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If it’s been a while since you popped over to LinkedIn, it may be because for so long the public perception has categorized this online resume and networking site as merely a place for “people trying to find a job.”  However, a lot has changed over the last 14 years, and small businesses would be wise to take a closer look at LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has steadily become the world’s largest professional social network with 467 million members. One study, conducted in 2013, said LinkedIn accounted for 64 percent of social network referrals to a group of 60 corporate websites. The study suggested LinkedIn users are more likely to be interested in your business and click to the website than the typical user of social networks like Facebook or Twitter.

It has morphed into a powerful tool for businesses with the ability to create a company page off your personal profile. And in 2012, it acquired the news reader app Pulse. Now, this self-contained publishing platform within LinkedIn allows people to follow your company’s updates with targeted blog posts, company announcements, product releases, images and relevant industry articles.

How to Create a Perfect LinkedIn Company Page

Here’s a quick guide to setting up your company page and some important tips.

Company Name: Make sure the company name in your personal profile is the same one you use in your company profile

Company email: LinkedIn won’t accept Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail addresses; it has to be an email from your company’s domain name, such as info@yourcompany.com

Description: Make it short and sweet, answering the “who, what, why, where and when” questions using (250-2000 characters including spaces), and company website URL.

Logo: LinkedIn automatically adds a white border to your photo, so keep it simple and uncluttered. You can use a .png, .jpeg or .gif file with a minimum size of 300 x 300 pixels.

Time to Engage

Once you have your company page up, it’s time to put together a content strategy that is perfect for small business. That means write it once and post it twice, cross-linking from your other social media channels to LinkedIn (or vice versa), so you can get the biggest bang for your marketing time.

Good, quality content is always going to attract more visitors. How often you post is up to you (some industry experts suggest once a day, while others think two or three times a week is sufficient).  As far as what to publish, think of your content as a balanced diet. Go easy on what you publish about yourself or what you’re selling — especially at first — and build your weekly editorial calendar with a smattering of company news, along with a balance of articles and insights in your industry. Have an industry question yourself? Rather than spend too much time researching answers, use your LinkedIn community to ask for help. It helps to think about how your company page be a resource for others.

And now for an example of a perfect small business company page. Evernote, a computer software company in California, is often cited for the innovative way they used their company updates.

Take a quick span of its LinkedIn company profile. A scroll down finds a simple, uncluttered logo, a brief description that explains what it does and a streamlined look. Under recent updates, it posted a free Facebook Live event collaborating with a content providers in another industry to help people get organized for 2017. Below that, it posted an insightful article and below that, a fresh new podcast. Evernote is using other content platforms and driving them through LinkedIn, which is a brilliant strategy any small business can use.

If you need assistance creating a LinkedIn company page with an innovative content strategy for your small business, contact us to help you get started.