LinkedIn Tells All: How Businesses Engage Users And Build A Following

Businesses have started burnishing their identities by creating their own content on LinkedIn.

The professional network hit its 200 million member milestone recently, and companies naturally want a slice of that massive audience's interest.

While brands have started to get a hang of what kind of posts work on Facebook, optimizing user engagement on LinkedIn remains uncharted territory for many companies.

Company pages launched approximately five years ago, senior product marketing manager Lana Khavinson told BI. And it started primarily as a home base where companies could showcase themselves with basic features and descriptions.

It was October 2011 when companies started posting their own content and, Khavinson said, "that's frankly when the gamed changed. We were finding that [companies] were excited and eager to engage with our members, and members were very eager to be communicating with them on LinkedIn."

Khavinson, who specializes in creating strategy and marketing programs for small and medium businesses, said that what a company posts to optimize its chances of getting shared doesn't so much have to do with its size, but rather by industry.

"On LinkedIn, context matters," she said. "When [people] follow a company, they are raising their hands and saying, Company we want to hear from you." And that message has to be in line with its image and message.

Khavinson told us what works and what doesn't.