LinkedIn company Pages allow businesses to establish a presence on LinkedIn and engage with prospective customers and clients. Company Pages showcase useful information about a business, such as services offered, company news and updates, careers, and more. As a powerful marketing tool, Company Pages aim to attract followers, drive website traffic, and generate leads.
With over 722 million members worldwide, LinkedIn is the largest professional networking platform. The site enables professionals to connect with each other and companies to establish their brand. Users can follow Company Pages to stay up to date with businesses they are interested in or may want to work for.
Employees play a valuable role in helping grow a business’s LinkedIn presence. By sharing updates and encouraging connections to follow the Company Page, employees can expand the reach and visibility of the page. However, there are guidelines employees need to follow when inviting their own connections to follow the company’s LinkedIn page.
Can Employees Directly Invite Connections?
The short answer is yes, employees can directly invite their own LinkedIn connections to follow the company’s LinkedIn page. However, there are some best practices employees should keep in mind when doing so.
Employees should only invite connections who may organically be interested in their company for professional reasons. Randomly spamming an employee’s entire network with invites to follow the page is not recommended. Targeted invites to relevant connections are best.
For example, an employee could appropriately invite former colleagues, clients, vendors, or industry peers that would logically want to follow company updates. But randomly inviting personal friends or family members that have no natural interest in the company may be seen as spammy.
Best Practices for Employees
When employees decide to invite their LinkedIn connections to follow the company page, some best practices include:
- Personalize the invite message – Do not use LinkedIn’s default generic invite text. Take a moment to write a custom message explaining why you think the person may be interested in your company.
- Only invite relevant connections – Be selective and strategic with who you invite. Focus on those with an authentic interest in your company.
- Limit the number of invites – Inviting your whole network looks inauthentic. Spread out invites over time and do not blast invites.
- Invite no more than 50 connections per week – Limiting weekly invites prevents your connections from being overwhelmed.
- Invite thoughtfully – Take the time to selectively choose which connections to invite rather than randomly inviting.
- Invite sparingly – Be conservative in how often you invite connections. Inviting here and there is fine but do not overdo it.
Following these best practices helps maintain positive relationships with connections while still growing the company’s LinkedIn presence.
How Employees Should Invite Connections
When an employee decides to invite some of their LinkedIn connections to follow the company page, there are a couple of ways to go about sending the invites:
Direct Message Invites
Employees can send direct LinkedIn messages to connections with a personalized invite to follow the company page. This allows the employee to explain why they think the person would benefit from or be interested in receiving company updates. Sending a direct message is more personal than generic invites.
Share Company Page Update
Another option is for employees to share a Company Page update on their own LinkedIn profile. When sharing the update, they can customize the message and select specific connections to share it with. This surfaces the company’s content with their connections in a relevant way.
Both options allow employees to selectively choose which connections receive invite messages. Generic blast messages should be avoided. Taking the time to personalize invites and thoughtfully select connections demonstrates authenticity.
Guidelines for Company Page Admins
While employees can directly invite their own connections, LinkedIn Company Page admins should provide guidelines on best practices. Some recommendations for company admins include:
- Provide suggested text for employees to include in their invite messages.
- Encourage personalizing invites vs. copying generic text.
- Set limits on how many invites employees should send per week (50 maximum).
- Advise who makes for ideal invite targets (former colleagues, clients, etc.).
- Prohibit employees from blasting invites to their whole network.
- Monitor how employee invites are affecting follower growth and engagement.
By laying out invite expectations, admins can ensure employees don’t bombard their networks with mass invite spam. Providing suggested messaging and ideal targets helps employees thoughtfully choose relevant connections.
Using Employee Networks to Grow Company Page
While employees should be selective when inviting their own networks, tapping into employee networks can be an impactful way to grow the company’s LinkedIn presence. Some effective employee-driven tactics include:
- Feature employee takeovers of the Company Page where they share updates and engage followers from their own profile.
- Repurpose employee content on the Company Page with their personalized messages.
- Encourage employees to like/comment/share Company Page content with their networks.
- Reward employees for generating leads and followers from their networks.
Using employee advocacy in this strategic way provides more organic visibility vs. mass invites. By authentically engaging their own networks, employees can still expand the company’s reach.
Potential Issues With Employee Invites
While employees can play a key role in growing a LinkedIn Company Page, some potential downsides come with employees inviting their own connections. Some risks include:
- Mass invites may be marked as spam, hurting list growth.
- Irrelevant invite targets increase bounce rate.
- Connections may feel betrayed by unwelcome invites.
- Company Page admins lose control of messaging and strategy.
- Employees may prioritize invite numbers over building relationships.
Drawing very clear guidelines helps mitigate these risks. Addressing these potential issues in employee training is key. With proper coaching, employees can become powerful brand advocates on LinkedIn.
Key Takeaways
Here are some key takeaways on employees inviting LinkedIn connections:
- Employees can directly invite connections to follow Company Pages.
- Invites should be personalized and limited to relevant targets.
- Mass blasting invites is ineffective and can hurt engagement.
- Company admins should provide guidance on ideal invite practices.
- Focus invites on high-value connections with natural interest.
- Avoid treating invites like a numbers game or quota to hit.
- Use employee networks strategically to grow reach authentically.
With proper training and executive guidance, employees can be powerful brand advocates on LinkedIn. Their connections represent real opportunity to expand awareness and followers for Company Pages. However, poor execution by overeager employees could undermine the Company Page strategy. The solution is clear guidelines, thoughtful targeting, and authentic engagement.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should we encourage employees to invite all their LinkedIn connections?
No, employees should not invite all of their connections in mass. Very few of a person’s connections will be legitimately interested in company updates. Mass blasting invites will be seen as spammy by recipients. Employees should carefully select a limited number of relevant connections to invite based on past professional relationships or interest in the company’s industry.
How many invites per employee is ideal?
As a rule of thumb, employees should send no more than 50 invites per week. This prevents overwhelming recipients with constant invites. The focus should be on quality over quantity – personalized invites to ideal targets versus spamming every connection.
What’s the best way to track employee invite results?
Use UTM campaign tracking parameters and unique links for employee invites to track performance in Google Analytics. This allows you to see bounce rates, conversion rates, follower profiles, and more based on invites sent. Use these insights to refine employee messaging and identify top performing employee advocates.
Should we reward employees for generating followers?
Be careful with rewarding employees strictly on vanity metrics like follower growth. This can encourage spamming invites just to win rewards. Instead, tie rewards to overall engagement and leads generated. You want high-quality followers that actually engage.
How else can employees help our LinkedIn page besides invites?
Encourage employees to like, comment on, and share page updates to their own networks. Employees could take over the Company Page for a day to provide unique content. Repurpose employee content on the page with their own messaging. There are many creative ways to leverage employees beyond just invites.
Conclusion
Employees can serve as powerful brand advocates on LinkedIn, leveraging their own networks and connections to grow the company’s presence. However, indiscriminate mass invites often backfire, hurting relationships and engagement. The ideal strategy is to provide guidelines on invite best practices, focus on high-value connections, and use employee networks strategically – not just for invites but overall advocacy.
With proper training and executive oversight, an employee advocacy program on LinkedIn can significantly expand reach and followers. But the program must be built on authentic engagement, not hitting invite quotas. Following LinkedIn’s rules for polite engagement and providing useful content is key.
At the end of the day, it’s about quality over quantity. A smaller number of engaged, interested followers is far better than a big list built through spam. Employee advocacy works when done strategically and thoughtfully.