Company Page

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

What is it?

A company page is a web page that any business can set up to help promote their brand, products, services, and job opportunities. Any LinkedIn member can follow a company page. It is a central hub where millions of members can stay up-to-date on your company news, products, services, and job openings. For a business, a company page gives the opportunity to tell your company's story, engage with followers, share career opportunities, and drive word-of-mouth at scale.

For professionals, a company page is a place to explore companies of interest, get the latest company updates and industry news, and learn about job opportunities. On the Home tab, members will see a high level overview of the business, company updates, friends and colleagues who are connected to the business, showcase pages, and affiliated pages.

Sections

The company page has a number of sections:

• About Us: This section of the page provides a friendly introduction to your business. It's a place where companies can start spreading their message and engaging with members.
• See Jobs: This button is a way for companies to interact with millions of passive and active job seekers on LinkedIn.
• Careers: The Careers tab requires a paid subscription by the company.
• Analytics: This provides metrics and trends about the company page. Data is consolidated into specific sections, updates, followers, and visitors.
• Premium Insights: Premium members can see further insights about a company. This includes analytics such as total employee count data, employee distribution by function, notable alumni, total job openings, and new hires.

Creating a company page

Follow these steps to create a company page:

1. Click the work icon in the top right corner of your LinkedIn homepage
2. Then click Create company page.
3. Enter your company name and choose a URL.
4. Then click the verification box to confirm you have the right to act on behalf of that company in the creation of the page.
5. Click the Create Page button.
6. Click Get started on the welcome screen to begin editing your company page.

Now, you've created your LinkedIn company page.

Customizing a company page

LinkedIn allows you to edit your page and make it personal to your brand.

You have the option to insert your company logo, you can edit your company name, and you can then go on and fill out the company's description.

You can then go on and add any specialties of your company. In this section, you can fill out your website URL, your company size, industry, and the year the company was founded.

Once that's complete, you can also add in your company location.

When you're done with all that, you can now publish your page. If there are any errors LinkedIn will prompt you with a red banner on the bottom left-hand side of the page.

The company page is customizable from the company overview section on an administrator's account. You can add other administrators from this section, but you must be connected. In this section, you can easily add a profile picture, cover image, company summary, products and services, specialties, websites, industry headquarters, and company size.

Affiliate company pages

Affiliated company pages may be necessary when there are distinct recruiting needs from the parent company page, or a team needs separate page analytics, admins, a distinct hero image like a header image at the top of the company page, distinct followers and/or distinct showcase pages. If you would like to set up an affiliated company page, or request to have an existing acquired company page be affiliated to your page, contact LinkedIn directly.

You must be an admin of the acquired company page to request affiliation, and all company page features are available to an affiliate page. Even if an acquired company's brand no longer exists, LinkedIn won't remove the acquired company's company page. It's not possible to move followers from the company page of an acquired company page to another company page.

You can request a notification be placed on the company page of the acquired company. Using affiliated company pages can make coordination between teams more challenging. It can also be more challenging for members to discover your page. We strongly recommend trying one or more of the following options before creating an affiliated page. The advantages of showcase and affiliate pages to consolidate brand communications on LinkedIn are as follows.

Showcase pages

Main company page to be used for company brand news and thought leadership content, for example. Showcase pages should be used for multiple products selling, affiliate pages should be used for connecting parent and child brands, and career pages should be used for attracting candidates and building employer brand pages.

Showcase pages are an extension of your company page designed for spotlighting a brand, business unit, or initiative with their own dedicated messages and audience segments. As with the company page, you can share company updates and sponsored content with LinkedIn members who can now follow the aspects of your business that they are interested in.

Companies have unique aspects of their business or multiple products with their own message to share and a unique audience to share it with. Showcase pages allow you to extend your company page presence by creating a dedicated child page for those aspects of your business. Interested members can then follow your showcase page as they follow any company page.

It makes sense to create a showcase page when you want to represent a brand, business unit, or company initiative. These pages are intended to develop a long-term relationship with a specific audience and do not make sense for short-term marketing campaigns. If you have a major recurring event that has a unique following, then a showcase page could make sense for that.

Creating a showcase page

If you're an admin of the parent company page, here's how you can create a showcase page.

1. Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
2. Below manage, select the company page you want associated to the new showcase page.
3. If you're not taken to the Admin Center automatically, then click Admin Tools button in the top right corner of the page.
4. Select Create a showcase page from the drop-down menu.
5. Enter the name of your showcase page and the page URL.
6. You'll be taken to the showcase page Admin Center to edit your new page. Information that you're going to need. The showcase page name, showcase page description, the industry, the name of at least one showcase page administrator, and then a hero image.

