Screen shot 2013-05-06 at 8.22.59 PMWe are pleased to offer a guest post on how companies can use LinkedIn to advance their business, while controlling the risks associated with a highly visible social-media presence.

What Companies Need to Know About LinkedIn

By Bruce Segall

LinkedIn presents a dilemma for many organizations:  Individual business people, not companies, are the main users and focus. Companies do not control the sum of the impressions that their employees make through their profiles and activities. While LinkedIn poses risks to organizations, forward-thinking companies can be proactive in managing it, both to take advantage of increased “company profile” functionality and, most importantly, to encourage their professionals to maximize their visibility. To help organizations, here are four ways to manage your risk through LinkedIn, followed by four ways to leverage the tool.

Managing Key Risks

1)     Have a written social media policy. A formal social media policy about using LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media at work is a way for companies to maintain at least some control. Protiviti’s fall, 2012 study showed that 43% of companies don’t have a social media policy at all, a figure which is undoubtedly higher for smaller companies not included in this research. A social media policy should include which media can be accessed at work, by whom and with whose permission, disclaimers required, guidance on tonality and reminders to respect customer service policies and intellectual property. Online examples of social media policies can be found here. Once your social media policy is in place, don’t forget to properly communicate and periodically update it.

2)     Employees should not rely too much on LinkedIn. Some employees get very enthused with LinkedIn, using it as an alternative/replacement for the company’s work tools. For example, one can replace Outlook with LinkedIn as a centralized repository for all contacts/connections. However, a very large base of LinkedIn Connections results in very slow access. Plus, on very rare occasions, a LinkedIn account is inadvertently shut down or locked out, in which case the Connection data disappears. Last, while companies typically retain ownership of all work-related data when an employee leaves, LinkedIn Connections are totally “portable.”

3)     Be mindful of the impression that your employees are making. Employees have 100% control over their LinkedIn Profile – where and when they make the updates and what they say. Yet their Profile features you, their current employer, prominently and thus impacts your brand image. Research shows that especially the employee’s photo has a large impact on LinkedIn, so a less than professional photo turns your employee into an ineffective brand ambassador. You might consider hiring a photographer to shoot employees’ LinkedIn profile pictures. In general, be mindful of what your employees are posting and saying that might reflect on your company.

4)     Understand the subtleties of certain LinkedIn features. One client asked me: “How come John Smith is shown on our company profile. He worked here briefly and wasn’t well-regarded?” Under the “Insights” Tab of a company profile, LinkedIn will legitimately use its “intelligence” to show previous employees. Like many features, this one exists to benefit the members, not the companies. However, an ex-employee might misrepresent his/her relationship with you.  In this case, you can contact LinkedIn customer service to request that the error be corrected.

Leveraging LinkedIn

1)     Build up your Company Page – While its primary focus is individual visibility, LinkedIn has recently enhanced the functionality of its “Company pages”. With a little effort, your LinkedIn company profile can be visually appealing, like your website. You can build “followers,” send informational updates with video links, and even direct updates only to followers from select industries, functions or geographies. Avaya (70,120 followers) is one large company with a good LinkedIn presence, and the engineering firm Burns & McDonnell (10,908 followers) leads in the midsize category.

2)     Give your staff tools to leverage LinkedIn – Some companies conduct formal training programs with outside experts, while others appoint internal experts to mentor their peers. Last year, Burns & McDonnell trained 1200 people (over 1/3 of its work force) on social media engagement. Besides receiving recognition by B2B Magazine for their LinkedIn presence, a quick look at the employee Profiles shows that their efforts have paid off – the company is more visible because far more of its employees have a professional Profile picture, an effective “Professional Headline” or Profile lead-in, and more detailed Profiles.

3)     Make LinkedIn part of your Marketing Mix. With every new marketing announcement, make sure to include LinkedIn updates both through your company page and employee accounts as part of your launch plan. While LinkedIn is not suited to large-scale email campaigns, it can be valuable for small, highly targeted and personalized efforts. For example, I have used LinkedIn very effectively for event recruiting as follows: Many professions have LinkedIn Groups for specific geographic areas. Using the information and access provided by LinkedIn, you can choose which members of the group to invite and send a message that you personalize based on their profile. Targeted ads may work well for others and start for a minimum of $10/day.

4)     Integrate into your HR Strategy – Chances are that your in-house recruiters are already leveraging LinkedIn for recruiting.  If not, LinkedIn can help large companies save millions of dollars in recruiting expenses. Beyond traditional advertisements and postings, LinkedIn offers one-on-one targeting to build awareness among ‘passive’ but high-potential job candidates.

There is an old expression – “The Smallest Effort is Not Lost.” Using some care and precautions as described in the first part of this post, LinkedIn is a great way to extend your brand at a reasonable cost.

Bruce K. Segall is a professional services marketer, President of Marketing Sense for Business LLC and a LinkedIn trainer.