Is your association or chamber of commerce on LinkedIn? If not, we highly recommend creating a company page. Not only does it give your organization credibility, but it’s likely where many of your members and prospects are — and that means it’s the perfect digital playground for member engagement!
But you can’t just create a page and expect to have followers (especially followers who engage). A little thought and effort is required.
Read on for tips regarding how to grow your LinkedIn following and how to keep your followers engaged.
How to grow your LinkedIn following
Whether you’re just getting started with LinkedIn or you’ve been active on the platform for a while, but just haven’t committed to it fully, the first step is to acquire some followers. (Can’t engage with a non-existent crowd! Or not easily, at least.)
To grow your following, consider these tactics:
- Ask all of your staff members and board of directors to follow your company page.
- Email your members and encourage them to follow your company page. (But tip: Tell them what’s in it for them. What will they get by following you? Industry-related content? Updates about your association or chamber of commerce? Giving them the “why” will prompt them to act.)
- Add a LinkedIn icon (directing people to your page) on your organization’s website and in your email templates, if you’re able to. (If you can’t add an actual graphic due to design limitations, a text link will work too! You can even add it in your email signature.)
- Mention it frequently in your organization’s newsletter.
- Promote it on your existing social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). A simple “We’re now on LinkedIn! Follow us for even more news and industry-related content!” will work.
- Use relevant hashtags when posting content. (This is how you’ll attract more prospects.)
Page growth will take some time, but if you promote it regularly, you’ll get there! Don’t get discouraged.
How to engage your LinkedIn followers
Once you have LinkedIn followers, you then need to engage them. After all, that’s what social media is all about — and that’s why people followed you in the first place!
So, to engage your LinkedIn followers, try the following tactics:
- Post valuable content on a regular basis – LinkedIn is the perfect platform for positioning your association or chamber of commerce as a thought leader in the industry/community. That said, share valuable and relevant content on a fairly regular basis (at least once a week, if you can). You can publish your own blog posts or posts from other industry publications — just be sure to give credit where credit is due. And major tip: This is NOT the place to be salesy. Think informative content versus self-promoting content. (You’ll be much more successful that way.)
- Include images with your posts – Like most social media platforms, posts with images receive much higher levels of engagement than posts without. In fact, according to LinkedIn, posts with images generally result in a 98 percent higher comment rate. That’s huge, so whenever you can include an image, do it!
- Share videos, if possible – Like posts with images, posts with videos typically receive higher levels of engagement. Again, according to LinkedIn, posts with links to YouTube videos that play directly in people’s newsfeed typically result in a 75 percent higher share rate. So not only are videos great for driving engagement, but they’re great for growing your following as well (because people are actively sharing your content and getting your name/page out there).
- Include a clear call-to-action – Sometimes the best way to drive engagement is to ask people to take some kind of action. Click here to register! Download our free white paper! Phrases like that are known as calls-to-action (or CTAs, for short), and you should include them with just about all of your posts. But tip: Keep your CTAs clear and concise. (Complicated CTAs can result in no action at all.)
Want more tips for fully leveraging LinkedIn? (Metrics worth tracking, advertising how-tos, etc.) Check out our free guide below!
Note: This post was originally published on 9/26/19, but updated 11/23/20 for added value.
