Personal AND Company Profiles?
At first, a company profile on LinkedIn doesn’t seem that different from a personal profile. In fact, many people actually created their company profile AS a personal profile (before LinkedIn came out with the company feature). But the time has come where you need BOTH, because they really do serve different purposes. We’ll elaborate further…
5 Things Company Profiles Do, that your personal profile does NOT:
- Allow people to search for your company name. If you’re out networking, and someone remembers your company but not your name, they could easily get to you IF your company maintains a company profile. More than likely, the company LinkedIn profile will even show up in a Google search on page 1. (Just the fact its searchable by Google is enough for you to need a company profile!!!)
- Locate headquarters. People want to know where you’re based out of. For smaller companies, your ‘headquarters’ is probably in your personal profile as your location, but this is not always the case for larger companies. Both vendors and clients like to know where your home base is. Also, potential employees are concerned where headquarters are located for transfer or travel purposes.
- See how many employees. When a company profile is posted on LinkedIn, it includes how many employees are currently with the company. This is a common curiousity your existing and potential clients want to know about. How many people do you employ to support them? How many customer support vs sales people do you have? LinkedIn also shows who is coming into and who has recently left your company. Do you have a lot of turnover? Did you do a big hire or lay off recently? Its amazing what you find when you check out a company’s employees!
- Find out when founded. Another thing company profiles list is when the company was founded. Here’s the part where your potential clients find out you are NOT a startup, you are worth investing in, and that you made it though not just 1 but TWO down economies 🙂 Even if you are a new business, if your employee section is healthy, the founded date can work for your advantage too!
- Read recent news, company blogs / tweets. People can actually ‘follow’ your company on LinkedIn! This is a great way to stay front of mind by automating things you are already using like tweets and blogs to keep in touch. You can connect your LinkedIn company profile to your blog and Twitter to keep your employees, clients, and vendors all informed of new innovations and updates.
If your LinkedIn company profile is filled out with robust info and maintained well, it becomes a 24/7 trust factor that you are a healthy business. Simply having one will put you ahead of competitors!
A good example of a well maintained company profile to keep an eye on is LinkedIn themselves:
Have you ever tried to find a company on Google or LinkedIn and been unsuccessful? How did it make you feel about doing business with that company?
Now that you understand the difference between your personal and company LinkedIn profiles, stay tuned for the step by step manual to create your Company LinkedIn profile!
