500K LinkedIn Followers: What Actually Grew This Company Page

G'day everyone, it's Michelle J Raymond and we are back again, listeners, talking about my favorite topic which is all things LinkedIn Company Pages. And listeners, I've got a very special guest who has been part of a project that has grown a LinkedIn Company Page to 500,000 followers since 2023. Holly Kerr, I can't wait to have this conversation with you. Thanks for coming and sharing the secret to your success.

Oh, no, thank you so much for having me. I'm, yeah, I'm always, um, excited to talk about LinkedIn and especially when it's, um, about Company Pages, which I think at the moment are getting a bit of bad press and, people are saying they're not very effective and I disagree. Look, and that is exactly why I have you on here, and I heard you on another podcast and I was listening going, "Yes, it can be successful." Like, there isn't all bad news listeners.

There are shining examples out there which I'm gonna have more of people like you, Holly, onto the podcast so that we can actually show people what's possible. And just because everyone bags out LinkedIn Company Pages and says they're a waste of time, yeah, that's great if that's still your corporate job and you're responsible for it. But Holly, like for people who haven't come across you, can you just tell us, like what is your role at Atkins Realis and what is it that actually you do and what are your responsibilities?

Because something tells me that you're not just sitting there just doing LinkedIn. No. And, and sure, I, I can kind of give a bit of insight. So I've worked for Atkins Realis for coming on nine years in July.

I've been in a social media focused role for two years and that was kind of when I stepped into focusing only on social media. So I have a marketing background before that. And for anyone who doesn't know, Atkins Realis is an engineering and nuclear services Company, so it's in the B2B space. We don't have a product that we're selling.

We have our people, their expertise, and the solutions that we're trying to, um, bring to clients and kind of communities in, in these projects that we deliver. So what does that mean for social media? My responsibilities kind of cover all of the channels that we're on, and that is the ones you would probably expect we're, we're kind of there. So, LinkedIn is our primary.

We find that most of our audience are there, and it's, uh, it's a key focus for us. But outside the kind of day-to-day posting on the Company Page, that strategy has evolved, especially over the last kind of five years as LinkedIn has grown and kind of morphed into what it is now So we look at the paid approach. We also look at leader-led social media, so what are the execs and kind of leaders from the business out there posting, if anything. And then our people, we have a 40,000 strong employee workforce, and we've, I think, all heard now the impact employee advo- advocacy can have.

Um, so our LinkedIn strategy is kind of, has kind of got those four prongs, and we try and move away from sometimes the business comes to us and says, "Can we get this on LinkedIn?" And I think we were in a place before where the knee-jerk was like, "Yes, we'll do a Company Page post. Let's get that sorted." We try and take a step back and we try and offer insights into what might be the best lever to pull, and sometimes it's one of them, sometimes it's all of them, and sometimes it's gonna be a mixture.

But so outside of kind of that day-to-day, we look after the, the governance, the strategy and then the training of uh, all of our people and kind of at various different levels as well. So you're sitting round twiddling your thumbs is what I hear. Yes. So much free time on your hands.

Like, that is the thing that I think, I just got back from Social Media Marketing World, got to speak to lots of great marketers there, and I, I shared it on last week's episode, but the thing that blew me away is just how many things marketing teams, social media teams are juggling in day-to-day life in corporate. It, it is just mind-blowing. I'm lucky. I just get to be an expert on LinkedIn, and specifically, you know, Pages and employee advocacy.

Mm. I don't even touch paid. So, you know, for me, it's quite a challenge to keep up with all the changes, so I can only imagine even with all of your experience, you know, trying to convey the latest, greatest tips of what's going on, align it still with your strategy, achieve the business goals, and I'm imagining that there's a lot of people that have a lot of opinions on what you guys are doing- Yeah and what you should be doing. And we will talk about that later, because I think that's probably the biggest challenge that internal teams have is trying to fend off- Mm ...

all of the requests that come through. But I did tease the audience, and it is actually true, that you guys crossed over 500,000 followers, most of which have grown since 2023. I know that that number's even higher now since we booked to have this conversation. But why do you think in a world where organic Company Page reach is next to nothing, why do you think the Page grew so much?

