LinkedIn is the social network for business professionals and is a good social marketing site to reach that target market. Adding a company profile is straightforward. After creating your personal profile, follow these steps:
Log in and go to Home.
Click the Companies link on the menu at the top of the page.
In the upper-right area of the page, below the Search box, click the Add a Company link.
Enter your company name and your work e-mail address, verify that you’re authorized to create the page, and then click Continue.
For more information, go to LinkedIn’s help page.
Enter your company information and the click the Publish button (upper right).
You can have as many as three links on your profile; these links pass “link juice” (share their page rank with your site). Set one to your website, another to your blog, and a third to another component of your social media presence.
For more information, see LinkedIn’s Marketing page.
Look at the profiles of other companies in your industry to form an idea of what to include in your profile.
You can edit your company profile at any time. View your profile on the Companies tab. Click the Admin Tools link on the right and then select Edit. The screen that appears offers several valuable options:
A customized link for your website: Follow your company on LinkedIn. The link is hidden in the lower-right corner; you need to scroll down to see it.
The Analytics tab: Check out page views, clicks, and unique visitors for your company profile.
The Careers tab: Post job openings. You can choose whether to select one of the Premium options.
The Products & Services tab: Add multiple, detailed LinkedIn pages with additional links to your website.
The Share an Update field: This option allows you to insert a message of up to 700 characters for distribution to your contacts and followers. To be efficient for space, use a link shortener like bit.ly to include a link in your message. You can see updates from your network, and they can see yours, directly below the company overview.
Try to post information at least once a week about new contracts, services, achievements, or trade shows that you’ll be attending.
You can choose to cross-post (that is, simultaneously post on Twitter) the first 140 characters of updates created from your personal profile to Twitter; however, updates from your company profile cannot be “co-tweeted” at this time.
As you add information to your profile, a percentage of completion appears on the right side of your profile, along with a progress bar. As you add more information to your profile, it becomes an increasingly effective marketing tool.