Career pages

LinkedIn career pages or LCPs are a great way to reach millions of professionals who use LinkedIn to research and discover career opportunities. Career pages allow you to easily showcase your employment brand, and put your best foot forward to potential candidates, create a personalized candidate experience with targeted recommendations and content, and then help candidates connect with your company by following, applying or finding more information.

LCPs are a premium corporate solution, only available through internal sales teams. So you will need to contact LinkedIn directly to set one up. Upgrading to a career page gives you access to a full suite of features for promoting careers at your company, including clickable banners, customizable modules, analytics on who is viewing the page, direct links to recruiters, and video content.

Consolidating brand communications

You can use Company, Showcase, Affiliate and Career pages to consolidate brand communications on LinkedIn. Company pages allow users to see news on interested companies, industry news, and learn about job opportunities. It can cover a wide range of issues relating to the company, including announcements, recruitment, updates, and events.

Showcase pages

Showcase pages are designed for spotlighting a brand, business unit, or initiative. Users can create showcase pages for aspects of their business with their own messages and audience segments to share with. Showcase pages can also be for multiple products selling.

Affiliate pages

Affiliate pages, an affiliate company, or university page is linked to another company or university page by the LinkedIn support team and represents a related or subsidiary company or university. These are useful for when a company acquires another, but wishes to retain the visible independence of that company. Alternatively, affiliated pages allows subsidiary or affiliate entities to harness the reach of their parent to promote initiatives or acquire maximum impact with their content.

Career pages

LinkedIn career pages is a powerful employer branding tool that raises awareness, drives interest in your company, and builds a pipeline of candidates for your open roles. It is a tool designed to attract candidates and expand upon your brand. After setting up a company page, you can begin building high value relationships by attracting LinkedIn members as followers.

Followers

A follower is a LinkedIn member who has opted in to hear more from your company. Followers can be current or potential customers that have opted in to hear more about your business and should be valued very highly. They help build your online community, allow you to interact with them as potential customers, and can help your company page posts go viral.

It is of vital importance that you appreciate that a follower has opted in to hear more of what you have to say. It's an opportunity to build a community and to drive engagement. Show that appreciation by providing them with the content that is relevant to them, interesting, and attractive.

You can turn these followers into social advocates through the viral effect of having them engage with your content by liking, commenting, and/or sharing it. Follow these steps that don't require any monetary investment to build your follower base.

Engage your employees

Your own workforce is the best place to start adding followers. After all, they're your biggest advocates. Encourage them to create complete LinkedIn profiles. Once they include your company's name, they automatically become followers of your company's page. Ask them to include a link to the company page in their email signatures.

Promote the page outside of the company

Link the company page in all of your marketing communications, like your emails, newsletters, and blogs. Invite customers, partners, and other key audiences to become followers of the page.

Add a Follow button on your website

Convert visitors who may come to your site by making it easy for them to simply click on a button and follow your company page.

Take part in LinkedIn groups

Groups are hugely popular, with more than 1 million established on LinkedIn. They're an effective way to highlight your company page and attract more followers. You can launch your own discussions, or you can contribute to popular discussions that other members have created. Also, if you manage LinkedIn groups that focus on your company or industry, or participate in other groups, you can feature these groups on your company page.

Post engaging content regularly

Providing valuable content to your current followers is essential to encouraging their engagement. If they act on any social actions, the update will then appear organically in their connection's news feeds. This can greatly increase the virality of the post and will hopefully pique the interest of a wider audience encouraging them to follow your company page.

Customizing a company page

To customize your company page, you will need the following:

• A profile picture
• A cover image
• A company summary
• List of your company's specialties
• Your company's website URL
• Your company's job listings
• The address of your company
• The size of your company
• The year your company was founded

Google previews up to 156 characters of your page text. So be sure that your company summary leads with powerful keyword rich copy. LinkedIn members can also search for your companies by keyword. So include words and phrases that describes your business, expertise, and industry focus. This will benefit the SEO of the page and ensure your company page appears in the top search results.

Optimized LinkedIn posts

So what does an optimized LinkedIn post look like?

• Schedule: In terms of a schedule, posting daily company updates is the most effective way to start a conversation, drive word of mouth, and directly engage with your target audience. But posts published in the morning usually earn the highest engagement, with a slight bump occurring again after business hours. Every target audience is different and are active at different times of day. Track your posts and identify the optimum time of day to post for your brand.
• Content: Short, snappy headlines with thoughtful questions and clear call to actions achieve higher engagements.
• Media: Posts with images or rich media achieve a higher comment rate. Video allows you to use sight, sound, and motion to tell more compelling stories and drive deeper engagement through your LinkedIn posts.

These could, in fact, boost the interactivity on your page.