How to Create a Company Page
Anyone who has a company email address, and who is a current employee of that company, is authorized to create a Company Page for that company if they have a LinkedIn account. Just sign in to your LinkedIn account, click the Companies link in the top navigation bar, and then click the Add Company Page link near the top right of the Companies page. This opens the Create a Company Page shown in Figure 4.1.
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Simply enter your company email address and your name, click the Verification check box, and click the Continue button. Your Company Page opens in edit mode with the Overview tab ready for you to develop as shown in Figure 4.2.
Overview
There are several sections of the Overview tab that you can develop. Try to provide as much information as you can to tell the best story for the LinkedIn audience.
Company Pages Admins: This section is shown in Figure 4.2, and it’s where you identify who can edit your Company Page. You can opt to allow everyone with a valid company email address to edit your Company Page, or you can identify designated users by email address. Just click the corresponding radio button to make your selection.
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On the right side at the top of the Overview tab edit screen is a section where you can enter your company information as follows:
1. Click the drop-down menu under the Company Type heading and select the correct option for your company.
2. From the Company Size drop-down menu, identify how many employees work for your business.
3. Enter your Company Website URL.
4. Select your Main Company Industry from the provided drop-down menu.
5. Identify your Company Operating Status by selecting the appropriate option from the drop-down menu.
6. Enter the Year Founded.
7. Provide up to five Company Locations (shown in Figure 4.3).
Logos: As shown in Figure 4.3, you can upload a standard logo of 100×60 pixels to appear with your profile and a 50×50 pixel logo to appear in network updates related to your Company Page.
Figure 4.3: Upload your logo and describe your company and specialties.
Company Description: Enter a compelling description of your company that describes what you do, the benefits you bring to customers and employees, and what you can offer.
Company Specialties: Enter keywords related to your company’s specialties in the text boxes provided. You can add more specialties by clicking the Add More Specialties link.
Twitter ID: If you have a Twitter profile where you tweet content for your company (at least part of the time), then you should enter your Twitter handle into the Twitter ID text box provided (as shown in Figure 4.4) to display your Twitter stream on the Overview tab of your LinkedIn Company Page.
Figure 4.4: Enter your Twitter username in the Twitter ID text box to show your Twitter feed on your Company Page Overview tab.
Company Blog RSS Feed: If you publish a company blog, then you should display a feed of your recent posts on your Company Page by entering your blog RSS feed URL in this text box.
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News module: You can display links to news about your blog that appears across the web by selecting the Show News About My Company radio button in this section. News comes from a variety of sources and is identified contextually, so you cannot control what appears in this module. If you’d prefer not to show news from other sources in your Company Page, select the Don’t Show News About My Company radio button.
When you’ve completed all sections of the Overview tab, click the Careers tab to customize that section of your Company Page.
Careers
The Careers tab is only personalized on your Company Page when you post a job through LinkedIn. Free Company Pages offer the basic Careers tab, which displays a list of the active job postings you’ve published on LinkedIn. Simply click the yellow Post a Job button shown in Figure 4.5 to get started.
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Figure 4.5: Click the Post a Job button to publish a job opening.
The Post a Job page opens: here you can enter all relevant information and publish your job opening. Once the job opportunity is published, it automatically appears on your LinkedIn Careers tab as shown in Figure 4.6. Posting jobs is covered in detail in Chapter 15.
Figure 4.6: Your posted jobs appear on your Company Page Careers tab.
If your company is extremely serious about using LinkedIn for recruiting and hiring, then you should contact LinkedIn Corporate Recruiting Solutions through the Contact Us button at talent. linkedin.com to discuss premium career pages. LinkedIn offers Gold and Silver career page packages that can turn your company’s career page into a complete information center.
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Keep in mind, the Gold and Silver career page packages are not cheap. LinkedIn doesn’t advertise the prices for these packages, but as part of its Corporate Recruiting Solutions offerings—discussed in detail in Chapter 15—they are offered through one-year contracts and can cost tens of thousands of dollars per year.
Products and Services
The Products tab is where you can showcase your products and services, complete with descriptions and recommendations. Note that the heading of this tab will reflect the types of products and services you add to your page. For example, if you only add products, the tab will simply say “Products,” but if you add products and services, it will say “Products and Services,” or simply “Services” if you only add services.
Just click the arrow on the Admin Tools button to reveal your editing options and select Add a Product or Service to add a new product or service to your Products & Services tab. The edit Product & Services page opens as shown in Figures 4.7 and 4.8. Here you can enter all of the requested information about your product or service.
Figure 4.7: Complete the form to add a product or service to your Company Page.
Provide the requested information to add your product or service as follows:
1. Would you like to add a product or service? Select the appropriate radio button.
2. Select a category that best fits your product/service. Choose the best category from the drop-down menu.
3. Product or Service name. Enter the name of your product or service (up to 100 characters).
4. Add an image of your product or service. Click the Add Image link to upload a 100×80 pixels image or photo in .png, .gif, or .jpg format.
5. Description. Enter a description (up to 2,000 characters) of your product or service.
6. Create a bulleted list of product/service features. Enter up to eight key benefits in the text boxes provided (up to 100 characters each). Click the Add More Features link to display additional text boxes. Note that this step includes a Disclaimer box, where you can enter any necessary legal notices related to your product or service.
7. Website. Enter a URL in the text box in the upper-right column. The URL should direct visitors to your website or a particular page on your website, where they can learn about your product or service in more detail.
8. Contact us. In the text boxes provided, enter the names of employees you are connected to on LinkedIn who can respond to inquiries on behalf of your company.
9. Create a special promotion. This is where you can offer discounts and other promotions. Just enter a title, URL, and description of your special promotion.
10. Title your video. You can add a YouTube video about your product or service. Enter a title for the video in this text box.
11. YouTube video URL. Enter the URL of the YouTube video about your product or service into the text box. The video will be embedded into your product/service page.
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Once you add a product to your Company Page, you can edit it, delete it, or add more by clicking the Admin Tools button on the right side of your Company Page (above your page follower count) to reveal the admin drop-down menu. You can see a published product from the Dell Company Page on LinkedIn in Figure 4.9. Note that individual recommendations are published beneath the product description box. Visitors to your page can recommend individual products and services by clicking the Recommend button beneath the product name as shown in Figure 4.9.
You can also view your main products and services page, where all of the products you added to your Company Page are listed with the images and descriptions you provided. You can see part of Dell’s product list in Figure 4.10.
Analytics
The final tab of your LinkedIn Company Page is the Analytics tab. This is where you can track the performance of your Company Page. Here you’ll find charts telling you how many page views and visitors each tab in your Company Page receives. You can also learn what people click on in your Company Page and how many LinkedIn members are following your page. For deeper analysis, you can compare your statistics with similar companies’ statistics.
Use the metrics provided in these charts to identify trends, learn what is and isn’t working, and modify your efforts for the future. For example, if you launch a special campaign to increase followers, you can analyze how visits and page views were affected during the campaign, as well as how many new followers your page received during that time.
The statistics offered in the Analytics tab should be used in conjunction with your own analysis of recommendations, brand sentiment in terms of conversations and sharing related to your Company Page and the content published there, and so on. Of course, you should also consider any other metrics and analytics tools that you use to track your online activities and performance to develop a complete picture of how your LinkedIn efforts and Company Pages are doing in terms of helping you meet your goals.