Your LinkedIn company page is a unique extension of your brand’s internet presence.
I remember when I first joined LinkedIn years ago. It was a phone book and contact list (an electronic rolodex?) But it also showed levels of connections to other people and that was unique. Overnight I had a new way to professionally network.
It didn’t stop there. LinkedIn has continuously added features to their service over time. In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, I’ll break the news to you. LinkedIn is more than a gathering place for job seekers. It’s a place for research, knowledge sharing, discussions, news, and more.
Company pages are a great example of this. This page is setup to display profile information about a company, information about products and services that are offered, as well as any open jobs. I see the company page as a place to connect your products with other digital touchpoints and more importantly with other people. That’s because it is visible to employees, prospective employees, vendors, and clients.
A simple example. As I type this article, I looked for a company name to test. There is a Uniden phone on the end table, so I searched for “Uniden Company Profile” to simulate a prospective vendor looking for information about Uniden.
The LinkedIn company profile was the number one search result
The point is that your LinkedIn profile page may be on the first page of search results for prospects, vendors, and clients that are seeking information. In this example it was the first unpaid search result listed! That’s information from a third party web site, not the one you call your own.
Contacts for a service and a link to get in touch with them directly
Your Linkedin company page provides leads to people.
With each product/service that you list, you can also list up to three points of contact within your company. So if vendors or clients are researching a product/service and they have a question, then they will see who they can contact to get more information. It’s sounds so much more personal than saying “send an email to [email protected]”.
The company overview page also shows how your profile is connected to company based on the personal connections in your network. That’s certainly useful for prospective employees trying to identify if anyone in their network works at a company. But there are lots of other uses in creating business conversations as well. Again, it’s putting people with people.
People can choose to follow your company page. Then they have settings about how they’ll be notified on new information about your company. I think of it as a personal news digest. Each follower will choose the type of information that is relevant to them and the frequency they want to see it (unless they manually visit your page). Does our corporate internet site have this type of reach to people?
Notifications settings for a company that you follow
Your Linkedin company page provides leads to your other digital properties.
Within the products and services area you can provide links to product videos on YouTube, as well as links to product spec sheets, testimonials, etc. The LinkedIn company page is setup to show a basic level of information about a given product or service. But then you can link to other touchpoints that may provide more details.
Links to other types of digital content
What I really like about using the LinkedIn platform for business interactions is that it is already an accepted and well known location for B2B activity. People are on the site by their own choosing and may be looking for connections to live people (not a generic email address). Try creating a little digital connection for your company. As the saying goes, it’s not what you know, but who you know.