Optimize Your LinkedIn Presence With a Company Page - Part 2

More and more individuals and businesses every day are recognizing the opportunities that LinkedIn presents because of its massive database of individuals and companies.  As a marketer, you can't ignore the power of LinkedIn.  For a small investment in time, you can ensure that your company page is not only complete, but also interesting for prospects that land on the page - whether they are potential employees, customers, vendors, or strategic partners.  Following are all the things to consider and complete on your LinkedIn Company page.

Take control

As soon as one employee of your company creates a LinkedIn profile and designates your company as his/her employer: LinkedIn creates your company page.  There won't be anything on the page (except the one employee who listed it as his place of employment) - but it's there.

By default, any person who is registered on LinkedIn and has an email address with your company's domain can make edits to your company page.  If you are a small firm with trusted employees, this may be perfectly alright with you.  Maybe not so much if you're a mid-size company and you don't personally know every employee.  Since LinkedIn pages don't (yet) offer the opportunity for engagement, there's really no reason to have multiple administrators.  I recommend 1 or 2 people who are your social media ambassadors to police the page and ensure information is always up-to-date.

Establish your brand

You have the option to upload two logos: one standard logo for the overview page and a square logo that will appear on the network updates of your followers when your company posts an update.  They are both important, and especially the square logo.  This will be your brand identity any time an update appears on your followers' network updates.

Go back to marketing 101: you gotta' be seen to be sold.  The more frequently you post status updates on your company page, the more often your company name (and logo) appear on your followers' network updates.  Visual recognition is critical, so don't forget that square logo - even if you have to have someone else create it at 50 x 50 pixels!

Consider keywords in your company description

Remember, you want your company to come up in search results - not just any search, but searches done by people who are looking for information related to your business niche and area of specialization.  Try to weave keywords into your company description that potential customers might look for instead of words that simply make your company sound awesome.  You also have the opportunity of getting some of your keywords into the "Specialties" section.

Post frequent keyword rich status updates

Thanks to LinkedIn's company page status update feature, you can post keyword-rich status updates with links to your latest blog articles, news releases, promotions, or anything else that is "on brand."  Your status updates don't always have to be "all about you."  Try to include links to blogs or articles that others have written that lend support to your products and services.  Just as with Twitter and Facebook, you can't post an update once a month and expect anything to happen.   Make status updates on your LinkedIn company page part of your social media routine.  The goal is to show up in your followers' feeds as often as possible.

The Products and Services area of the company page is so important that it deserves its own post.  Next time: how to capitalize on this critical component of your company page.

And by the way: Marketects would love for you to follow ITS LinkedIn company page!

http://www.linkedin.com/company/2475922?trk=tyah