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Note from Beth: We are seeing more and more nonprofits use LinkedIn for organizational goals – from its powerful board recruitment tool to setting up company pages (see Ten Must Follow Nonprofits on LinkedIn). If your nonprofit decides to set up a presence on LinkedIn, check out how some of the early adopters are engaging with followers and the content they are sharing to help you get some ideas for you plan. In addition, browse these tips from the Best Company pages on LinkedIn. Victoria Michelson gives us an overview of the new features for company pages on LinkedIn.
How Your Nonprofit Can Make the Most of Its LinkedIn Profile – Guest Post by Victoria Michelson
As most of you probably know, LinkedIn—the networking site for professionals—expanded its scope to include company pages back in 2010. Since then, the site has slowly developed its page content, and nonprofits have caught on, using the site to promote their organizations by gaining individual followers and joining LinkedIn Groups.
In July, however, LinkedIn released new updates that can benefit nonprofit organizations especially. Here are the big improvements:
Comment Feature:
If you are listed as an administrator for your company’s page, you will automatically be able to post updates under your company page’s Home tab. The Home tab is also where followers will view your posts, in addition to the update appearing in their own homepages.
Organizations can also now comment on or ‘like’ posts on their pages in response to followers under the organization’s name. This allows them to participate in conversations and build relationships with their followers in a professional, representative way.
Sponsor Updates:
With the new Sponsor Update, a business can share videos, articles, or other content with not only their followers, but other members in relevant niches. Members will see relevant and useful Sponsored Updates in their homepage feed, and will have the option to follow, comment on, share, or ‘like’ posts. It’s membership marketing on a whole new level, meeting company needs in a way that is entirely user-friendly for the LinkedIn member. The reach of this is impressive—spanning 200 countries and 20 languages.
Page Analytics:
With this feature, organizations can be more informed than ever about their network following. As reported in LinkedIn’s recent blog post, users with company pages can now:
- Identify the updates that drive the greatest engagement
- Filter engagement trends by type and time period
- Get more detailed demographic data about your followers
- See the growth of your follower base and benchmark it against similar brands
Here is a video tutorial LinkedIn released to walk you through the new feature. LinkedIn now, more than ever, is a tool that nonprofit organizations can and should take full advantage of.
Has your nonprofit set up a company page on LinkedIn? What has been your experience?
Victoria Michelson is a freelance writer for Wild Apricot, but she spends most of her time running races to support local nonprofit organizations in Boise, ID.
