I have been receiving one question quite often lately:  What is the difference between a LinkedIn Company Page and a LinkedIn Group? Both of these options serve a great purpose for your company but accomplish different things.  According to a HubSpot study of over 5,000 companies, it was found that “traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74%, almost 3 times higher (277%) than both Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%).” With those types of numbers, you should definitely make a decision whether one or both of these options will work best for your company.

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LinkedIn Company Pages

Your company page is your daily news/promotional feed. If I’m a fan of your products, I’ll check out the company page for updates and new deals. The content you create for a blog or your website should also be shared on the page. Do not feel bad that majority of the content you’re posting pertains to your company. Consumers are coming to your page for your brand, not someone else’s. Company pages are also a great way to get feedback on content or a product. It may seem bad at first that a client would vent to you through the Company Page, but in reality that can become invaluable data.

 

Keys for a Successful Company Page:

  • Savvy Employees
    • Make sure they add their current position to their profile which then makes them followers of your page and drives new traffic
  • Occasionally promote your brand in Groups
    • I emphasize “occasionally” because too much of it can get you kicked out of the group
  • Engaging Content
    • Do not just post an article but ask a question about the piece of content
  • Pick and choose who sees what
  • Research
    • See what posts gets a good reaction and alter the content that does not perform well

 

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LinkedIn Groups:

There are over 1 million groups on LinkedIn. Groups are micro-environments that allow you to host a gathering of people interested in a similar topic. Up to three groups can be featured on your company page. Groups are great to talk about current events and anything you’re looking for individual opinions on. You are in complete control of your Groups and Group participation. You cannot post to a Group as a company; only as an individual.

 

Keys for a successful LinkedIn Group:

  • Must have a group manager or two who can assist in maintaining the commentary and keeping it focused on your mission
    • Group moderation becomes a job; creating a communication plan and sticking to it will lead to the most success
  • It’s OK to post some outside content
    • If you find a blog post or news article that you think is relevant to a conversation, share it with others
  • Engage by providing insight and commenting on other people’s posts
    • You cannot just promote your own content, others will catch on and may devalue your brand
  • To grow a following, you must:
    • Reach out to companies that you already follow; refer the companies that are important to your business
  • Stay active!
    • If people start to notice that the Group is not getting updated, they will move on
  • Set Guidelines for discussions
    • Make sure the people in the group understand what the topics are; losing control of the conversation does not help credibility
  • Monitor your growth:
    • Check on your followers statistics at least once a week; you may need to test a few different posting times to see when engagement is at its highest

Before creating a Company Page, draw out some ideas as to how you want to be perceived on LinkedIn. Do you want to just promote products and company news or become an expert in the eyes of your peers? Before creating a Group Page, do some research on popular groups that are relevant to your company. It would not hurt to post in those groups first so you can start being noticed. These are just a few tasks you’ll need to accomplish for success. Like most social mediums, it is a process that should be carefully monitored.

 

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