If you sell to other businesses or offer professional services, LinkedIn is worth an hour or two a week, and most of that time should go to your personal profile, not your company page. People hire people they recognize. If you mainly sell to consumers, a basic setup is enough and your time is better spent elsewhere.
Decide if LinkedIn fits your business
LinkedIn works best when your customers are business owners, managers or professionals who use it for work. Think accountants, contractors who bid commercial jobs, consultants, insurance agents, IT providers, or anyone who sells to other companies. It's also useful when you're hiring.
If you run a bakery, a salon or an online store selling to weekend golfers, LinkedIn won't bring in many orders. Set up the basics so you look legitimate when someone checks you out, then put your effort into Google and the social platforms your customers actually use.
Fix your personal profile first
Your profile is what people look at after they meet you, get your email or hear your name from a referral. Make it work:
- Use a clear, recent photo where you look like yourself.
- Write a headline that says who you help and how, not just "Owner".
- Use the About section to explain what you do in plain English, who it's for, and how to reach you.
- Customize your public profile URL so it's your name, not a string of numbers, and add it to your email signature.
- Add your website and make sure your current role links to your company page.
- If you offer services, set up a Services page on your profile. Setup is free, and it helps people searching for a provider find you. Some extras, like a request-a-proposal button and ratings, come with a paid Premium subscription.
Set up a company page and keep it simple
A company page makes your business look established, and it's where employees, customers and job candidates go to check you out. Creating one is free. Fill in your logo, a short description, your website, location and industry. Ask your team to list the company on their profiles so they show up as employees.
Don't expect the page to bring in much on its own. Post when you have something worth sharing, like a finished project, a new hire or a helpful tip, and reshare the best of it from your personal profile.
Post things people can use
You don't need to post every day. A useful post every week or two, done consistently, beats a burst of activity that stops after a month. What tends to work:
- Answers to questions customers ask you all the time.
- Short lessons from real jobs, without naming clients who haven't agreed to it.
- Your honest take on news in your industry.
- Thoughtful comments on other people's posts. This is often the fastest way to get noticed by the right people.
What doesn't work: posts that are only sales pitches, reposting the same link everywhere, and sending a sales message the minute someone accepts your connection request.
Recommendations and newsletters
Recommendations still carry weight. Ask a few happy customers or past colleagues to write one, and send a personal note instead of the default request message. Write some for others too. It's good for both of you.
LinkedIn Pages that meet LinkedIn's criteria can publish newsletters. When you publish the first edition, your page followers are invited to subscribe, and subscribers get a notification and an email for each new edition. It can work well, but only start one if you can keep it going. A newsletter with two editions from last year looks worse than no newsletter.
What to skip, or pay for later
- Premium Company Page. A paid upgrade that adds things like visitor insights and a custom call-to-action button. Skip it until your page gets regular traffic.
- Premium Business. Useful if you do a lot of outreach and want more messaging and profile insights. Most owners don't need it to start.
- LinkedIn ads. You can target by job function, seniority, industry and company size, which is useful for B2B. Get your profile and posting in order first, and set a clear budget and goal before you spend.
- Automation tools that send connection requests or messages for you. They tend to annoy the people you want to reach and can put your account at risk.
If you'd like help deciding where LinkedIn fits next to your other channels, our social media marketing page explains how we approach it.
The short version
- LinkedIn pays off most for B2B and professional services. Consumer businesses only need the basics.
- Spend most of your time on your personal profile, not the company page.
- Set up a free company page, fill it in, and post when you have something useful.
- Ask for recommendations with a personal note.
- Hold off on Premium and ads until the free basics are working.