How to Double Your Revenue Using LinkedIn

That title isn’t clickbait. In 2015, we more than doubled our annual revenue through our use of LinkedIn. And it wasn’t as difficult as you might think.

LinkedIn is a B2B marketer’s best friend; according to a LinkedIn study, 3 out of 4 members use the site to research companies. Functioning like a digital résumé, your company page helps prospective clients discover you, and determine if they’d like to get in touch. Incomplete, poorly written and inactive profiles work against you—but when you have a robust and well-written company page, it can become a lead generating machine.

That’s our secret: a complete LinkedIn company page. As a result, a number of prospective clients connected with us on LinkedIn, and we began a dialog that ultimately resulted in business relationships.

Best Practices for an All-Star LinkedIn Page

Most of the fields on the company page are required and pretty straightforward, but here are some tips for making the most of LinkedIn’s lead generating potential:

1. Company Description—You have up to 2,000 characters here, so make the most of it. Use this section to communicate your value and what makes your company unique. Also consider including a contact email and phone number—there are not separate fields for this information.
2. Year Founded—This optional field is useful if the length of time you’ve been in business makes you stand out from your competitors.
3. Company Locations—This is also optional, but we recommend including it because having a physical location lends credibility to your business.
4. Image—You can use an image up to 2MB, so pick a nice, high resolution image (646x220 pixels or larger) that represents your company and services.
5. Company Logo—This is used as your “profile picture” any time you share, like or comment as your company, so make sure it’s high resolution too—300x300 pixels or larger, and up to 4MB. Keep in mind that this is a square, so if your logo is tall or long, it will be difficult to use.
6. Company Specialties—Treat these as keywords. List your company’s products and services, but also consider listing other terms that a customer might search to find your products and services.
7. Showcase Pages—If you want to build a LinkedIn following for a specific product or service, consider creating a Showcase Page for it. This is a valuable option if you want to target a specific industry with one of your products that is different from the industry you listed for your company. This option is fairly well hidden—look for the “Create a Showcase Page” option in the “Edit” drop-down menu of your company page.
8. Be active—Remember that LinkedIn is social media. Engaging with your audience through regular updates—and responding as your company to others’ comments on your updates—helps build relationships.

Once you have your company page squared away, take a look at your personal profile. Make sure that it, too, is as complete and detailed as possible. Here are a few things to keep in mind (for more tips on improving your personal page, download our LinkedIn 101 tutorial):

1. Use the Summary section to describe your business accomplishments and goals.
2. In the Experience section, include your title and a brief job description, and be sure to link to your current position to your company page.
3. Adding relevant skills, abilities, honors and educational information shows the value you provide to customers. Recommendations from coworkers, peers and customers do, too.
4. Including a description of your job will help prospects understand your role.
5. Joining industry-specific groups and following companies you like and admire (including your customers and prospects!) will help connect you to a wider audience.
6. Share, like and comment on your company’s LinkedIn updates to build company buzz throughout your personal network.

Still have questions about how your company can leverage LinkedIn for growth? Leave us a question or comment below, or just contact us.