Module 4

Module 4This module will cover how to tell your story as well as your company’s story via being a socially engaged leader and activating your employees

Telling Your Company Story

Telling Your Company Story

For businesses, relationships matter more than ever.

Why? Because people tune out irrelevant or promotional messages to focus on useful, engaging content. Companies that inform and engage aren’t just selling – they’re building relationships.

1. Why share the company story?To build relationships that drive results

LinkedIn helps marketers forge relationships with the world’s largest professional community. Our members are almost 50 percent more likely to use services from a company they engage with on LinkedIn. And a whopping 80 percent of LinkedIn members want to connect with companies – because those connections provide them opportunities to enhance their professional decision making.

The platform allows you to build a very comprehensive and multi-faceted representation of your company and your brand in an authentic and organic way.

As a company, you want to make sure you are harnessing the collective power of corporate and employee voice to represent your brand on LinkedIn. You can do this through enhancing all brand touch points on the platform such as your company page, your leadership and employees profiles and then curating and creating the best quality content to reflect your brand promise.

2. Why LinkedIn?

Create & curate content

Establish identity – through the Company Page

Amplify voice by activating employees

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Company Page 101

 Professionals who have opted-in to a relationship with your company

1. Company Page & Followers

A company page is the central hub of your brand presence on LinkedIn.

It’s where prospective clients and employees go to find information about your brand.

Gaining followers allows you to push this content to the right audiences organically.

Getting started:• Complete page• Consolidated page with appropriate

Showcase or Affiliate Pages (where relevant)

• Acquire followers (ask your employees and clients to follow your page)

For further on Company Page best practice, see here

2. Share Company NewsYour role in the Company PageUnless you are part of the dedicated team responsible for the Company Page (best practice is shared between HR and Communications/Social Team), your role in the Company Page is to help amplify news.

As an Agency Influencer, you should be following your agency and group Company Page and actively sharing relevant stories to your network.

Fun facts and quotes

Employment brandingand career opportunities

Tips and best practices

Company branding: insidelooks and interviews

3. The updates that get the most action

The role of the Agency Influencer

1. Agency InfluencersSocially engaged leaders make for socially engaged companiesYou’ve learnt the steps to becoming an Agency Influencer in earlier modules. Before sharing the Company Story, you need to ensure you have your own profile basics in place so you are properly reflecting your agency brand.

Getting started:• Up to date profile – picture, rich

media, summary• Connect with your clients and

employees

Publish your own content2. Reminder: Have you published yet?Strengthen your professional reputation and that of your agency by publishing long form content.

Publishing will allow your agency brand to humanise with thought leadership from senior executives:

So what makes a good status update?

Post at least once per weekdayOne-sided conversations are no fun. So don’t post overtly promotional messages. If you do occasionally post company-related news or announcements, make sure they deliver a specific benefit to your followers

Be helpful and friendly, not sales-y

Link to great content Think about timing

Consistent posting encourages engagement and fosters familiarity

Updates containing links can have up to 45 percent higher follower engagement that updates without. Just remember to write a compelling sentence to accompany the link, inspiring members to click through.

Updates posted in the morning usually earn the highest engagement, with a spike occurring again after business hours. Experiment to see what works best for you and your network.

3. Driving engagement with your contentOwning the update

The best relationships are rooted in great conversations and your tool for starting those conversations is the Update.

Every Update should convey your agency and personal brand promise and values. But don’t forget that LinkedIn members want informative, insightful and inspirational content – not self-serving promotion. By delivering useful and engaging content, you’ll foster engagement and help your message spread faster.

Activating Employees

1. Activating your teams on LinkedIn

Encourage employees to

get on LinkedIn and complete

profiles

Engage with Company Page

content

Cross promotethrough other

channels (including other

social andpress)

Amplify employee content through Company Page

Creation Curation

2. Create & CurateYour employees can tell the Company Story in two ways:• Creation – generating content either on their own profile which establishes the

agency as leaders in the industry, contributing to Company Page content, posting updates to Groups

• Curation – sharing updates from the Company or news related to the company and its employees

 Setting your team up for success

3. Ongoing engagement

Continuous, relevant communication creates strong relationships:• Encourage your team to add a link to your

Company Page to their email signatures.• Identify expert contributors. Enlist team

members who understand customers’ needs or have specific content creation skills and encourage them to become socially active on LinkedIn

• As you would for your clients, make an editorial calendar for your team. Create a calendar with campaign themes and posting timelines. Stick to it as much as possible – but don’t hesitate to throw in timely content as opportunities arise.

• Make content go further. Break up big themes into a series you can publish at fixed intervals to get followers regularly “tuning in” for new content.

4. Celebrate LinkedIn leadershipAmplify stories shared by your employees

Leveraging the ecosystem

COMPANY PAGE

Employee Updates

Employee Posts

All content from owned properties is distributed through the feed to company followers and individual connections.

1. Sharing the story across the ecosystemBrand Touchpoint Content Distribution

Employee ProfilesLeadership Profiles

Company Updated (Sponsored & Organic) The Feed

Telling Your Company Story