In the 10 years that LinkedIn has been in existence, it has gone from an unknown Internet start-up to an absolutely essential marketing and recruiting tool. Both mega corporations and small businesses use LinkedIn to increase their web presence, showcase their services and recruit new employees. Plus it’s free, making it a no-brainer.
If you haven’t set up a company profile on LinkedIn, stop everything and do it now. A well-managed profile can help your business immensely by increasing company reach, product awareness, search engine optimization and lead generation.
Read on for step-by-step instructions on how Challenger Brands can create the perfect company page.
1. Build Your Homepage
This is the first thing that LinkedIn users will see when visiting your page, so make it count. Provide a detailed overview of your company, similar to what is on the About page of your website, and fill out all the fields completely. These include Specialties, Headquarters, Website, Industry, Company Size and Date Founded. LinkedIn now allows for a cover image, which appears right below the navigation panel.
Choose something eye-catching, but make sure it is also descriptive of your company. Oracle does a good job of this. And don’t forget about your logo. It appears on your company page as well as employee profiles, greatly expanding your company reach.
2. Splurge on a Careers Page
The Careers page comes with a premium account, but it could be worth the investment if your company hires year-round. This, too, has a cover image and is specially formatted to highlight videos, links to blogs or social media pages, and employee testimonials. If you want to attract high-caliber talent to your company, a robust Careers page is highly recommended. For an example of a careers page with great content, see Adobe.
3. Feature Your Products/Services
Show off what your business does in the Products & Services page. You can list each product/service individually with a short description and photo. Much like Yelp, other users can recommend your product/service and write reviews. Increase lead generation by linking products to your website. Salesforce.com can provide some inspiration.
4. Update Constantly
Once you have all your pages set up, you can start posting updates. These will appear on your homepage and can be anything from photos, links or job opportunities. Posting links to new blog posts is a great way to provide fresh content on LinkedIn, improve SEO and drive more traffic to your site. Mashable has got this strategy down.
LinkedIn recommends posting a new update about 20 times a month, which amounts to roughly a post every weekday. Users are most likely to check their LinkedIn just before or after work, so the optimal times to post are 7am-9am and 5pm-6pm.
5. Analyze the Insights
If you are the manager of your company profile, you can view Follower, Page, and Employee Insights. To learn more about follower demographics, company update impressions and member growth, view the many charts and graphs on the Follower Insights page. For information regarding who has viewed your page, see Page Insights.
There you will find page visitor demographics based on seniority, industry, function, region and company size. Use these pages to track the progress of your company profile and learn which content is the most engaging. Employee Insights will show you which companies your employees came from and their top skills and expertise, which could be helpful in future hiring efforts.
Curious as to what we are doing on LinkedIn? Visit our LinkedIn Company Page.
