You have a personal profile on LinkedIn and it is 110% complete. You are building connections, engaging in groups, and if you are a power networker or sales person, you may even love LinkedIn [this much]. But does your Company have a profile on LinkedIn? If your company relies on business-to-business relationships, a company profile is the logical next step for your Linkedin Strategy. Ready?
Launch your Company on LinkedIn
1) Before you begin adding a company profile to Linkedin, you must be either be an employee of the company with the position listed on your profile, or have the authority to add the company on LinkedIn and an email address with your company’s domain.
2) 
Click on “Companies” on the main menu. Then select “Add a Company” on the right side of the screen. This is where you will add your company’s official name (just as it is listed on your personal LinkedIn profile) and your email address.
3) After verifying your email address, begin adding your company’s information, such as description, specialties, number of employees, industry, website, year founded, etc.
4) Complete your profile with as much information as you can, including your company’s, logo, Twitter handle, and your blog’s RSS feed if you have one. There is also a “News Module” option that is not relevant to most small companies. Try it out if you would like, but know that the news it pulls may not be about your company. To turn it off, select “Don’t show news about my company”.
5) If your company has multiple locations, you can add each of them now, or come back and add the additional locations later.
6) Hit Publish! Congrats, your Company is now launched on Linkedin! But you are not done yet…
Add your Products, Gradually is OK
Next, start adding your products or services to your company’s LinkedIn profile. You can include a product name, description, category, and bullet points. Don’t forget a website, photo/logo, and YouTube video link if you have one. If you have a special promotion or disclaimer related to the product that can also be added. Make your product listings as complete and specific as possible. If you have a large product line, it is perfectly fine to add your products gradually. Each time you add a product it runs through your follower’s news feeds as an update so it is a nice way to stay in front of them. Your followers can also recommend the products that you have listed with your company.
Encourage Employee Participation
Employees of your company will automatically be included in the company listing when it is created. If they are not, employees may need to edit their current company in their personal profile to match how the company profile is listed. They should see the company in the drop down menu so they can select it from there. Now is also a good time to encourage more employees at your company to join LinkedIn if they have not yet taken the leap. With a company profile in place, it is beneficial to get as many employees on LinkedIn as possible.
Build Followers and Engagement
Add the “Follow Company” button to your website to make it easy for your customers to connect with your company on LinkedIn. Continue to polish your own personal profile and add connections, and some of these contacts may naturally become followers of your company as well. Update your company status frequently to keep followers informed. Press releases, job openings, announcements, and blog posts could all be included as status updates.
Just like any social network, participating in LinkedIn does take some time and commitment for success. After you get your company profile complete (click here to view Vivid Image’s company profile) and are actively promoting it, then take a step back. Look at the “Page Statistics” tab to see how much traffic your company’s LinkedIn profile is getting and where (overview, products and services, careers). It is also helpful to take a look at Google Analytics to see how much referral traffic that each social network, such as LinkedIn, is sending back to your website. Can you improve your stats by adding more products? Promoting your Linkedin company profile better on your website or other social networks? Connecting with more contacts via groups, who may also follow your company? A LinkedIn strategy with consistent follow-thru and integration of new ideas will bring results!
We love hearing from you! What other thoughts do you have regarding launching your company on LinkedIn? Please share your questions, ideas, or a link to your company’s profile in the comments below!
Photo Credit: TheSeafarer
About Jackie Kaufenberg
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