Building your Community on LinkedIn

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Video Transcript | Intro

When using LinkedIn to build your community, keep in mind that this social network focuses more on professional development than lifestyle topics. 

There are three main ways an organization can build a community on LinkedIn: 

Employee Network 

The first is its employee network. Regularly encourage colleagues to connect their personal LinkedIn accounts with the organization’s Page.  This multiplies your Page’s reach and the content you’re sharing. 

Your LinkedIn Page 

The second is to attract people to follow your LinkedIn Page. This is done through publishing excellent content, but also by engaging with other posts and activity in a way that stimulates interest in your organization. 

LinkedIn Group

The third way is to build an active LinkedIn Group with engaged members.  This tactic has the potential to drive traffic back to your LinkedIn Page. 

Attracting LinkedIn Page Followers

Let’s start with attracting new followers to your LinkedIn Page, by engaging with LinkedIn members.  

First, whenever you publish content from your Page, make sure you’re responding to comments received on your posts.  LinkedIn let’s Pages engage in this way for their own posts, so take full advantage of being able to interact with your audience as a brand. 

Hashtags 

Another way to interact with your audience as the LinkedIn Page, is through the hashtags you associated with your brand.  

Click a hashtag to see the associated feeds. Now, you can like, comment and reshare posts in that feed, as an organization, rather than as the Admin of the Page.  This is an important engagement tool that can bring additional visibility to your organization. 

 Acting as the Admin of your LinkedIn page, you can actively search out conversations happening around any hashtag.  By proactively engaging with posts as a representative of your organization, you’ll not only build your own personal brand as a thought leader, but generate awareness of your organization’s Page.   

Now let’s look at how else Admin can engage with other LinkedIn users on behalf of their organization. 

In the regular newsfeed, regularly like, comment on, and share posts relevant to your business. This way, you’ll build a rapport with other LinkedIn members and potentially draw them back to your organization’s Page as a new follower.  Be sure that your organizational affiliation is crystal clear on your personal LinkedIn profile.   

Using LinkedIn Groups 

LinkedIn Groups can also be a powerful tool for increasing visibility of your organization among a target audience. Join relevant professional groups, and routinely participate in discussions in a friendly, knowledgeable and helpful way.  Doing this will entice Group members to check out your profile and the organization you represent.  

Another way you can take advantage of LinkedIn Group functionality is by creating a Group on behalf of your organization.  

To do this, click Groups from the drop-down menu, then create new group. Add your organisation’s logo, then enter the Group’s name.

Define the Group Purpose 

Next, enter the Group’s purpose. This should be defined ahead of time, so you can convey a clear, concise message to potential members. For example, the purpose of the Athene Suites Group might be to create a place where hotel managers can connect and share industry knowledge. 

Group Rules 

Next, outline how you want members to use the Group. As with the purpose, Group rules should be decided before you arrive at this step. Defining and enforcing rules are key to a healthy Group - and stating them clearly will make it easier for you to manage and moderate discussions.

Privacy Settings 

Then, choose your privacy settings. We recommend starting with standard while your Group is new so that its members can invite new members to join. Then create your Group.

Keep Members Engaged 

Now that your Group is live, begin inviting members to join - starting with your existing connections and employees. To continue to grow your membership base, it’s important that current members remain active and engaged. If they find the Group valuable, they may invite connections from their own networks to join. 

One engagement tactic is to welcome new group members with an @ mention and invite them to introduce themselves to the Group. 

Another tactic is to create high-value content that’s exclusive to Group members.  Promote this exclusive content in your feed, to draw in new members.  

Another way to facilitate discussion is by posting thought-provoking questions in the Group, and encouraging members to share their thoughts in the comments below. Be sure to include images and videos with your posts, to make them more visually engaging. 

Looking for more? Checkout our blog and learn LinkedIn for Business: the Ultimate Marketing Guide!