This is the third of a four-part series aimed at helping our readers understand how best to use LinkedIn for their companies’ benefit. It assumes some beginning familiarity with LinkedIn, but nothing approaching proficiency. The final part will appear here within 2 weeks.
In the second installment of this series, I showed you how to leverage LinkedIn Groups, and how to augment your personal Profile so as to build up your perceived authority. Today, let’s look at perhaps the most critical LinkedIn feature…
LinkedIn Company Page
Your company page has the potential to gain LinkedIn followers, who will see your blog posts, company profile updates and job openings appear in their LinkedIn newsfeed. Similar to a Facebook Fan Page, being a company follower on LinkedIn will get you specific status updates such as recent hires and promotions, new job opportunities and company profile updates. With the initial launch of Company Pages, the interaction opportunities are fairly basic; but as the feature matures, more opportunities will be released to improve communication between companies and individuals.
However, if your company description isn’t filled in, it might prevent people from following you, or even from finding you in the first place. Make sure you optimize your company page by including relevant keywords and links to your website.
The Services tab allows your company to list each of its products and services, upload a 100 x 80 pixel icon and description of each, and create an overview for each one.
You can also embed a YouTube video on the Overview page, and on each of the individual services pages you create. When done well, video is a powerful tool to convey your message to customers. This is a huge opportunity to engage people in a contextually relevant manner. You can use a different video on every page, and embedding them is as simple as copying and pasting a URL from YouTube.
One of the most important features of your company’s LinkedIn Profile is the ability to solicit recommendations from your customers for each of your products or services. This works just like the Recommendations feature does on an individual LinkedIn profile. You’ll want to take the time to edit the default message when asking for an endorsement.
Your company page also has a “follow us” button, which allows people to check out your activity without actually engaging with your brand. On the flip side, you can look over your “voyeurs” and solicit them for a connection if you feel they would be a good fit.
Finally, your company page gives your followers insight on your company via your blog posts and tweets, by displaying feeds on your company overview page.
5 more points in my final installment, coming in just 2 weeks; stay tuned!
