LinkedIn for Small Business: Strategies That Work (Examples Included!)

You’ve probably heard that LinkedIn is a great way to find both potential customers and employees, but making it actually work for your business is another matter entirely. This guide will explore how to make LinkedIn for small business work by analyzing what companies are already doing on the platform.

Real-world examples of LinkedIn small business posts

The LinkedIn newsfeed is one of the reasons we love this social network. With only a few connections, your personal feed gets filled with ideas on what to post for your own LinkedIn account. We have a wide range of content ideas below for you to think about, but you should definitely think about following similar businesses that relate to your brand.

For recruiting

Seeing as how LinkedIn serves as a wonderful hub for connecting with other professionals and businesses, it makes sense as a tool for sharing information about job openings.

That’s why so many brands share details about their positions with regular LinkedIn posts.

We also recommend creating an actual job listing on LinkedIn, but why not try out a free post to see if any of your connections may want to interview?

An example is shown below, where a real estate company explains that it’s growing and it’s looking for individuals in the real estate business who might be looking for a new job.

It’s important to highlight information like where the job is located, along with a link to where people can apply.

Gogo provides an excellent example of combining a look into your company culture and a job listing.

The post provides a quick elevator pitch for potential employees and shows a group of current employees at a business conference. This puts faces to your brand and makes it more appealing than a regular job application.

Sharing information about products and services

Whether you’re selling real estate, t-shirts, or WordPress development services, people are interested in learning about your products and services.

A great approach for sharing information about your creations is to show examples of your product being used by customers. The same can be done for services, with testimonials or instances where your customers are seeing results.

HackerEarth offers online training and tools for developers, so it makes sense to use LinkedIn to talk about its library of training courses.

The post below explains that 11 question types are provided in the HackerEarth library. It then links to a guide that talks about how to choose the right question. This is more of a focus on its recruiting software, so it also serves as a way to get the word out about additional tools.

FreshBooks is accounting software with several offshoots when it comes to product offerings. Therefore, it’s important for the company to highlight some of the products that are either new or less known.

FreshBooks does this with case studies and articles that highlight customers using the products in the real world. For instance, this one shows how many employers are helping their employees become more financially literate, all with assistance from FreshBooks. Sometimes this content might come from other sources, but you could also utilize your own blog or website to make and share your own research and case studies.

As a unique example, the following LinkedIn post is from an artist and illustrator. His services include creating animations for books. So, he shares some of his “works in progress” on LinkedIn, seeking out feedback and using LinkedIn as somewhat of a portfolio.

Overall, getting some of your portfolio pieces on LinkedIn is an easy way to showcase your work and pique the interest of companies that may need your type of work.

Building community conversation

LinkedIn allows you to build your own groups. This is definitely an option for small businesses, but you can also turn to your followers and connections and treat the entire LinkedIn network as your community.

For instance, the founder of Facet (a developer hiring network) generates conversations by reminiscing over the building of his company. This is a truly human story that touches on the ins and outs of his business, while giving people something to relate to in their own business journey.

Lemonade offers homeowners and renters insurance, both of which are somewhat confusing, or even boring, for the average consumer. Therefore, it makes sense that the brand has generated significant conversation in its LinkedIn circle, providing original and reposted articles that explain how to make decisions about insurance.

This is a great example of how running your own blog, then sharing the posts on LinkedIn, pushes people to your own website. It’s also essential for educating users about your product. The following post explores if a warranty on your laptop is better than insurance.

The Lemonade brand appears to get a decent amount of activity for blog posts on LinkedIn. What’s more is that even 10 or 20 likes means that you’re having an impact on people. The Lemonade blog shows us that you don’t need all posts to go viral to be helpful through LinkedIn.

The ePac Flexible Packaging company also utilized LinkedIn to educate customers in its community. They could wait until customers land on their website, but it makes more sense to engage users in places where they spend most of their time: social media.

In this post, the brand poses a question of whether digital printing is better than conventional printing. Again, this is an original blog post from the ePac blog. We highly recommend using your blog in conjunction with LinkedIn to get your community talking and also heading to your website.

Having said that, you’re better off at least sharing blog posts from other sources if that’s all the time you have right now.

Sharing events within your community

LinkedIn relationships typically form based on the industry you’re in or the work you’re doing. Many of these connections are professional in nature, making it ideal for sharing information about upcoming events, such as conferences.

The following LinkedIn example is from accounting and finance expert Carolyn Sweeney. She and some colleagues are hosting a female-oriented informational event about finance in real estate.

