How Social Organisations can use LinkedIn
- 19 Dec
LinkedIn is a platform, not as noticeable as the likes of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram, but can still be just as powerful for your social organisation.
This social networking platform is targeted mainly at professionals and business people. However, it can also provide for large and small scale social organisations.
Here are some ways in which you could use LinkedIn to boost your organisation's profile and reach out to more people:
1) Build a Profile
Build a presence on LinkedIn by creating a ‘Company' page which contains the latest information on your organisation. It is important to include the logo, current information and updates as well as sharing news, blog posts and announcements.
2) Network with People
Seek support from your current supporters, service users and staff by asking them to ‘connect' with your social organisation on this platform. The ‘Groups' feature enables you to join several groups which are closely related to your organisation's interests. Also, you can search the ‘Questions' feature to find LinkedIn members who are asking questions that your organisation has the knowledge to provide answers to.
It is important to serve as a good resource on this site, and connect with people that you can help over a longer term.
3) Be Active
Regularly update your LinkedIn page as this can help to accumulate more potential service users as well as maintaining the existing ones. Ask your current users to share news about your organisation to their friends and colleagues who may also find an interest in your organisation.
4) Status Updates
LinkedIn allows your organisation to write short status updates, similar to Twitter, on your profile that will also appear on the update pages of people who are connected with you. Each status update could be read by hundreds or thousands of people and helps in keeping up a good networking stance.
5) Starting your Own Group
Once the relevant supporters have connected with you and new relationships have been built, you can create your own LinkedIn group using the "Groups" feature. Here, you can post information, ask questions and upload logos and images. It will be useful to invite all your followers to join in and get involved in the discussions. Opening your own group provides a great and exciting way to engage your supporters and friends in a real conversation via your LinkedIn network.
What do you think of this? Tweet us your comments @suppsolutions
This blog post has been written by our sister company The Media Bubble who specialise in social media for the social sector.
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