7 tips for small business owners to increase their Linkedin followers

19 Apr 2022 | 7 min read

Small business tips

If you intend to reach out to professionals, there is no better social media platform than Linkedin. There are nearly 800 million users on Linkedin across more than 200 countries and it is growing at the rate of two new members per second! Naturally, the professional network has become an important platform for small business owners globally. As per the latest data from Linkedin, 99% of companies on the platform are classified as small and medium businesses.

India’s contribution to the growth rate of Linkedin stands at 6.42%. The platform has over 82 million users in India, more than 20 million of whom joined in the last three years. Last year, Linkedin added Hindi to the number of languages it supports in India to expand its reach to 500 million people. This has made the platform all the more useful for small businesses stemming from non-urban areas of India.

Linkedin has a simple modus operandi. The platform helps to build a professional network between like-minded people including seasoned industry experts as well as students just out of college. The users can leverage the network to apply and recruit for jobs, follow the latest news from organisations and influential people. It is also a useful platform to establish thought leadership for your company’s leaders and amplify your workplace values.

Therefore, we have created this step-by-step guide to help you understand how you can incorporate Linkedin into your social media strategy.

1.Post content regularly

Ever noticed posts on your feed indicating that one of your connections or from outside your network has liked/commented on? This is because the content on Linkedin flows in a chain-like structure. This means that when your direct followers like or comment on something that you share, it appears on the feed of their connections too. Therefore, it is essential to keep a steady flow of fresh content on your Page. When you post frequently, you allow your content to attain more visibility among your direct connections as well as second and third level connections.

We recommend sharing content about – employee engagement, tips and advice for customers, product launches and thought leadership. This will help your followers to get regular updates by information relayed through the posts. If you regularly share content then your followers will keenly wait for the updates. This is one best way that will help your Page gain unique followers regularly and create a persona of a segment/industry leader for your brand.

💡Pro Tip: Linkedin states that Pages that post at least weekly see a 2x lift in engagement, which in turn leads to greater organic reach.

You can try the Content Suggestions feature to leverage more topical ideas that can appeal to your followers. Access to this feature provides suggestions about:

Trending Articles that show suggested content on the basis of the current topics trending across Linkedin
Employee Milestones to celebrate employees by welcoming them or celebrating their contributions or congratulating them on a promotion or any other achievement
Company News which features content suggestions based on your organisation’s mentions in the news

2.Make your content interesting

Use videos and images. Your Linkedin content mix must include a lot of eye-catching visuals – images, graphics and videos. Visual content stands out more on feeds which can help your brand’s Page get noticed by more people. On Linkedin the likelihood of users sharing videos is 20 times higher than any other type of post. Additionally, posts that contain images get 98% more comments, and posts with links have a 200% higher engagement rate.

For text only content, keep your post copy short. For long-form content, create headlines that immediately capture attention and give an idea about what is to follow in the full post. Always add a hyperlink if your post is based on a media article, blog, research report, white paper or podcast. Make sure to include a clear call to action – for eg, “check out our blogs for more such insights”. Include two to three relevant hashtags in the copy BUT in a natural way.

You can give a shout out to the target audience you’re trying to reach through a particular post (eg, “Calling all HRs” or “Are you a small business owner?”). Similarly, tag relevant people and pages mentioned in the post. For eg, if your brand is partnering with a social media influencer then you must tag their Linkedin profile. This will help your business to reach out to the influencer’s followers in addition to your own.

When writing articles on Linkedin, make sure that you write strong and catchy headlines. Linkedin articles can help drive more traffic to your company’s blog and create numerous connections that can result in greater growth and profitability. Here are the steps to publish an article on Linkedin.

Conduct Linkedin polls with your followers, from time to time, for their feedback and to improve engagement. Make sure that the questions you ask are relevant to your followers or are useful for you to churn out better content ideas. Use Polls as a tool to communicate to your followers that you are keen to hear their thoughts and that you value their opinion.

3.Engage your employees

Despite its importance as a social media marketing platform, at the end of the day, Linkedin is a network dedicated for professionals. Your employees will be your most valuable asset in growing your company’s Linkedin Page following. Motivate your employees to spread the word with their colleagues and with their network outside of your company and connections who are interested in what you do.