Because there are people out there that have access to all of those things that you have, employee advocacy or paid strategies or, all, all the things that you said. What do you think has been the secret to your success? Sure. I had to think about this and I wanted to kind of make sure my answer wasn't, you know- It wasn't kind of wishy-washy.

So I've, I've really tried to, um, sit and, and, and stew on it. So I think the first thing I have to acknowledge is it's an established brand within its category, and that is a big boost, right? That's a big help. We rebranded in 2023 in September, so we had to start a new Page, and there was obviously legacy understanding of this brand and where it was moving, and exci- excitement after the initial rebrand.

So I think that got us started. Outside of that, I think acknowledging that this was a huge team effort. This was not going to happen with the three people that work in my team, so including me. So there's three of us who work on the 13 channels that we run globally.

Um, we were never going to have, um, the ability to reach kind of ambitious goals just working on our own. And I think we had to kind of take a step back and look at what was our goal, and it was initially growth, and it was brand awareness. So we broadened the net in terms of who can help us, what ideas can we throw into the mix, and that took us into a space where we were testing, and we were failing fast. I know people say that a lot and it- and sometimes it's really hard to get into a space where you feel you can do that on a stage that is so visible, like, uh, social media accounts because people can see it.

But we tried different things, whether that was formats, whether it was recurring items, whether we, you know, we ran for a while a meet our experts, where we would share employee profiles and see, you know, how do people relate to this and how are they responding. We tested different types of video and all the while kind of contesting with the algorithmic changes that kind of, appear, um, and kind of throw chaos into your plans. I think as well, we, we spoke about this before, but we reduced down the number of posts.

So when I first came into this role, we were posting upwards of six times a day in a 24-hour period. That's just a lot. And if you're acknowledging Company Page posts are already competing with the rest of the feed and boosted posts and ads, why compete with yourself was kind of what we were, we were trying to put forward to our stakeholders. So we now post twice within a 24-hour period, and I think bringing a bit of balance and control has helped.

It's helped us redirect some of the content to come out via individual accounts or leader accounts as well. But we really said, "What do we want people to follow us for? Like, why would they follow this Page?" And we really defined that.

So we break news, we share stories of what the brand is doing, but we try and really put the lens over of like how ... Why does this matter to anyone kind of just scrolling? How does this impact the communities that we're serving? Put that at the core of the post and the story so we're not talking about all the time, "Oh, Atkins Realis- is doing this."

A lot of the time we're trying to either educate or inform or kind of energise people behind the industry that we're working in or the, the impact that, uh, projects can have that often, I, I find out something new every week that we do, and, and other people won't know either. So we really tried to consider why someone would want to follow us, and then try and keep that in mind among all of the other things we have to consider in, in a plan for our Company Page. I know, listeners, that Holly has just shared so many cool things, and I could talk about this all day.

And I appreciate your honesty in thinking about this answer because, yes, there have been some advantages that you have from the size of the brand that you have, and the resources, and the legacy of that brand. But I think that the actual winning piece of what you've just shared there is creating something worth following for your industry. And, uh, if I could have that on T-shirts and sell it to everybody and say, "Do what Holly says," like create a Page worth following, I'm gonna say that algorithm aside and all the other crazy that comes into the platform, I actually think that is the most simple way to define the success that would come with a Company Page.

And I 100% agree with you is why are we actually putting all of this effort into Pages? Is it just to talk about ourselves? And I did a podcast episode recently where I was talking about a lot of Pages turn into the internal newsletter or bulletin board- Mm-hmm ... where we talk about what's coming up, what we're gonna do, here's what we've been doing.

You know, we, we, we, we, we, and nothing about the industry. So I have a very happy heart listening to what you're sharing here, and no doubt that that's been, you know, a part of the big success. But I, I think it's also interesting that, as you said, there's lots of pieces to this puzzle, and some of it is acknowledging that when you try stuff, you're not necessarily gonna break a whole brand because a post fails. Can we just talk about that one more time?

