Using LinkedIn to Hire Great Talent for Your Small Business

In a recent study of small to medium sized business owners (source: Vistage), one-third said that hiring and retaining a great workforce is one of the biggest challenges they’re facing in 2017. While it can seem like a daunting task, the great news for any business owner is that positioning your company and hiring great talent is completely in your control (unlike other factors like a financial recession, competitive marketplace, limited resources, or lack of demand for your product and service).

Below, we outline how business owners can leverage LinkedIn to solve their hiring and recruiting pain points (in another blog post, we also share how Glassdoor can help solve this).

Need help with your recruitment marketing? Call us today at 800-696-4690 and we can talk about how we can help you leverage digital marketing to build your workforce as your business continues to grow.

Why Does LinkedIn Matter for Businesses?

According to a Pew Research Study of Americans who have looked for a new job in the last two years, 90% have used the Internet to research jobs and companies. This study did not just include millennials either like you might be thinking—job seekers ages 30 – 49 (and even some 50 – 64) engaged in online research before applying.

Pew also found that vetting companies online is the number one resource reported in how job seekers found information about companies in their search (followed by connections with friends, professional connections, employment agencies, ads in print publications, and job fairs or other events).

With this, it’s no surprise that companies need to go online to meet their potential new workforce when looking to hire and retain their best team in 2017. And a simple first step is LinkedIn.

However, in a recent study that Blue Corona completed of more than 500 small to medium sized businesses that analyzed their digital footprint, 20% didn’t even have a LinkedIn company page. That’s the first solution to this problem—companies need to have a visible profile that is complete and informative to job seekers.

What Makes a Good Company Profile on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn company profiles (visible to the 350+ million users on the social network) can help build your company’s credibility by providing information on:

• How long your company has been in business
• Locations of your offices
• Target services
• Company size (and potential network overlaps from those who work at your company)
• Whether your company is publicly or privately held
• Recent posts and updates from your company
• Posted jobs on LinkedIn

Profiles can also include branded logos and a description of your company to further establish your brand and company in the market as a desirable place to work.

How Small Businesses Should Be Using LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great resource for businesses looking to hire in 2017 (just as it was in 2016). Here is what a business owner looking to put their best foot forward in the hiring process should do:

1. Have a LinkedIn profile page – this is the first step…you just need to be there! There are some rules for who can create company pages (see here from LinkedIn), but this stage is pretty simple. That said, set aside time to actually set up your company page with thought and strategy behind it. Remember—you don’t want to throw it together, you want it to be representative of what a great company you are!
2. Have your current employees link their pages and follow the company page – if you’ve created a company page, you will want to ask your employees that have LinkedIn profiles to edit and connect their current job with the new company page. This will (a) put your logo on their page and (b) make your network of current employees visible to job seekers. You should also have them “Follow” the company page (more on that in the next step).
3. Increase your page’s followers on LinkedIn – your company page can have followers (just like Facebook pages can have “likes”). When a profile follows a company page, they’ll be able to see updates in their newsfeed posted by the company. The more followers you have, the more reach your company profile will have. Start by asking your friends, business network and connections, and employees to follow your page.
4. Highlight cool things in your industry – at its core, LinkedIn is still a social network (even if people view it more for networking than reading a “feed” like Facebook). Post interesting articles from your LinkedIn company page that promotes great things at your company or in your industry (Win a new client? Post it! Send your team to a trade show or conference? Share pictures! Publish a new white paper? Link to it!). These updates will share with your followers. There’s also the option to boost the reach of these posts through paid campaigns (call us if you want to learn more about the ROI on that!).

Want Help with LinkedIn for Your Company?

If you need help setting up a LinkedIn company profile or using digital marketing strategies to help your recruitment marketing efforts, contact Blue Corona today!