Account director at PR and digital communications agency Cartwright Communications Emma Houghton explains how to make the most of LinkedIn for business

LinkedIn is known as the professional social media channel and for a lot of individuals it acts as a digital CV, however, when used as part of your overall marketing strategy, LinkedIn can be an incredibly powerful tool for helping you reach your business objectives.

There are lots of benefits of using LinkedIn for your business: it’s free, it allows you to directly engage with target customers and expand your online presence. It’s also a great place to establish your brand as a trusted source of information and individuals within the business as thought leaders.

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How do I use LinkedIn to promote my business?

Step one: Get your house in order

LinkedIn business pages are well indexed in Google, so just like your website your LinkedIn business page should be up-to-date with the correct information. Check your logo, cover image, company summary and include links back to your main website. Also encourage team members to have up-to-date profiles that connect them as employees at your business. If everyone’s profile is consistently on brand, it will help your organisation look more professional. If you’re self-employed, treat your individual page like a small website and aim for at least 300 connections.

Step two: Develop a content marketing strategy

People can’t engage with your brand if they haven’t got anything to engage with. If you’re a beginner to content marketing, start by creating a simple calendar and filling it with business milestones. Link to case studies, blog posts and company news on your website, employee updates, CSR activity and external industry news. You can also make use of free scheduling tools like Hootsuite to ensure you’ve got regular, as well as real-time, content published from your business page.

Step three: Engage your employees

If you employ a team, engaging your employees as brand ambassadors will super-charge the success of your business page. As soon as your employees begin sharing content, you’ll soon see your followers increasing organically, reaching a relevant B2B audience.

Step four: Build trust by being helpful

Remember to engage with your audience and not just broadcast. Answer questions users pose, help third parties make connections and share useful industry updates.

Step five: Test, evaluate, action

The key to any successful social media campaign is testing different types of content, evaluating the success of each type and then acting on this information. Make use of free analytics tools such as Google analytics and the analytics tab within LinkedIn to see which pieces of content are getting lots of engagement and feed this into your ongoing content strategy.

Read more to learn how to use social media to benefit your business.