LinkedIn’s 2017 Top Companies list is out, and once again it’s provoked the next logical question around the office: How do best-in-class organizations use LinkedIn to create demand among top talent and professional consumers?
Brand recognition is part of the equation, but the metrics say it’s more than that. These companies have all proven effective at engaging LinkedIn’s 500+ million users by means of follows, clicks, job applications, and other positive member interactions.
This engagement doesn’t happen without a solid LinkedIn presence. For a better understanding of how this presence is cultivated, let’s look at the LinkedIn marketing activity of these leading brands and identify four takeaways to optimize your LinkedIn Company Page.
1. Showcasing your brand’s mission and vision.
Starbucks does a great job emphasizing the quality and integrity of its brand and products:
This type of content appeals to job-seekers who want to work for an innovative, forward-thinking brand. It also advances the company’s larger mission of carefully crafting its own brand story.
2. Maintaining an Active Presence
While posting frequency varies from brand to brand, most Top Companies are highly active on LinkedIn. Companies like Salesforce post content throughout the day, publishing on a range of relevant topics. The corporate office recently shared a behind-the-scenes look at the company’s Bike Month initiative.
B2B brands tend to be particularly active on LinkedIn, since their content marketing can reach both job-seekers and professional consumers. Deloitte and Cisco are two such Top Companies that post frequently on LinkedIn, providing thought leadership, insights into emerging industry trends, and a glimpse into what it’s like for employees.
3. Marketing to Niche Audiences
Although all the Top Companies on LinkedIn have built massive followings for their Company Pages, these brands understand that different audience segments want different things. A brand like Alphabet has invested into a wide range of technologies, each with its own value and audience.
In addition to the benefits of targeted advertising through Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail, a number of Top Companies create Showcase Pages to segment their large audiences and turn LinkedIn Company Pages into hubs for diverse operations. Amazon, for example, has nine different Showcase Pages connected to its company:
4. Tactful Self-Promotion
It might be an obvious step for some, but for brands unsure on how to utilize their LinkedIn presence, one thing is clear: Virtually all the best brands use LinkedIn Company Pages to highlight their best attributes.
Content shared by these companies often emphasizes their positions as industry leaders. While most consumers think of Verizon as a cell phone service provider, the company uses LinkedIn to routinely promote its role in bringing educational tools to students, including promoting STEM education:
Thanks to LinkedIn’s unrivaled targeting data, companies with large audiences have several effective channels to reach small audiences for niche ventures and emerging arms of their business. Top Companies—as well as many other brands—are leveraging both their large digital footprint and user-specific targeting to market simultaneously on both macro and micro scales.
The Top Companies list is based on the billions of actions taken by LinkedIn's 500+ million members and looks at three main pillars: interest in a company's jobs, interest in a company's brand and employees, and employee retention. (We exclude LinkedIn and Microsoft from all LinkedIn Lists. You can learn more about the methodology here.)
Learn more about how you can build your brand with LinkedIn Company Pages by registering for our upcoming webinar.