Because I think being scared that you're gonna break a brand stops people from trying things to see what works. Is that something you had to go through in the beginning- Yes ... and come to terms with what that actually was? Yes, and I think we could all relate.

We hear it all the time, you know. The thing I put the most love and energy into and think, "This is gonna be the post. We'll talk about this for years to come, and this will be the defining moment of my social media career," is the post that gets, vanity metrics are terrible, the impressions are not what I wanted, and it just passes by without anyone caring. And the thing that you whip up quickly and get out there in a rush with none of your governance and none of your strategy, it does really well.

And I think there's a lesson in that which is sometimes we can overcomplicate what we're doing, and at the core, if we come back to that piece that you just pulled out which is, i- is this something that I care about if I'm scrolling past tens of posts a day? And if the answer's yes, then you're, you're onto a good thing. I think we have had lots of failures in terms of things we've tried and it hasn't worked. One of the biggest obstacles we had when we first rebranded was this new brand we have is way more vibrant than the...

We were kind of blue and grey before, and we're now, we've got four key colours, and they're bold, and we have this, um, brilliance as kind of the effect of, uh, the way the brand is applied. And it's a learning curve to learn how to apply it in a way that isn't garish and isn't standing out and looking clunky, and I still don't get that right all the time. But we... You have to try things, and you have to kind of see how it looks and it goes over.

I think, though, that is part of the joy I find in this role. It, it's the thing that brings me the most annoyance and the most happiness. It, it's that kind of, um, dual- duality of it where I'm happy when something works really well and, and I also then feel, really gutted when it doesn't. But- That's what keeps it interesting.

That's what keeps me coming back. Oh, welcome to my world. I spent the last three months of last year rocking in a corner going, "Do I even wanna do this LinkedIn stuff anymore? Where have all my impressions gone?"

On the other hand, posting everyone, it's all about relative" "... and it's not about impressions, it's not about reach." And so on one hand, I knew what it was, but my inside, the honest truth, listeners, is that I was shattered and I did not know how to respond to something that had worked consistently in my personal content for 10 years. I could ...

I knew if I did this, this would be the outcome every single time, day after day for that. And then as times goes on, and then LinkedIn wake up one day and they say, "Okay, it's about relevancy and not reach now. Uh, we're changing the whole game" and it felt awful. You know, a- and I'm not going to sugarcoat that.

I actually think Pages have been shielded from this impact on such a level because realistically, most Pages were never in the feed for the last six years that I've been focused on Company Pages. We were never showing in the home feed, so w- I don't think any Page admins really noticed the bump from this side of things, and it'll be interesting to see where it goes. I, I literally spent an hour on a call today with an, a, a friend of mine who's part of the engineering team for the Pages team, and there's some fundamental shifts that I'm excited about where they're going and I'd love to tell you, but I can't, uh, otherwise I'll get cut off.

But what I love is that they're open to where the next evolution of Pages is, and that's something that excites me 'cause it means they're putting money into it, and that means that they still value Pages like we all should. Now, when you did your celebration post for this big achievement, I was so glad that you did stop for a minute and actually acknowledge the work that had gone into this massive achievement 'cause I just wanna say, I know how hard it is to grow a Page regardless of all of those things that you had behind you.

You have to show up and do the work and be in service of your audience. But there was one line that stood out from that post and it caught my attention, which is, "Employee advocacy isn't a tactic for us, it's a behaviour." What does that actually mean and look like inside your business? Sure.

I think we've been working with our talent attraction team, and I wanna shout them out because they do an incredible amount of this work with us and we, we wouldn't be able to do this without them. And they were the pioneers of this. Before I came into this role, you know, they were kind of working almost underground delivering this and they didn't maybe have the inroads that I did in some of the places I now do, so we kind of work together to do this as best we can. But what it really means for us is we've- We've all heard, I think, h- the impact that employees talking about their experience at a brand, good, bad, ugly can have.

