How not to get stuffed on LinkedIn
We were approached recently by an organisation having issues with their LinkedIn account, which had well over a thousand connections, but had been ‘restricted’. We had a look for them and worked out that it was because they had used a personal profile to represent their organisation. Unfortunately LinkedIn had spotted that their ‘name’ wasn’t a real person’s name and has restricted their account until they change the account to be in the name of a real person.
Impacts
This means that they can’t post updates from that profile, and the profile isn’t visible in search results, rendering the account of very little use. We discussed options and whether there was a senior member of staff who didn’t already use LinkedIn that could take on the account. There wasn’t anyone suitable.
Solutions
We were able to help them with some tips though. They already have a company page as well as the profile. Their incorrectly set up profile is an admin of that company page. We’ve advised them to use LinkedIn’s function that allows page admins to invite connections to follow a page. Over the last few weeks they’ve been able to increase the page followers through this method.
We also made sure that they had multiple page admins in case the organisation profile account was completely closed down which could have left them unable to access their page.
It’s tempting to use a LinkedIn profile to represent an organisation and to build connections rather than followers, but you could be building up an account that ultimately will be suspended or even deleted.
Our key tips are:
- 1. Check that you, your team, and your organisation have LinkedIn profiles and pages set up correctly
- 2. Make sure that you have at least two admins for your Company Page – review this regularly to check for staff who have moved on
- 3. Provide training and support to employees who want to use LinkedIn as individuals and link their activity to your organisation
- 4. Use the ‘Recommend to Employees’ functionality to help individuals share your corporate content to their own networks
- 5. Make sure LinkedIn is part of your organisation’s wider Digital Strategy. This will help you to determine how much time and effort you put into this channel and where else you need
to devote your resources.
If you have any questions about LinkedIn or a Digital Strategy for your organisation please get in touch.