This is an essential step, especially for boosting Linkedin Pages of new businesses. When you tag your employees or your employees tag your Page in their posts, your visibility increases as the post is shared with the entire network across connections at all levels. This can provide a big push to the follower count of the Page.

💡Pro Tip: Since user names on Linkedin are not unique, we recommend you to encourage your employees to follow your Linkedin Page so that it is easier to tag them in the post.

4.Use your customers as brand advocates

Customer advocacy is critical for small business owners. You cannot rush this process and get positive feedback overnight. Achieving favourable customer reviews takes work and happens over a period of time. Through Linkedin you provide a platform and a voice to your customers. Using this platform they can actively tell others about your company through reviews, content, comments, etc.

To encourage your customers to share their honest feedback on Linkedin, you can adopt the following approach:

Actively respond to their comments
If your customers applaud your products/services, make sure your thank them
When customers share their grievances, you should immediately acknowledge their concern and share your customer service email ID or contact number and approach them
Organise contest such as giveaways, discounts, gifts etc to encourage keep the employee engaged

5.Join relevant conversations

As mentioned earlier, adding hashtags is important. This is because of two reasons primarily – reach and topicality. Hashtags are like portals that enable your content to permeate from feed to feed, reaching new and relevant communities. Your content (post or video) is likely to appear whenever someone searches for the hashtag. Secondly, if the hashtag is trending then you can increase your Page’s visibility by tapping into ongoing conversations about that topic.

It’s generally recommended to use three to five relevant hashtags in a post. However, in our experience the number of hashtags can vary depending upon the topic, nature of the content as well as the topicality. Ensure that you use the most relevant hashtags first while the supplementary hashtags can be used later.

6.Post at the right time

The right time to post on any social media platform varies based on a number of factors, such as brand guidelines, follower active hours, etc. We recommend testing different posting times to find out if you can improve your engagement. Based on our research, we have compiled several time slots that you can experiment with for your Linkedin Page.

Sprout Social:

Wednesdays from 8 am–10 am and at 12 pm
Thursdays at 9 am and between 1 pm–2 pm
Fridays at 9 am

HubSpot:

Tuesdays between 8 am to 5 pm
Wednesdays between 8 am -10 am and at 12 pm
Thursdays between 8 am to 5 pm
Fridays at 9 am

SocialPilot:

On Tuesdays, it is ideal for posting between 10 am-11 am
On Wednesdays, 7.30 am-8.30 am, 12 pm and 5 pm – 6 pm are best suitable

💡Pro Tip: Avoid posting content anytime between 10 pm and 6 am as most of your target audience will not be active during these hours

7.Use Linkedin analytics to fine-tune content

By tracking Linkedin analytics you can access the data needed to improve your efforts, quantify the ROI and reach social media targets. Linkedin analysis helps businesses assess when they’ve hit a new milestone, for eg, audience growth, increase in follower engagement.

You can begin tracking your Linkedin Page’s analytics with inbuilt features or by using third-party tools such as Sprout Social, HubSpot, BuzzSumo, Google Analytics, Talkwalker, etc. To access the Linkedin analytics dashboard, log in to your Linkedin profile and then open the Linkedin company page you manage.

💡FYI: You can view the stats only if you have admin access. Here are the steps to add, edit, remove admins from your Linkedin Page.

According to Hootsuite, using Linkedin analytics you can measure 5 types of metrics – updates, followers, visitor, employee advocacy and talent brand. Under every Linkedin post there is a Show Stats button. When you click on it, it drops down showing all the stats related to a post such as – impressions, reactions (like, celebrate, support, love, insightful, curious), click through rate, comments, share and no. of clicks.

Wrapping Up

While Linkedin might be missing the quirk and zeal of its social media cousins like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, among others, it is still the most important and trusted network for professionals across the world. Not only is Linkedin extremely popular for applying for jobs and sharing career updates, it is also a critical platform for businesses to expand their follower base. Linkedin is important for small businesses to showcase their work culture, appreciate the employees, highlight their thought and domain leadership as well as foster deeper engagement with their customers.

Disclaimer – Tide and its affiliates do not provide social media related advice. This material has been prepared for informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, social media content or marketing or planning. You should consult your own social media, digital marketing and marketing advisors for all social media purposes. © Copyright 2022. All rights reserved. Tide Platform Private Limited.

Prateek Joshi

Senior Manager (Content & Social Media)