And obviously I want people to talk about the reality, but I'd like that to be you know, authentic, as much as we can say, like, authentic in social world. And what we have recognised is it's a cultural behavioural change that we're asking. We want people to feel proud, and if they do, we'd like them to maybe, you know, externalise that and share their experience. But that doesn't just happen.

There's a few things that you need to do to enable it. So for us, it looks at role modeling that behaviour. So you need role models from all walks of life and every kind of role in the business, whether that is the leaders, but, most people now recognise that leaders have a team around them helping them do that. So they're not necessarily the people I wanna put up on a, a pedestal.

Within our business we've always had people that have energetically done this themselves, and I champion those people, and we really try and make them as visible as we can and celebrate them. I also started role modeling the behaviour myself so that I had a bit of a case study. And my goal is that by the end of this year, you know, I'm no longer the case study. I don't want to be the case study.

I want it to be people from the business. So that role modeling piece is really important though, because you know, if you see someone in your team doing it and getting recognition, the likelihood is other people catch on and they recognise it could be good for them to do as well. But beyond that, you need to make it easy for people to do. So what tools and training are you able to provide?

And we've worked really hard over the last year to create on our intranet a social media hub that's got all of the governance and code of conduct and all of the things I need to have on there, but goes well beyond that now into, you know, if you're just getting started, here's the deck for you. If you're, you think you know kind of what to do, but you wanna take it to the next level, here's how you can upskill. Okay, you're really good and you're consistent, what else are you missing?

Here's all of the latest tips and tricks. And that, it, it's hard work to keep that up to date and to make sure it's accessible and kind of not overwhelming. So we've got lots of kind of ways that people can access, you know, the advice and, and the training. Myself and my team, in a targeted way, because we couldn't possibly train 40,000 people if we wanted to, we'll get out there and we'll run sessions in person, we'll do webinars, we'll make sure that we're available to kind of ease people into this world But I think the fundamental piece is I want our people to know that we trust them to do this, and we trust them to do it well.

And that doesn't mean that everyone is going to become a brand parrot. And actually, that's my hardest thing with all of this, is that people want branded assets and they want you know, the line to take, and they want to just, you know, take what we give them. And getting them unwedded from that is, is a challenge, and that's what I'm determined to kind of encourage our people to do, is to feel they can post as themselves with their opinions, and that's what we want. That's what's real, that's what's gonna cut through.

So it, it is a big undertaking, and it's, and it shouldn't be underestimated, the, the, the effort that gets, you know, into, behind these programs. But the payoff is huge, not only for the individuals and building their own personal brands, but the ripple effect for the Company and the reputation and, um, you know, amplifying messages. It's enormous. I am laughing because, Holly, isn't it just as simple as all of the gurus and the bros and the hackers out there on LinkedIn that say, "Just get your employees active.

You'll get, you know, 10 times more reach," blah, blah, blah. Didn't you just flick a switch? Wasn't it that simple, that everybody was lining up saying, "Holly, let me do whatever you, it is that you need. I can't wait."

You know, again, thank you for your honesty that these things aren't easy, but they are worth it if we invest time and resources into it. And I think, like you said, sometimes starting off small and then working our way up bit by bit over time, so this has taken you a few years to implement. And I think- It's been ... the lesson is to be realistic, you know, with these implementation timeframes.

It won't happen overnight, but it will happen, as, as the ads say here in Australia. Yeah. There was something that we alluded to earlier, and you and I were talking about the joys of working in big corporations. They come with their own unique sets of challenges, and one of yours was obviously everybody has something that they wanna post.

You've got one main key Page, you know, across you know, 40,000 employees, all the different business units, all the cool stuff that your business is up to on a daily basis. How do you decide what content deserves a place on the Page versus what probably shouldn't be posted? I mean, going from six back to two a day, you had to probably make some pretty tough and strong decisions, I'm thinking. How did the business receive that, and where are you at now?

