LinkedIn Strategy Simplified: Company Page Optimization, Prospecting Approach and Content Strategy

Here’s the background of our call - Krishna Unagar works as a Business Development Manager with Samarpan Infotech. Krishna is one of the three profiles I shortlisted on LinkedIn in this post, for a LinkedIn Strategy Consultation call out of all the people who shared their top LinkedIn challenge with me here in this post.

I am sharing our call as a transcript because this was early quarantine time and the video I captured was not the best in terms of audio quality.

So, I figured the best way to make this value accessible to everyone was by sharing this mildly-edited transcript of our LinkedIn strategy consultation call.

Let's dive right in!

Company Page Setup - Samarpan Infotech

Let’s look at what brand you have put out there through your company page and what it says.

The first thing I notice on the page is the short description right under the company name. Currently, it says,

“Have any query about .Net, Angular development, AI, ML, IoT, Web apps, UI, UX design, digital marketing, contact us.”

The description can be rephrased to say what outcome you can get for your clients. Alternatively, you can put your company tagline up there.

<Krishna has already taken action on this and the description now reads- ‘Cultivating solutions for your business’ - this can be further narrowed by including the specific industries and one differentiator that you think sets you apart from others>

The current headline is about the activities you do, but not the outcome that you can bring. We can make that more customer-oriented. 

As in- “We do XYZ for XYZ businesses and help them do XYZ”.

Convey the value and the benefit of working with you.

Company page- About Section - No need reiterating your website in the About Section since it’s already there in a field of its own. Instead, talk about what industries you work with. And what results you have brought for your clients. Detail the ‘Why Samarpan Infotech’ section a bit more. Write more reasons why someone should choose your company instead of your competitors. What’s in it for them? Include your customer in the About Section.

Work internally with your team and find out what differentiates you from your competitors. What makes you non-vanilla?

Content Strategy for the Company Page

The direction is missing from your content right now. You have something like Monday Motivation as part of your content strategy, which is fine. But then you also have something called Wednesday Motivation.

I think that makes it too much.

It’s better to work out a content strategy so you know ahead of time what you are going to talk about on LinkedIn instead of realizing one day that you need to talk about something now because you haven’t been posting a lot.

Bring your differentiators out in your content. Post content that resonates with your audience.

LinkedIn rewards consistency.

Krishna: We are changing our company presence on all social media platforms. Any specific tips for LinkedIn?

Show the humans behind the company. Post team pictures. Executive videos. Humans connect with humans. So humanize your company page by showing company culture, employee videos talking about the work environment, and all of that stuff.

Krishna: We share our blog posts on the LinkedIn company page. Is that recommended?

Content can be pushed on your company blog as well as LinkedIn. For sure. No harm. But, make sure you don’t publish vanilla advice on ‘How to choose a company for your mobile app and software development’ or ‘How Angular is different from React’, etc. 

Bring out something different. Share customer stories in your blog posts to make them more effective.

Krishna: Can we share general ideas and topics on LinkedIn? Like recently we shared a bit about Coronavirus.

This COVID-19 situation is global, not here in India, not in the US, but it’s going on with all of humanity. So it’s okay to bring your messaging to the level of acknowledging what’s going on. But, at the same time, ensure you offer some value to your readers. Refrain from posting something that does not motivate, encourage, empathize, entertain, inform. 

Here’s what you can do.

This might take a lot of creativity at your end but see what others are talking about and then consider how you can differentiate your branding and content from others.

Whatever you do, take inspiration and then tailor it to your values and explore what you can do to differentiate your message from everyone else’s.

Connecting on LinkedIn and Approaching prospects

Krishna: Is it okay to pitch your services right after you connect with a prospect on LinkedIn?

Create a list of your prospects. I believe you already do it. Build rapport with them even before connecting with them. Leave valuable comments on their content. Like their content. Tag them on posts you think will resonate with them. 

Do that 2-4 times and build a relationship with them. Now, when you send a connection request to them, you won’t be a stranger anymore. When you regularly engage with them, they’ll be more open to accepting your connection request and to hearing what you have to say.

Technology companies invariably have a long sales cycle. So, no one will be like, oh I need a software right now, just sign me up. So, relationship building is an integral aspect of your sales, and LinkedIn is no different. 

Now, when you send someone a connection request, they might look at your profile and what kind of content you post. This is where a well-rounded content strategy comes into play. They will instantly know what you’re all about through what you talk about.

Always send a personalized connection request. You can ask questions to discover their current status or to gauge their needs. Are you completely satisfied with your mobile app? What’s one thing you’d change about it. Or simply introduce yourself and your services. 

