The Pulse

One resource readily available to all LinkedIn members but which many aren’t aware of is the Company Page. For the many who do know about it, it’s still ignored or seriously underutilised.

If you have taken some steps to customise your LinkedIn personal profile, then setting up and customising a company page should be the next step to amplify your online presence, reach and influence.

This post runs through the basics of getting your company page set up.

It’s a straightforward exercise and deserves at least as much attention at ownership or senior executive level as would the preparation and publishing of a printed corporate brochure. However, judging from what I’ve seen, LinkedIn company pages often get much less attention than they should, including the pages of some major corporations.

“But last time I looked, the company pages on LinkedIn were pretty static and boring.”

If your experience with LinkedIn company pages to date has been that they are not very engaging, then now is a good time to have another look. LinkedIn has made some quite dramatic design changes to support greater engagement with audiences, as explained in an official LinkedIn blog post of September 6.

If you are still unsure about putting some effort into developing a company page on LinkedIn, then consider your business’ search value. Long established and respected Melbourne-based company WebCentral explains:

“Google gives LinkedIn pages high authority and ranks them well for any searches that include a company name or brand in the keyword search. This means that if you have a LinkedIn page, you should rank near the top of Google organic search results.”

Clarifying the term company

In New Zealand and Australia, in the small to medium business context, the word company means a Limited (Ltd) or Pty Ltd incorporated body. However, you do not need to have such an entity in order to have a LinkedIn Company page.  Just a brand will do.

Before you set up the company page

To save yourself some grief, first make sure you have a company email address (yourname@yourcompany.com) associated with your LinkedIn professional profile. It doesn’t have to be the address you use to log in to your LinkedIn account (what LinkedIn calls your primary email).

If your primary address is a company address, skip this step.

Otherwise, do this:

• Go to your profile’s settings (top right – click the little arrow beside your name and click on Settings).

• In Settings, look to the left side top and see, just under your name and image, Primary Email, and click on Change/Add.

• A text box will open—if you don’t have a company address listed there, just enter it in the space provided, click Add email address and then click Close.

Setting up the company page

The actual process of setting up the page is quite straightforward:

1. Mouse over the Companies tab in the navigation bar at the top of your screen and in the dropdown menu click on Search Companies.
2. When the Search for Companies page opens, click on Add a Company (top right of your screen).
3. Enter your company name and company email address and tick the box affirming that you are an official representative of the company and are authorised to set up the page.
4. Check your email for a message from LinkedIn to confirm your request.
5. Start entering your company’s information.

I recommend you to fill in all the options LinkedIn has. Don’t just fill out the Overview section and leave the rest untouched, as quite a few companies do.

Make sure to include another person as an administrator

Only nominated admins can edit the company page. Having at least 2 persons from your firm as designated administrators for the page is crucial, especially for occasions when you might be away and unable to access the company page.

Note: You do not need to be connected on LinkedIn to the persons designated as admins for your company page.

Publishing the page

When you are ready, hit the Publish button.

As long as the information you have included is accurate and you feel presents your company well, my suggestion is not to wait until it is all perfect before you publish. You can improve and tweak the page when you want and as often as you want.

Watch out for a future post or two in which I plan to share some tips on how to optimise your LinkedIn page and how to manage and promote it.