Forging Stronger Business-to-Business Links With LinkedIn’s Company Pages

LinkedIn now has more than 100 million professionals worldwide, potential clients for small businesses. If you have a LinkedIn profile, follow these steps to take advantage of recent changes to LinkedIn and create your Company Page today.

Add your company page. In LinkedIn, choose Com­panies on the navigation bar. On the right are links to Add a Company and FAQ. Click on FAQ for com­prehensive information, and go to Company Page Overview for the requirements to add a Company Page. There are only four, but one is that you must have a company email address (e.g. john@companyname.com). Once you meet all the requirements, select Add a Company, fill in the contact information and verify that you are an official representative.

Add basic information. Add com­pany description, industry, website URL, Twitter ID, location, and more. Once your page is established you can click on Admin tools in the upper right, select Edit, make your changes and Publish. Your profile must be associated with the correct company in or­der to edit the page. You can also assign administra­tor rights to employees for later updates.

Add your key services. Select Services. Under Ad­min tools on the right, select Edit. Add a more de­tailed description of your services with banners and URLs to highlight current promotions. Target audi­ences with multiple variations of your service page. Add products or services by choosing Add a prod­uct or service under Admin tools, and provide information and pho­tos. You can assign specific em­ployee contacts for each service, add a promotion with a link to a specific URL, and even add a You­Tube video.

Ask clients and associates to rec­ommend and follow you. Once you have taken those first few steps to get your page in order, don’t forget to solicit recommendations for your work, which can be done directly within the services you have promoted. Also, don’t forget to ask associates and clients to follow you.

Full steam ahead with promo­tions. You can create paid ads for your company or for specific ser­vices and promotions. Just look for promote my products & services or promote my product under Ad­min tools on your Service page or product or service page. Ad varia­tions can test which image and text performs best. Be brief, creative, and honest. You can target your ads to specific audiences, one of many campaign options available to maximize your ad. There are help links to answer questions and guide you through the process.

NEW on LinkedIn: Status Pages. The most exciting new rollout is status pages for companies. Now, you can create status updates that showcase your company and help to drive your connections and their contacts to your company page! Once you create a status update for your company you and your em­ployees can share it with personal connections. You can also send the update to individuals or post to your groups (if they allow such promotions). There’s a comment space and like link to engage your followers and others too, so make the most of each status update!

Conclusion

LinkedIn is an amazing tool for business and LinkedIn company pages enables you, as the business owner, to strengthen your relationships with other people. LinkedIn is constantly coming up with improvements (tools, applications, etc) that make your LinkedIn experience even more profitable and beneficial.