If you are already creating valuable content on your blog or LinkedIn, this is where it comes handy. If they say, “yes I have been considering many IT companies for my next mobile app.” You say, “okay, here’s an ebook or a blog post we created about mobile apps and I think this might be useful for you at this time”. 

The idea is to give a lot of value before asking anything. 

Another idea for you is to ask for referrals instead of making a direct sell. “We offer these services so I’d really appreciate if you refer us in case you hear someone needs this.” If they need your service, they’ll automatically go, “but I need it”. 

Content Formats on LinkedIn

Krishna: We recently started slides sharing on LinkedIn and trying out other content formats, as in images and videos.

Text and video content is winning on LinkedIn. I have not done videos until this day and have been able to create a decent following on LinkedIn. I get leads on LinkedIn regularly and it’s responsible for 80 percent of my business now. 

If you have a team to help you with video content, well and good. Because it takes a lot of time to edit videos and I just don’t have the kind of bandwidth right now. If your executives are not comfortable on the camera, that can be a problem. Unless you want to stick to explainer videos and animated videos and stuff. But, again I think LinkedIn is more about humans and less about animated information. If videos are feasible for you, well and good. Otherwise, text-based posts can do wonders.

Differentiating your Personal Brand from Your Employer's

Krishna: How can I build my personal brand on LinkedIn even while building traction for my employer?

Because you told me you’re using both yours and the company’s profile to get leads and reach out to prospective clients, it’s better to associate yourself with the company in that case. 

But when it comes to building your personal brand, stick with your experiences as part of the company. Even that’s just one aspect of what you can talk about on LinkedIn. Share valuable tips about being a business development manager, your working experience, employee stories (to also enhance company brand).

Build your own brand so that you have a presence that works for you, as well as for the company you’re associated with.

Krishna: When I want to project my team as a team of freelancers available for hire, how should I approach prospects?

Your profile shares a lot of content from the company page. This way, it will be hard for you to distance yourself from the business and project yourself as a team of freelancers. 

But here’s how you can sneak that into your content.

Share a recent customer experience, saying, here’s how one of our teammates worked with XYZ company and here’s what the customer said about the overall experience with our outsourced developer.

Also share your side of the story, outside of the company. Find out small instances from your daily life and connect those with business. This will help you connect with anyone on a H2H (human to human) level. It will also help build your company’s brand. People will get to know your values, your employer’s values, and so on.

Once you create your personal brand outside of your employer, you will get traction and your employer will get a lot of traction too. You already have a decent number of followers. So when you talk about life, business, etc., you’ll see a lot of engagement readily.

Anything that resonates with you- how you identify yourself, what you resonate with, your strengths, early challenges you encountered in your career, your first employer, your childhood, current business challenges, etc.

This is the human stuff and it connects us naturally with other human beings.

Krishna: We are using LinkedIn Premium. But not sure if it is necessary and useful?

I think it’s valuable as it dissolves any limit on how many people you can look up on LinkedIn. This helps with prospecting. You can get in touch with several people who might be on the decision-making team at an organization and you don’t want to be restricted by the number of searches you can make and all. If you find yourself hitting the monthly searching limit, it’s better to upgrade.

LinkedIn Premium has been a good investment for me. I’m sure you can leverage the unlimited bandwidth to get in touch with prospects for your company.

Then we chatted for a bit and hung up…

Here's what Krishna felt about our call.

So, whenever you’re ready, I can help you with:

1. A process to help you publish impactful and engaging content on LinkedIn with consistency. 

2. Prospecting services where I create a spreadsheet of your ideal prospects. their LI profile, what they talk about, hashtags they use, groups they are part of, number of followers, designation, and more.

3. Prospect warming techniques delivered through a one-on-one phone consultation. Personalized messaging services where I create personalized messages for these prospects. In a DIY setting (guiding you on a one-on-one phone consultation) or a do-it-for-me setting.

4. Competitor analysis. Learn what content your competitors are publishing on LinkedIn. What kind of content is getting them traction? Don't copy but recreate that magic.

5. Tips and tricks of the trade. Delivered through one-on-one consultation sessions just like this one. Get your hands dirty as we talk about immediately actionable steps that you can implement right after you get off the call.

6. LinkedIn Profile makeover to make sure your profile talks to your ideal prospect and shows your expertise and authority.

DM me to learn more about package bundles or one of these services.

For more such content, follow Divya Agrawal, if you don’t already!

I’d love to know what was your ONE key takeaway from this strategy call.