What to do with your company LinkedIn page during coronavirus

The question many businesses are asking right now is “should I continue to promote my products/services on LinkedIn while coronavirus is going on?”

These are sensitive times and pushy marketing is not appropriate.

But, the truth is that we are all experiencing this ‘new normal’ and it doesn’t mean that businesses can afford to down tools completely. It also doesn’t mean that your social media activity should continue as it would have pre-coronavirus.

If you are still sorting your revised social media strategy, here are some things you can do with your company LinkedIn page in the meantime:

Review anything that you have previously scheduled to go out. During this time your content should be sensitive and relevant, but should continue to provide value.

Think about the current pains of your audience. Your product or service may help them address a critical work problem, but if they can’t work right now how else can you be of use?

Shift your focus from promoting your business to giving your audience all of the information they may need in the current circumstances. Whether that is pointing them in the direction of useful information or offering additional support (that doesn’t come with a hard sell), use this time to build relationships with your audience by positioning yourself as a valuable resource.

The articles you read to keep up to date with what’s going on are probably of interest to your audience too. You don’t have to create content from scratch to show that your profile is active. Share news stories, videos, LinkedIn articles and other posts from reputable sources on LinkedIn.

Don’t forget to also use your company page for the more practical side of things. Keep your audience updated. If there are staff reductions, delivery delays or changes to working hours, be honest and clear about what is happening.

If you’re reducing the frequency of your posts, use the time you would have spent creating content to review your company profile.

Go to the edit section of your LinkedIn profile and check that every single piece of information on your profile is up to date and is still relevant. Here are some things to consider:

• Tagline – Are all of the keywords people use to find your company in your tagline? You only have 120 characters, so don’t stuff lots of key words into the tagline but apply normal SEO principles here.
  
• Custom button – Is your priority call to action still the same as it was pre-coronavirus? Change the custom button to reflect what you want your customers to do most right now. There are only five options to choose from (contact us, learn more, register, sign up, visit website) but pick which one is most in line with your current objectives.
  
• Description – Use this to add in a temporary COVID-19 update to guide customers. Links don’t work in this section, but it is worth highlighting if you have a dedicated section on your website (just make sure it is easy to find once they get there).

Before you start your research, make sure you adjust your privacy settings otherwise you’ll be letting your competitors know what you’re up to which can be a bit awkward.

To do this, go to your account and select settings and privacy. Find How others see your LinkedIn activity on the list and select the Profile viewing options section. Change to Private mode so that no information about you will be shared as you look at different profiles.

Once you’ve finished your research, remember to switch back to your original privacy settings, as all those useful details of people that view your profile also become unavailable if you stay in private mode.

Once you’ve set up for optimum snooping, identify key individuals within your competitors’ organisations. Find their profile and review:

• Headline and About section – how are they describing themselves? What keywords are they using? How does this compare with individuals in your organisation?
  
• Activity – take a look at their activity section to see what they’ve been engaging with and sharing with their connections. See if they’ve attended any events that could be useful for your organisation in the future, such as networking groups and industry events.
  
• Interests – see what topics and organisations they are following. If you click See All you will not only see a breakdown of the influencers and companies, but also what LinkedIn groups they are part of. This will help you to identify groups that your team may want to be a part of too.

If you’d like to look at the organisation as a whole, find the company page and ask yourself the following questions:

• How are they describing themselves?
• How frequently are they posting?
• What content are they posting?
• What sort of engagement levels are the posts getting?
• How many followers do they have?

It may seem easier to follow the company page in order to get notifications as and when they post. However, remember that if you follow a page it will appear in the interests section of your personal profile which might look a bit odd.

This post only covers LinkedIn, but outlines a useful three-point strategy that can be applied to all platforms:

• Evaluate the content
  Analyse your company
  Benchmark your competitors

If you find these tips helpful and would like further social media advice, please do get in touch for a chat.