Yeah. So I would say this is the hardest bit of the job, genuinely. And that doesn't mean it's- Not worthwhile and interesting. It just means it's, it's really challenging.

And when I did kind of come in and say, "We shouldn't be posting six times in a 24-hour period," we're gonna ... At first we capped it to three and that was, you know, kind of groundbreaking. And it made me unpopular for a while, but I was comfortable to be unpopular because I believed in where we were going. And my job was to guide people through that and keep them on track with the plan.

I think the best way I could probably talk about this is with a real-life example and something we're working through now. So we attend a lot of events as a Company. So if I posted every single event that Atkins Realis may show up at, whether it's with a delegate or whether a full stand sponsorship, I would be posting numerous times a day, and nobody would ever want to follow the Page because it's just an event promotion Page. And so we, when I first came into this role and when we were first kind of grappling with this, we said, "We're not posting these events."

And we went we're not gonna do it." So we kind of wound it down, and we said, No more. We'll have our individuals post. They'll say, 'We're going to this event.'

They'll talk about it. And if we want to talk about an event we're going to, let's talk about something we're gonna speak about at the event. And we'll use that, and at the end of the post we can say, you know, 'We're going to this event. See you there.

And that was working for a while, but actually in this example, we then heard feedback from different parts of the Company, places where brand awareness maybe wasn't as strong or where, four or five of these events they attend in a year are key moments in time for them. And what that's led us to now is almost a hybrid of where we'd been, where we have a rough framework that has a tiered system. And I work with our directors of marketing in the kind of two key parts of our business to understand in which region which events are really mega for us and where we have put a sizable amount of investment, whether it's monetary or whether it's people's time and, what the goals are and what we're hoping to achieve connected to the business's plans.

And that helps us know whether we're gonna announce our attendance on the Company Page, whether we're gonna do a kind of event activation and, and involve social in that plan, or whether it's kind of a bit less prominent but will still support individual delegates and kind of get them posting ahead of that event, or whether it's not something we need to worry about at all. And what I would say with these frameworks is- Be brave, put one together, be prepared for the first iteration of that, that you put forward.

It's gonna need lots of suggestions, and have the humility to have people feed into it. I find this really hard. I like to work on something and finish it that day and move on to the next thing. So I find- Done ...

this really challenging. Exactly, I wanna tick it off. But actually, this event framework, we'll probably finalise it in the next two months, and we've been, um, working on this in some type of way for probably over a year, and you have to be okay with that. Things evolve and change.

And also, in two months' time I'll go final, and then we'll have to consider something else, and we'll make it, you know, we'll change it again. So put these frameworks in place, but know that it has to be responsive in real time. So it's not realistic to post everything, it's not realistic to have someone chuck something at you and get it up that same day, until it is, until it's newsworthy, you know? And, and it's, it's a really difficult...

I kind of... We don't have a map for it. But try to put a framework in place, and back your strategy, and really explain to people why we wouldn't wanna be sharing absolutely everything, and redirect them to what we can do instead. I think that's a vital lesson I've had from this, is, so it's not gonna go here, but it could go there, and explain, how that could work as well.

I love it. I literally stood on stage at Social Media Marketing World and pretty much begged the audience to stop filling up our feeds with we're at this event posts. Yeah. No one cares.

Like, honestly, no one cares. Give them a reason to come and see your team there. Let them see the faces of the people that are there. So I, uh, listeners that are, catching this on the podcast, I'm sitting here high-fiving Holly, going, "This is, like, the best.

I want everybody to follow that." But I'm also a realist. I know that you can't just throw things out because that's what works on social or that's what works on LinkedIn. You are part of a greater team.

You have colleagues that you need to work with ongoing, and not just, you know, bad luck, it's my way or the highway. So I, I love hearing about the practical side of this, that it isn't just black and white. It isn't just a one-way, one-size-fits-everyone, because that is not the reality, listeners. If you are having trouble trying to negotiate and align your social media strategy with business goals, and it feels like people are always trying to send you off course, that is a day in the life of a Page admin or a social media manager or a marketing manager And the reason, as I said, that I, I love having you to have this conversation, Holly, is the fact that's the reality, not this glorified vision of people on YouTube that do videos that say, "Just post this and it'll all be magic, and we're all gonna make billions of dollars."

