How to Create a Company Profile on LinkedIn

Yesterday, I listed ten ways you can use LinkedIn to promote your business and reach potential clients. One of the methods I listed was creating a company profile.

As a consumer, company profiles are an excellent way to research companies you are considering hiring or working with. As a company, company profiles give you a way to create a business-focused page that describes your products and services, identifies personnel, presents offers and promotions, and gives interested parties an easy way to contact you.

Here is a step-by-step process for creating your company profile on LinkedIn.

Step 1: Login and Add a Company

First, login to your LinkedIn account. Then, click the Companies tab in the top navigation, and click Add a Company.

Step 2: Enter Company Information

Before you can add the company, you will have to add the company name and email, and verify that you are an official representative of the company. Whichever name you enter as the company name will become your custom URL. For example:  http://www.linkedin.com/company/your-company-name

On the next screen, you will be able to add all of the vital stats about your company, including:

• Logo
• Company descriptions
• Specialties
• Type of company
• Year established
• Industry
• Twitter account
• RSS feed

Step 3: Add Products and Services

Click the Products and Services tab, then the Add a Product or Service button. You will enter information about your product/service on the next screen, including:

• Name
• Category
• Graphic
• Description
• Disclaimer
• List of key features
• URL
• Contact person
• Current promotion
• YouTube video

Step 4: Create a Products and Services Homepage

Once you have added at least one product or service, you will be prompted to create a landing page for your products and services.

The cool thing about this is that you can create different versions of this landing page that you can customize for specific audiences, based on the information they have in their profiles. First you create a default page, then you can “add audiences” to create new pages that will only be seen by specific people. For example, you can create a version targeted to people in the United States, and a different version targeted to members in Canada.

To create your default landing page, enter in a description and up to three spotlight images. These images will be included in a graphic slider that appears on your landing page and links directly to any URL you’ve entered. You can also add a YouTube video to your landing page.

Your live landing page will have your description, the spotlight slider and then all of your products and services listed underneath. This is what the live landing page looks like.

Once your company profile is complete, you can click the Promote button at the top to go to LinkedIn DirectAds and set up an advertising campaign. Even if you don’t go that route, though, you can begin to include your custom company profile URL everywhere you include contact information for your company.

Do you have a company profile on LinkedIn? How do you use it to promote your business?

Frequently Asked Questions about Creating a LinkedIn Company Profile