Should I Create a LinkedIn Company Page?

Basketball legend Michael Jordan once said: "Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships."

We recently worked with a client who was setting up her own business. The client wanted to set up both a personal profile and a company page, and asked what she should do first.

Your personal LinkedIn profile is an extension of your personal network and brand. It’s a way for you to connect on a personal level online. A business page is slightly different. While personal profiles have connections, company pages have followers.

Simply wanting people to follow your business instead of connecting with you is counter-productive when networking and growing your business. People want to connect with you because you’re you. It’s similar to when you’re at an event – you introduce yourself as you, not your company.

However, LinkedIn research indicates that members are 50% more likely to purchase from a company they engage with on LinkedIn. Furthermore, nearly 80% of LinkedIn members want to connect with companies in their lives. In other words, members aren’t looking for once-off help. They want to connect and partner for the longer term. Your business page and personal page allow this to happen.

Benefits of having a company page include:

Elevates the quality of talent applying for a role. Potential employees will review your company page, so make sure it reflects your organisational values.
Leverage company visual branding by including images and logos. A company page is also a great place to share videos.
Add specific products and services and launch new products and services.
Share updates and provide a collection of information team members can easily share within their own personal networks. This allows the company to engage with followers.
Can be used when individuals link their personal profile to the company in their Employment History. The logo and correct name is on their own profile.
Allows you to plugin to other media. This means you can link your LinkedIn company page to the company website and add a follow button to other websites.
Supports paid advertising as being able to be defined as a precise audience.
Provides analytics and data.
Supports SEO by including keywords.
You can drive traffic to your LinkedIn company page by including a follow button on your company website.
Provides a way for your competitors to follow your business rather than you sharing your content and connections with them and putting your business at risk.

Some disadvantages include:

Needs an allocated page manager with a process in place for hand-over if the person leaves the organisation.
Ongoing maintenance is required to ensure relevance.

An important point to note is that if you attempt to set up a company as a personal profile, your profile will be removed by LinkedIn. This means you lose all your connections and will have to start all over again, as LinkedIn ultimately owns your connections, not you. So don’t risk it!

Some questions to consider before setting up a Company page:

What size is your business? Do people wanna connect with you more than the business brand?
Do I not want people connecting with me and often due to my position? (i.e. if you’re the CEO)
Do I have a team of experts that differentiate our business and can contribute their thought leadership on a business page?
Am I growing the business and recruiting in the future, or do I currently have positions advertised on other websites?
Do I plan to run ads on LinkedIn?
Do I have competitors who could be looking to capitalise on my network?
Do I have the resources to manage both pages?

Love to know your thoughts…

Should I Create a LinkedIn Company Page?