Like, it doesn't work like that in a business setting with, you know, uh, Company Pages especially. But looking back on the journey, and you've shared so much, to get to 500,000-plus followers now, what's the biggest lesson that you've learned, either personally or professionally, about growing the Company Page today that you wish you'd known a few years ago? It's a really good question. And I think for me, I come from a background where I did a drama degree at university, and the way that manifests in my day-to-day is I have a flair for dramatics.

But outside of that, I love connecting with people, and I'm, uh, the h- the, the core of that kind of dramaturgy is that communication. So what are you conveying to an audience, and how do you wanna make them feel? And I think if we can bring more of that into our why and when we're devising a strategy or whether we're focusing on an individual post, of course we have back-to-back calls and there's lots to distract us from our why or the Page's why. But I think if I could've, if I could go back to myself then, I'd say know what we want people to feel when they're interacting with our content, and let that guide us.

And whether that's our people, we want them to feel proud and we want them to feel a sense of ownership behind the brand as well. And if it's people that we're reaching out to, we wanna inspire the next generation of people to join our industry. And if it's our clients and our communities, we want them to feel, you know, excited by what's happening in their community and, and by the problems that we're solving. So really lead with feeling, and that kind of sets, you know, it's a really good barometer for where you should be going and how you should be showing up.

I love it. What, actually care about your audience? Is this the secret, to actually give a damn about the people on the other side? Who would've thought, Holly?

Who would've thought that's the secret, is that it's not all about you, it's about them? And I'm gonna throw one very quick last question in there. If I was the LinkedIn gods of Company Pages, which I'm just the Company Page queen, so I'm not quite there yet. But if I was the gods that could grant you one Company Page wish for one feature, what would you choose?

Ooh, what a good question. You just never know who's listening to this podcast No And I know that we do have a LinkedIn team that do listen in- Yeah especially on the Pages episodes. So I didn't wanna miss this one, 'cause it's top of mind after my conversation today. But what would you pick?

And don't ask for organic impressions, 'cause I'm not that good. No. It's never gonna happen. Do you know what?

So we've recently, we've got a newsletter that we're running, and for us- Love it that newsletter's doing, it's doing really well. But I wish I could see more detailed analytics of my newsletter. Um, I have some, and it's great, but to really get all of the data that I want, I have to be really, um, disciplined about every week going in and, like, pulling data and then adding it to a different spreadsheet and analysing it. And I wish that they would level up that, because we're about to launch a second newsletter because we've seen it be so successful.

But the thing that's holding me back from being able to you know, grow it even more is I can't always tell the story and tell the success because the data's not always there. Great minds think alike. It was on my shopping list today because I love newsletters. I think every Company Page of a reasonable size should have one, and that, for me, was it as well.

It, you know, it's all about being able to almost justify what you're trying to do out there. For me, previously it was about commenting as your Page and being able to analyze- Mm-hmm the impressions, and that stuff's coming, as far as I know. Uh, so there's some cool things coming, but yeah, I, I'm right there. So thank you for answering that one off the cuff.

Like I said, I know that there are LinkedIn employees that listen to this podcast, and my next guest is from the B2B Institute. Vita Molis is on next week, so I can't wait to talk to her and see what's coming out of the institute. But Holly, thank you so much for your honesty. Thank you for sharing the realities of what it's like to grow a Page to 500,000 followers plus.

I am absolutely cheering you on in all of the success, because I know that the amount of effort that's gone in by you, your team, your colleagues, to make this happen, uh, I wish you every success in the future, and thanks for coming on and sharing. Oh, amazing. No, thank you so much for having me. It's been a real pleasure.

It has, and any time you wanna talk Company Pages, you know where to find me. But until next week, listeners, cheers.