Using LinkedIn Company Pages for your Local Business

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Web Marketing Today. Practical Ecommerce acquired Web Marketing Today in 2012. In 2016, we merged the two sites, leaving Practical Ecommerce as the successor.

In “Using LinkedIn to Attract Consumers, Prospects,” my article last week, I addressed how a compelling LinkedIn personal profile can help promote your business. In this post, I will review LinkedIn company pages.

LinkedIn company pages can help expose a business to followers and prospects.

Why a LinkedIn Company Page?

Your LinkedIn company page helps not just LinkedIn members learn about your business. The page is also indexed by Google, which means it will show up in Google search results when users search on your company name.

Your company page will raise brand awareness and educate potential customers on your products and services. Additionally you can post job opportunities to find employees.

This article describes how to create an effective company page. I assume you have a personal profile (required to create a company page) and you are logged into your LinkedIn account.

Step 1: Go to LinkedIn

Go to LinkedIn and click the “Get Started” button in LinkedIn.

LinkedIn company page setup.

Step 2: Add your Company

Enter your company name, your email address, and confirm you are an authorized representative.

LinkedIn add your company.

Step 3: Check your Email

Follow the instructions you receive in your email to complete your company profile information.

LinkedIn company page email verification.

Step 4: Edit your Company Profile

The below information is for my company and shows the basic information LinkedIn is asking from you to set up your company profile. Additional information you can submit for your company page includes the following.

• Company locations.
• Designated administrators (if you want your staff to help out).
• Recruiting posters.
• Company page image banner.
• Your logo.
• Company specialties.
• Featured groups.

LinkedIn Company edit page for SmartFinds Internet Marketing.

Once you have completed the information, click the “Publish” button. You can always come back and add more information or edit information later.

Attracting Followers to your LinkedIn Company Page

As you get more followers to your company page you will be able to reach them each time you post an update. Start growing your followers by inviting your employees, vendors, and business partners.

Encourage your employees to add your company to their personal profiles. This way they will automatically become followers and can like, comment on, and share your company updates to help virally pass the company information along to their network.

Your vendors and partners can go to your company page and click the yellow follow button.

The next step is to announce your company page through your website, email, newsletters and other marketing channels to your customers. You can get your company page follow button from LinkedIn.

Sharing Valuable Content

To share your knowledge and your company information, post an update every day.

LinkedIn company page share an update.

You should share your knowledge with a short opinion and informative content from a web address. Be sure you are not sharing only promotional posts, which will not go over well in any social community. Sharing legitimate, helpful information is how you will gain engagement and help your message reach more people virally.

Seek out industry publication websites with news and valuable topics. Feel free to mix it up a little and share something off topic occasionally.

Once you add the text copy and web address you are sharing, your company update will look like this.

LinkedIn company page update.

Now click the “Share” button and your company page will be updated and automatically shared with your followers.

Access Performance

LinkedIn’s company page analytics have evolved over the years to provide insights to better understand how well you are performing in the LinkedIn community.

Linkedin company page analytics.

LinkedIn provides results on company updates, including impressions, clicks interactions, and new followers you have acquired.

Additionally, LinkedIn analytics includes:

• Reach, as it relates to the total number of times your updates were seen;
• Engagement of your updates by people who viewed them;
• Demographics of your followers;
• Trends of your total followers;
• How you compare to other companies;
• Unique visitors to your company page;
• Visitor demographics.