LinkedIn is the social media platform that is sadly neglected by many small businesses and start-ups.

Because it can be hard to understand LinkedIn’s many benefits, this 4 part series running over the course of April (by guest author Anna Colibri of ANNACOLIBRI | tech savvy coaching) explains in detail the value of LinkedIn for small businesses, and goes over how to optimise your profile, how to use LinkedIn to vastly increase your lead generation, and how you should run your LinkedIn company page to support your marketing.

What we’ve learned in parts 1-3 of ‘LinkedIn or left behind’

Now, if you’re a small business owner or social media/marketing manager then it’s time for you to create and optimise your LinkedIn company page to market your small business.

Why you need a LinkedIn Company Page

A LinkedIn Company page allows you to:

Raise awareness about your brand
Share career opportunities
Educate potential customers about your products and services
Build a follower community for your unique brand
Generate referrals and expand your reach for your content
Build reviews and social proof of the quality of your work/products/services

You can do some of these things with a personal profile on LinkedIn, but to truly unleash the power of Linkedin, you will need a Company Page.

Let’s get started.

5 steps to create a company page on LinkedIn

Login to your profile page and click on ‘Companies’ in the top navigation
Click the ‘Add a Company’ link on the top right under the search bar
Fill in your company name and your email address at that company. You must have a company domain email address, such as “[email protected]” in order to set up the page and click the box that verifies you as an official representative of the company.
LinkedIn will then send you a verification process via email
Now just sign into LinkedIn as normal and when you click onto your company page you’ll be able to edit it and use it as an administrator.

What to post on your company page, and what to post on your personal profile

Updates on your company page should be made primarily with your customer base in mind. What do they want to know? Can you find interesting links and other content to share that is specific to them and their needs? You can also share information about any company milestones, and even tidbits about your company culture.

Your personal profile, on the other hand, can be much broader to do with your professional interests and updates. You can post updates about changes to your job, projects you are working on, articles you have found which are interesting – and, of course, you can also use your personal profile to promote your company page.

How to make the most of your LinkedIn company page

Use a great image for your LinkedIn company page cover photo. This image will be what initially attracts readers and followers to your page, so make it count.
Provide fresh content and interesting links at least 2 times per day, preferably in the morning and after work (Pro tip: Use a free tool like Hootsuite or Buffer to automate this)
Make sure your Company Description is keyword rich and starts with a strong lead phrase because this lead is visible in Google searches.
Don’t forget about video. You can add a video to your product and services tab, so if you have a good one, don’t forget to use it.

As you establish your LinkedIn presence make sure that every comment and update you make on LinkedIn ties back to your brand’s message. Think about yourself and your brand as an authority. Whatever you do, you do the best. Make that message clear to the rest of LinkedIn’s 200 million members

How to build reviews on your LinkedIn company page

Reviews are super important for all businesses. The power of social proof, anecdotes and recommendations cannot be underestimated when it comes to building leads and sales for your company so building reviews of your products and services on LinkedIn is a really important thing to do. The way to get reviews (and not just on LinkedIn) is easy – just ask! As part of your exit interview after any project make sure you give your clients an easy way to review you by providing links to the recommendation page. Make it clear how you give a review (some people can get confused that they can’t just send their review via email, but that they need to go through the infrastructure of LinkedIn (or whatever reviewing platform you are using).

You can also go through your personal contacts and ask them to follow your page (but don’t be spammy!)

Also (a follower building suggestion) think about training your employees to send a link to your company page to their new connections so they can like it. You can also do this when people reach out to you about a link they like, or a discussion they find interesting.

Promoting your company page

Create a badge. http://www.linkedin.com/profile/profile-badges?goback= you will need to change the the link to go to your company page instead of your personal profile and the wording of the badge, depending on what it is, to indicate your company page instead of your personal profile.
Post your page as an update on your profile and encourage your employees, friends and family to do the same.
Post a link to your company page on your other social media networks
Offer to do a follow swap with people you know with pages of their own
If your budget allows, do a LinkedIn Ad Campaign

Official LinkedIn Company Page Resources

LinkedIn has two great resources dedicated to company pages – a dedicated microsite for Company pages, and a 16 page PDF explaining how to organise yourself and your team to get the most out of LinkedIn company pages.

Do you already have a LinkedIn company page? Share your questions and tips in the comments below.

Guest author:

Anna Colibri of ANNACOLIBRI | Tech savvy coaching

Founded ANNACOLIBRI | tech savvy coaching, a values-based marketing company, in February, 2012. She grew up in Pacific Grove, California, a small town on the edge of the sea. She has had the wonderful fortune to live, study and work in San Francisco, CA, France and India. You can, of course find her Company Page on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/company/annacolibri.

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