boosting traffic to your site. HP saw above average engagement (and potentially greater conference turnout) by announcing and linking to an upcoming conference featuring their CEO.
3. Create “Snackable” Content
As with any piece of content, keep in mind its context. A company update should be just that – a quick, easily consumable update. Keep your copy simple and to the point so that it can be absorbed easily within a LinkedIn user’s news feed. Notice HP’s light and snappy copy announcing a new product launch.
4. Highlight Company Accomplishments
As the world’s largest professional network, LinkedIn is a perfect platform to show off what makes your company great – but that doesn’t mean you should post pictures of your company happy hour. Rather, a successful LinkedIn culture post might highlight a major accomplishment or milestone. HP’s update featuring an adage from their founder, for example, saw above-average engagement. It also included a specific call to action: “LIKE this post.”
5. Provide Tips And Insights
Company updates don’t have to be all about you! Both online and offline, it pays to position your brand as a thought leader or in-the-know resource in your field. Check out how Hewlett-Packard shared the news of Microsoft Office’s new “Office Graph” tool below.
6. Focus On Brand Awareness First
As I mentioned above, LinkedIn updates can serve a variety of purposes for your company, from recruitment to lead gen. But rather than alternating abruptly with your messaging and writing content that’s relevant to prospects but not customers (or vice versa), focus first on simply building brand awareness. Ultimately, well-executed content building brand awareness will pay dividends for recruitment, lead gen, and community-building down the line. This “wifi-hunters” update from HP is a great example of a relatable way to announce the launch of their latest notebooks and tablets:
Now follow in HP’s footsteps, and take the world’s largest professional network by storm with a bevy of engaging company updates!
If you liked this post, you might like How To Build Your LinkedIn Influence or An Introduction To LinkedIn Analytics.
Interested in tracking your own LinkedIn content? Request a demo to see how TrackMaven gathers data across paid, owned, and earned marketing channels.
