You may be one of the 332 million people on LinkedIn with a personal profile, but have you thought about creating a company page for your business?  LinkedIn offers the Company Page, a page on LinkedIn where your business has its own personal profile and outgoing news feed.  In my last blog, I covered “6 Easy Ways to Network Yourself & Your Business with LinkedIn”.  Now let’s get more specific on the benefits of a company page, the steps to building your company page, and tips for optimizing your company page.  It my next blog, I will give tips on how to amplify your content.

BENEFITS OF MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS ON LINKEDIN

Linkedin offers many new options for marketing your business.  Remember LinkedIn’s core demographics? Affluent, educated, and influential professionals are here and they are interested in quality content about successful business practices.  Amplify your social media presence by creating a LinkedIn Company Page.  It’s similar as a Facebook business page where as you can:   

• Establish company presence
• Attract new followers
• Foster engaging relationships with followers
• Create “fans” and brand advocates
• Reach prospective followers that are not in your network
• Provide detailed analysis of page activity including number of followers, engagements, impressions, and click-throughs

Use LinkedIn’s marketing tools to target specific demographics and subgroups. This is great for Business to Business marketing because you can target by job title, function, industry, company size, and seniority.  You can sponsor your company updates or use display advertising to expand your awareness and reach with LinkedIn advertising.  LinkedIn ads are right for you if you sell business-oriented products and services.

BUILDING YOUR COMPANY PAGE

At the top of your LinkedIn Home Page, click on Interests, and select Companies.  The website will walk you through the following:

1. Click Create a Company Page
2. Enter the company name
3. Enter the company email address (must be a company email, not gmail, yahoo, or hotmail)
4. Receive verification instructions via email
5. Click the link within the email verification notice.  This takes you back to LlinkedIn
6. Sign in with your personal credentials

Now that the page is set up, you will want to fill out your information:

• Designate additional page administrators
• Select the company type, size, industry, operating status, year founded, and the website URL
• Add an image and logo
• Write your company description – use this space to tell a compelling story about what your company does, what it’s about, and why it offers value to your followers
• Add featured groups related to your business (you must already be a member of the groups you wish to display here)
• Publish your page by clicking Publish

OPTIMIZING YOUR COMPANY PAGE

In order to get the most out of the marketing tools that LinkedIn offers, your company page needs to have been out there for a while, and you need to have some plans in place.  When first-time visitors arrive, they should get a feel that your company is established and that your page has been providing content for some time.

Win Followers

• Leverage your employee base to spread the word. 
• Ask them to put a link to your company page in their email signatures. 
• Ask them to ensure that your company is listed as an employer on their personal LinkedIn profiles. 
• Announce your company page on any other media you already use such as Facebook, email blast, Twitter, blog, etc.
• Join relevant groups, contribute helpful information, and become a thought leader in your industry.
• Create a Follow button to your company webpage.

Engage with Followers

As you earn new followers, keep them interested with content that your audience finds useful or entertaining.

• Provide expert content that helps and solve problems for your audience, establishes your company as a thought leader in the industry, and that is credible and trustworthy.
• Be consistent with your posting schedule.  Post at least once per week. Consider the time of day with regard to your audience.  Are they more likely to engage in the early morning? At lunch? Evening?  Test a few different time slots to determine what’s best.
• Link to other content from your business webpage or from third-party sources.
• Publish content that matches your audience’s professional interests.  You can target your updates based on geography, job function, industry, company size, and seniority.

In conclusion, we’ve covered the benefits of a company page, the steps to building your company page, and tips for optimizing your company page.  Building and managing a company page takes work, but with time and a well thought out strategy, your company will reap the benefits of having a presence on LinkedIn.