LinkedIn celebrated its 18th birthday last month. With nearly 740 million users, LinkedIn has grown into one of the largest platforms for creating business connections and finding investors. This is particularly important for startups who use LinkedIn as a primary tool to find the funding they need to beat the 1/10 statistic for success.
Your company’s LinkedIn page holds unique value to your investors and, therefore to you. Sure, your website will be one of the locations potential investors will go to get a feel for your company. Companies also implement tools such as presentations and product brochures, which give a more in-depth description of your offering.
However, your company’s LinkedIn Page gives viewers insight into your development over time. Your history, your pace of growth, and as an extrapolation, the stability and growth potential of your company. Increasing your credibility, as well as public awareness to your LinkedIn page is important to catch the attention of investors, and convince them that you are worthy.
So what can you do to elevate your startup on LinkedIn?
Start by using the biggest asset you have at your disposal – your employees. Startups are known to be highly selective when choosing team members to join their endeavor. Budgets are tight, and the stakes are high, so employees must be at the top of their game. One of the many benefits of hiring quality employees is the professional network that they are connected to.
The first step is to ensure that your entire staff is connected to your company page. Meaning, their most recent job is at your company. This allows potential investors to see your management style and HR choices in a way that a simple bio on the company’s website won’t give them. Remember, your workers are your most significant assets.
Once your employees have listed your company as their place of work, encourage them to invite their contacts to follow the company’s LinkedIn page. This is an excellent way to boost your page’s ranking and visibility. LinkedIn allows up to 100 invites per month, and once you reach your first 100 followers organically, you have built real traction for your company page.
Since workers typically do not have time to send out invites, in the intimate setting of a startup we could often ask the employees to share their credentials to do the inviting on their behalf. This depends of course on their willingness to share those credentials. If they don’t cooperate – don’t nudge. It is their personal property, after all. Start with the founders and build it from there.
Once you have opened the conversation between the company and your employees, you can utilize this every time you upload new posts on your company page. Click on the ‘Notify employees’ button when you make your post, and the employees will receive a notification encouraging them to react. And they can always share.
The new LinkedIn algorithm places weight on personal connections, as it measures your credibility with that audience. The higher the engagement level of your followers – the higher your rating. So that early role your employees can play is an important one for your visibility and success. A startup is only as good as its team- and together you can do great things.