LinkedIn, just like Facebook, has 2 types of profiles – one for individuals to use personally and one designed for businesses. LinkedIn Company Pages are very limited in capabilities. You can post updates, and respond to people who comment on your Company Updates as your brand, but you cannot interact with others’ profiles or even other Company Pages as your Page.

You do have some free analytics for your LinkedIn Company Page, can post a job there, plus create Showcase Pages. LinkedIn Company Pages are great for SEO since Google, et al., favor social media profiles in search engine results. Basically, it’s an easy business listing for your company to create and maintain. Buffered updates work very well here!

As a business owner or employee, you can link to your Company Page in your LinkedIn Profile in the Experience area. When you hover over your business’ name, you’ll see that it’s linked to your company’s page. When clicked, a LinkedIn user is then taken to your Company Page.

So now that we know the pros and cons of having a LinkedIn Company page, here’s how you create one.

How to Create a LinkedIn Company Page

When signed in to your LinkedIn Profile, visit: https://www.linkedin.com/company/home

Click on the yellow Create button underneath “Create a Company Page” on the right side of the screen.

Information on your LinkedIn Company Page will be publicly available (unlike your Profile where you can control the visibility settings of all aspects of your Profile). Enter your company name and your email address at your company. Click the checkbox to verify you are an official company representative.

Note: LinkedIn does not like unbranded email accounts like MyCompany@Gmail.com. This is to help ensure a true company employee is creating the company page.

Now you begin filling out all applicable fields for your Company Page. You have 2,000 characters for your Company Description. This is probably the most important field on your Page so it’s important to be descriptive, keyword-rich, and thorough.

On the right, you can select your Company Type, Company Size, add your website link, etc.

As you scroll down, you’ll see that you are automatically a Company Page Admin. Current Admins can add additional Admins in this section. You must be personally connected to all others you want to add as Admins to your Company Page.

Next is the imagery area. The large rectangular image needs to be a PNG, JPEG, or GIF, max size of 2 MB, and must be 646 x 220 pixels or larger. You can adjust the crop of the image you want to use after uploading.

The Company Logo is a 300 x 300 square crop, but you are given the chance to adjust the crop after uploading your image.

As you continue to scroll, you reach the area of your Company Page where you can add your specialities as well as any LinkedIn Groups you’d like to feature. You can either be an admin or a member of any Featured Group to include it here.

Once you have filled out all the fields to your liking, click on the Publish button at the top right corner of the Page. Then at any time, you can go back and edit these same fields. Click on the down arrow on the right, next to the blue Edit button, then select Edit Page from the drop down.

Once you have created your new LinkedIn Company page, be sure to send the link to your employees so they can follow the Page and link their profiles. Also be sure to update any marketing and contact information to reflect your new social media profile (e.g. email signature, brochures, business cards, linked social media icons on your website). Then, begin posting to your Page like you would any other social media profile.