Maximizing reach on LinkedIn

Strategies for amplifying your startup's presence and setting impactful goals

DEAR STAGE 2: I’m the Head of Marketing for a Series A startup and while we have a strong content program, I don’t think we are maximizing our reach through LinkedIn. We’ve been posting occasionally on our corporate account, but I’m looking for ideas on how to amplify our presence and set better goals to measure the impact of our efforts around LinkedIn. What’s working for others? ~LEANING INTO LINKEDIN

DEAR LEANING INTO LINKEDIN: Great question! For many companies, LinkedIn can be a very effective channel. BUT, we’re all witnessing LinkedIn get noisier and should be reflecting on the right strategy. 

So, what do we know? 

1. Company pages do not get the same reach as people

2. The LinkedIn algorithm wants PEOPLE to post and rewards consistency

With these premises in mind, I reached out to Jess Cook, Head of Content & Comms at Island to get her take. Our discussion covered a lot of ground — from what type of content should be posted on company v. personal profiles, to cadence of posting and measurement. I tried to boil our chat down to a few practical tips you can put into action today!

Read on to learn more…

Leverage the power of personal branding

People follow, engage and connect with… you guessed it — other people! With this in mind, your leadership team, employees, customers and community are the best way to extend the reach of your brand. This starts with the founder/CEO and positioning him/her as the human face of your company. Encourage her to embrace her personality, quirks, and passions, and share authentic insights that resonate with your audience.

By tapping into your CEO's expertise and experiences, you can build trust, credibility, and a loyal following. Whether it's sharing stories about the company's journey, discussing industry trends, or showcasing her unique perspective, personal branding can enhance your company’s overall LinkedIn presence and build/engage an audience faster than only posting from a company page. 

But how?

• Define a cadence: Agree to it and then hold each other accountable! The goal should be 3+ days per week to grow an audience, but Jess recommends starting light with 1 post/week and building up from there.

• Look for organic ways to create content: Take a few snippets from the company All Hands or set aside time with your CEO. Prep some questions and chat for 30 min to create a baseline of content for the next month. By taking the lead on generating ideas and doing some light ghostwriting, you can remove a lot of the barriers to getting started. 

• Learn from what’s working: Monitor trends in post performance to figure out what your audience responds to. If a post far outperforms, can you tell why? The goal is to get ‘lightning to strike twice’ — that might be topic, format, hook, etc. Jess recommends utilizing analytics tools like Shield and AuthoredUp to gain deeper insights into post performance based on impressions, engagement rates, and shares. Jess notes, “It's rare and difficult to have a post that has both above average engagement AND reach. You usually get one or the other. It's good to have a mix of both — you'll learn what kinds of posts do what. And when you get one that does both, study it! Try to figure out what make it so engaging to so many people so you can try to replicate it.”

• Bonus tip: Lean into personal branding for anyone who is interested at the company. Outside of CEO, if an employee starts posting, give them tips for building an audience. Empowering people in your company to go out there and post about what they do best, what they do in their role/career, etc. is great employer branding!

Optimize company page content

While personal branding is crucial, we’re not saying you should completely forego the company page. And in fact, you need to post more here to actually get eyes on your content. Jess recommends that most companies start with 2-3 posts per week, but cautions that you have to know your audience — some are open to seeing a lot more from you, others aren’t! You also tap into the personal branding initiatives above by encouraging team members to amplify posts within their networks, expanding your reach organically and fostering community engagement. 

3 types of content to post:

1. Company content: Your LinkedIn posting should align to your broader company content strategy. If you have content pillars, that’s where you start. If you don’t take the time to define clear content pillars that align with your brand's values and audience interests. Then try to hit all equally (or in alignment with your strategy)

2. Big announcements: Shout from the rooftops on what your company is up to —press releases, funding, product launches, and where to meet up in the real world — “We’re going to be at X event.”

3. Amplify others: It’s near impossible to build a following by posting about your own product every few days. Instead, think about using your company page to aggregate content your audience would find interesting/useful/helpful. Post/share other relevant content, highlight thought leadership, help promote other events, etc. Become a destination for your target audience!

Some final thoughts on goal setting

Let’s be honest… LinkedIn analytics aren’t great which means most companies default to an arbitrary goal like “grow followers by 10%.”

So what should you be tracking?

Jess shared a few great ideas for setting goals and measuring progress in a more strategic way at the company page level:

• Audience makeup:  If you have a truly horizontal product like Slack, followers might be a great metric for you. But for most companies, audience make up is likely more important. A goal might be “We want more c-level contacts to follow the company page,” and you can then set a target to grow that segment of your audience. 

• Performance relative to competition: On the admin page of your company profile you can define your competitive set (Analytics > Competitors). From here, Jess recommends monitoring followers and organic content metrics:

  • Follower metrics shows the rate at which your brand’s following is growing relative to your competitors.  𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘱, 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦.

  • Organic content metrics shows engagements vs. total posts relative to your competitors.  𝘐𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘱, 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦.

Lots to dive into here as you rethink your LI strategy for the months ahead. 

Until next week!