The marketing benefits of a LinkedIn company page

Last month I explored the value of an individual page on LinkedIn. This month I'm exploring the benefits of a company page on LinkedIn and relatively low-cost strategic marketing asset for your business.

Company pages on the platform are continuing to be refined by LinkedIn as I write this, so the information, I'm sharing today reflects the latest benefits and features you can employ now.

It's important to first understand the benefits of a LinkedIn company page. To begin, the page allows you to present your company and brand in the best possible light. Once you have published your page you can promote job opportunities within your organization, and you can announce news, successes, products and services.

Through your strategic communications, you can then earn fans by constructing a community of evangelists for your business comprised of employees and customers. One further benefit of company pages is that fully populated pages tend to turn up very high in search results over time especially if you take care to include keywords in your copy on the page.

There are certain aspects of a company page you should pay close attention to:

1. Populate all relevant sections to create the most robust and readable profile;

2. Be sure to include your company logo as the profile image;

3. Publish a high-resolution image for your cover photo and consider changing it from time to time or on a given schedule to create visual interest;

4. Publish a call-to-action button;

5. Include a well-written About Us section;

6. Add your location if you have a brick-and-mortar address;

7. Define specific, keyword hashtags that will help people find your page

8. Appoint trusted people to be administrators to the page. You never want to be in a situation where you could be locked out of your Company Page if/when an Administrator moves on from their role at your business;

9. Develop a goal of publishing good, appealing, content at least one time per week;

10. Test the LinkedIn newsletter function where you can create and publish newsletters that your followers will enjoy receiving;

11. Invite all of your employees to link from their individual profiles to the company page;

12. Lastly, invite your connections to like and follow the page and ask your staff to do the same.

If you do these 12 things your company page will be well on its way to finding success on the channel.

LinkedIn has become a center of business information and decision-making. The more you publish high-quality content, great visuals and information that educates people about you and your business the more benefits you will enjoy on the channel. Once your page is published and completed be sure to ask your employees to follow it and link to it via their profiles so they can share content to their networks, too.

What I've described in this short column is a selection of actions you can take to get momentum on the platform. I can guarantee you that LinkedIn will continue to launch new functions and features that will be good for your business marketing efforts.

• Rebecca Hoffman is the founder and principal of Good Egg Concepts, a strategic communication and brand marketing consulting practice serving clients around Chicagoland and nationally.