Setting up a Business page on LinkedIn

We all know that LinkedIn is an extremely useful tool for recruiting staff, job hunting, networking and of course prospecting. With a Company Pages, LinkedIn can also be used as a powerful marketing tool to compliment your social media marketing campaigns.

You may be asking yourself: do I really need a Company Page? Is this just another thing I need to check and update? The answer is yes and here’s why. As a business, you need to be where your current and potential clients are. As a consultant, thought leader or advisory service business, LinkedIn is where at least some of your clients are. You and your company’s content should be there. A LinkedIn Company Page should become a part of your social media and content marketing strategy, just as your Facebook Company Page, Google+ and your Twitter account should be.

It’s another important way (some would say more important than other social media outlets) to engage with your audience and help control the way your audience perceives you as a company. You can also use your LinkedIn business page as a showcase for your projects and services as well as case studies. Over time you can and receive testimonials and feedback.

To get started you need to have an existing LinkedIn profile. Go to the Company section. Some say that LinkedIn is not that easy to navigate and use, plus it tends to continually enhance its UI and features. This guide is correct at the time of press but could of course change over time.

Under the company section click on ‘Add Company’ and start the process.

At this point all you need is the company name and an email address. After confirming the email you are ready to start entering the core of your listing.

Now complete the listing with company language, name, type, size, website, industry, operating status, year founded and locations. When putting your description together, make sure you include appropriate keywords.  You’ll be able to describe products and services in detail in another section. The company description is critical.

According to Lana Khavinson of LinkedIn, “Google indexes company pages, which means your page becomes a tool for strengthening your company’s rank in organic search results. The results will also display the first 156 characters of your company description, so be sure to lead with the most important assets.

Lastly and very importantly add a banner image and logos. The banner image is what people will see first when they visit your Company Page, so make sure it’s consistent with the Company image you want to portray. Here are the image requirements, which must be either jpg, png or gif formats:  Image – Minimum 646 x 220 pixels, maximum 2 MB. Logo – 100 x 60 pixels, maximum 2 MB.

Finish off with the business Specialties.

After you’ve filled everything out, click “publish.”  Your page will now be live.

LinkenIn has a great help facility with many FAQ. See this link for Company page FAQ:

To go further you can expand your company page with sub pages for divisions or brands of your business. These are call Showcase Pages.

With a Showcase Page, you can extend your Company Page presence and focus your message to engage specific audiences.

• Create a dedicated page for each aspect of your business with its own message to share and audience to share with
• Give LinkedIn members a chance to follow the aspects of your business they value most
• Share focused content to build a relationship with your specific audiences

Note that there’s a limit of 10 Showcase Pages per parent Company Page.