What’s intriguing about this particular post is that it caters to people in a specific location. In short, there’s no reason to shy away from posting events or community information on LinkedIn because you think it might only apply to individuals in one or two towns.

The next LinkedIn post has a link to an informational page, a description of the event, and a picture to grab attention. We also like how the most important specifics are included in the event listing, such as the date and the types of people who are invited.

Finally, don’t forget to incorporate hashtags into your community-driven posts. LinkedIn hashtags drive relevant posts to people who might be interested. It’s a type of social targeting that’s bound to get your event in front of the right people.

Here’s yet another event announcement. Yet, this time, it’s for technology professionals interested in learning about SaaS (software as a service) technologies. This particular event travels around Europe, so LinkedIn is an excellent method for reaching out to people who’re located in event towns.

One of the upsides of this post involves the quick “elevator pitch,” with specific numbers on how many people attend these events and what some of the speeches are going to be about. This way, people know what they’re getting into before signing up, and they can see that it’s a reputable, popular event.

Talk about your company culture

Behind-the-scenes posts are rather popular on LinkedIn. Job seekers can only learn so much about a company by going to sites like Glassdoor. It’s not too often you get a chance to share real faces, stories, and activities going on in your office.

The following post is for hiring, but it also incorporates a quick peek into life at Ripple. It’s a fun snapshot of a current employee enjoying time at a company party.

Gong.io is a “revenue intelligence” company that focuses on advanced analytics for sales teams. It doesn’t look like this example post has anything to do with actively hiring. Instead, the write-up takes time to show how the company is willing to promote fun and adventure. Three photos are shown in this post, all of which are from different events, with different people, all exuding different emotions. It looks like a fun place to work.

Use LinkedIn as an inspiration or a reward

Businesses run by individuals (like real estate agents or financial consultants) have the unique advantage of being able to take risks with social media and offer a more playful tone. These fun or inspirational posts can often go viral where thousands of people are commenting and sharing.

For instance, Shanee’ Moret is a healthcare marketing expert and content creator. She gained quite a bit of traction with the following post to inspire people who may question themselves about their own credentials.

If inspirational posts don’t fit into your brand strategy, why not showcase your employees or even give them praise? The Manhard Consulting company tends to post work anniversaries for its employees, featuring some reasons the person is so good at their job. Think about when a prospective employee looks at your LinkedIn page. Wouldn’t it be nice if they knew you publicly acknowledged workers for achievements?

Highlighting current projects

Your company is constantly working on new projects, whether it’s trying to land a new client or expanding your reach to other markets. These landmarks are newsworthy in the world of LinkedIn, seeing as how they can impress potential clients and employees, while also inspiring other business people to work hard.

The following post has a picture of a celebratory event when the FreshBooks brand expanded into the UK.

Sharing detailed industry or product guides

Blog posts are great for having control over what content gets shared on your LinkedIn. However, other experts are consistently creating articles, case studies, and infographics that relate to industry-wide trends and happenings.

The next screenshot we have is from a real estate advisor, David Cornbrooks. He makes a habit of listening to podcasts and watching videos that relate to the real estate industry. This is a way to grab relevant content, since you can already check to see how many views or shares it has. In addition, it cuts down on the time to make your own video, podcast, or blog post.

Education is an industry in itself, with changing trends and new stats about schools across the country. The Indiana University Business School makes sure that new data about the benefits of going to school there are shared with the public. So many students and potential workers have resumes on LinkedIn, so a quick infographic like this helps to quantify the effects of going to a school like Indiana.

LinkedIn small business content that actually works

Much of the work of promoting a LinkedIn post is done for you, as long as you have some industry connections. However, you want to make sure that your content is worthwhile.

Based on LinkedIn’s own recommendations, we compiled a list of the best LinkedIn small business posts to consider:

• Quick videos that highlight elements of your business or show processes.
• A short video series that focuses on one topic.
• Bright, high-quality images that cover stats from your industry.
• Links and images when you have new product or service launches.
• Celebrations and rewards for milestones.
• Employee highlights.
• Event information with links.
• Reading materials, like ebooks or case studies.
• Original blog posts helping out customers.
• Third-party content that relates to your business.
• Thoughtful or inspirational pieces that relate to everyone in the business.

Is LinkedIn for small business right for you?

If you have any questions about LinkedIn small business posts, let us know in the comments below!

By Joe Warnimont

Joe is a Chicago-based writer focused on social media, WordPress, and eCommerce tools. When not riding his bike in Chicago he's camping in Wisconsin. View Joe's portfolio at joewarnimont.com to contact him and see past work.