Over 13 million companies have company pages on LinkedIn. If your company doesn't have one, you can get started by clicking here.
But that's not the company marketing machine I'm referring to. I'm talking about coordinating all the employees at your company to have a consistent branding message relating to your company on each of their personal LinkedIn profiles. So, what would that coordination look like?
It starts with creating LinkedIn profile guidelines (a/k/a best practices) for your company and then sharing that information with everyone at your company who has a LinkedIn profile.
The best way to share these guidelines is to have a LinkedIn training session for all employees who have a LinkedIn account. (And, by the way, I can help you with this!). Employees need to understand the strategy behind the guidelines and not just "Here, do this because I said so."
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What to include in your company's LinkedIn profile guidelines
1. Photo. Bring in a photographer and get professional headshots. You only get one chance to make a great first impression, and the photo is the first thing people see when they view someone’s profile.
2. Background photo. Design a standard company background image that all employees can put on their personal LinkedIn profile. This could include your website address, physical address and phone number, photos of your products or facilities, etc.
3. Keywords. These are critical on LinkedIn, and if you expect your people to show up in a search, you have to give them a list of five to ten of the most searched-for terms for the company—these are usually your products, services, brands, etc.—and then encourage your employees to place them in the right spots on their profile.
4. Standard company description paragraph(s). Share with them one succinct paragraph to be included in the Summary section and a more detailed two or three paragraphs to be included in their job description for their current job at your company.
5. Add media to current job experience entry. Give them videos, slide shows, photos of your best work or products, customer testimonials, etc. that they can display on their profile by uploading a file or linking to the information.
6. Each employee’s job entry correctly attached to your company page. Make sure your company logo shows up on their job entry for your company. This is must-have branding.
If it doesn’t show up, it means (1) they added this job entry prior to your business having a company page with a logo attached or (2) they selected the wrong company or no company when adding this entry to their profile.
This is simple to fix. The employee simply edits that job entry and selects the correct company page when LinkedIn autofills as (s)he is typing in your company name.
7. Sharing, “liking” or commenting on company status updates. This is a bit hard to monitor because it is ongoing and not a one-time profile change. But the more it’s done, the more sets of eyes your company updates are seen by, and we can all agree that is a good thing.
For additional LinkedIn company branding ideas, be sure to download my FREE eBook 10 LinkedIn Mistakes Companies Make and How to Fix Them Before They Damage Your Company's Reputation by clicking here.
