LinkedIn company pages help build brand awareness by providing a channel to promote your products and services to customers and prospects. Whilst LinkedIn company pages will never replace your personal LinkedIn profile, having a company page does have many benefits. From the organic exposure of your employees listing your company as their current employer, to the opportunity to run sponsored updates to share your best content. Think of it less as a static ‘About us’ page and more as a dynamic platform to build brand awareness and establish thought leadership.
However, setting up a company page can be a daunting task, which is why we have provided a few do’s and don’ts, let’s take a look:
Google will show the first 156 characters of your company description so make sure the description you write has specific keywords in those first 156 characters.
Take advantage of the LinkedIn search tool by including keyword phrases, industry terminology, product information, etc. to make it easy for potential customers to find your company page.
Your page’s logo and header image are two primary ways to do this, they also give you the opportunity to align with the branding used on your other platforms.
Your LinkedIn company page cover image should capture people’s attention and encourage them to take a closer look at your page. LinkedIn recommends dimensions of 1536 x 768 pixels for Company Page cover images. Be aware that different browsers, devices, and screens will sometimes cut your image at the sides or top, so try to ensure the most import elements of your image are as central as possible. An image with little or no text often gives the best results.
Your company logo should be around 300 x 300 pixels. This will appear in the experience section of your employees’ profile when they choose your company from the LinkedIn list, as well as in the LinkedIn results when people search for your company.
Under ‘Careers’/’View all employees’, you will be able to see a list of everyone on LinkedIn who has listed your organisation as their current employer. It’s worth having a look through here, as it may include ex-employees who have not yet updated their LinkedIn profile, as well as people who are not employees but claim to work for you, whether by accident or design.
Removing these people is a good idea as it prevents potential employees or supporters from contacting the wrong person. You can remove people from this listing by using LinkedIn’s Remove Member Form. Include the full name of the person and the URL for their LinkedIn profile, plus an explanation of why you’d like them removed.
Make sure employees profiles are linked to the company and their job information is up to date. Employees who aren’t on LinkedIn should be encouraged to sign up for a profile. Engaged employees can be a huge asset, by leveraging the power of their personal social networks, you can magnify your brand presence and enhance your reputation as an employer. In fact, a piece of research by LinkedIn found that employees have a network 10 times larger than your company’s follower base. As a result, jobs shared by employees yield 30% more job applications.
If you want engagement, focus on valuable content. In the same way that journalists don’t want to receive self-promotional material, why would anyone bother sharing your company’s update if it’s an obvious advertisement for a product or service?
People will share content that is relevant and creates value for their network – whether that be in the form of articles, insights or even job posts. Make the call to action clear for these updates, should they click the link? Apply for the position?
Personalising your companies LinkedIn URL is important from a branding perspective, by doing so the generic URL ending in numbers can be changed to your company’s name. However, this is not as easily done as on a personal LinkedIn profile page. Currently, the only way to customise the URL for your LinkedIn Company Page is by contacting LinkedIn by using a ‘Contact Us’ form. Here’s how you can claim your LinkedIn Company Page URL:
1. Ensure you are logged into a LinkedIn account with admin rights to the LinkedIn Company Page before you submit your request.
2. You also want to test the LinkedIn Company Page URL you are trying to obtain before submitting your request. Start with the following URL: https://www.linkedin.com/company/company-name and change the “company-name” part to your company name separated by hyphens. For example, https://www.linkedin.com/company/resonates
In order to check whether the URL is taken, copy the URL into a search engine. If the URL is not taken you should receive an error message from LinkedIn. If not, try a different company name until you get the message that the company you are looking for doesn’t exist.
3. To request a URL change, you will need to provide the following information:
The company name
The email address you use to log into your LinkedIn account
The current URL for your company page
The URL that you would like to use
4. Submit the form here and then await a response, usually 2-3 business days.
Some members display external contact details on their profile pages, which are visible to their connections. In the past, it has been possible to import this contact information as a .csv file and use these contact details for the purpose of business. However, as of 25 May 2018 under GDPR this will constitute a data export and thus makes you the data controller, making you responsible for complying with the data protection laws.
Company pages can provide valuable insight into your brand’s engagement and reach with your community. Monitoring your company page analytics can:
Don’t just set up your company page then forget about it.
Firstly, ensure that you are promoting your page with follow buttons on your website and email footers, make sure your audience know that your company has a LinkedIn page and how they can find it.
Secondly, share content regularly. Posting regular content updates will not only influence the visibility of your company through SEO, it is also the most effective way to organically attract new followers, engage with your target audience and establish your company as an industry thought-leader.
As the world’s largest professional network, with over 530 million users worldwide, there is no denying that LinkedIn is an excellent place to market your business.
For support with setting up your social media channels or creating content your audience want to read and share, contact us today.
Fancy a browse? Why not check out our LinkedIn page here!
