PipeflowBefore you start
On LinkedIn, a company page is your business’s official presence, separate from your personal profile. Whether you need one at all or should start with your profile first is covered in the guide Company page or profile. If you have decided on a page, read on.
You need a personal LinkedIn profile, because pages are always created and managed by people. Depending on the account, LinkedIn may set further requirements. How to set up your own profile well is in the guide LinkedIn profile for the self-employed.
Have these ready beforehand: your logo as a square file, a wide cover image, your website address and two or three sentences on what your business does. Then setting up does not take long.
A note: LinkedIn changes its menus and labels from time to time. If something is called differently for you or sits somewhere else, look for a similar label or check LinkedIn’s help pages.
Step 1: Create the page
The route to a new page currently looks roughly like this:
- Open the menu: on a computer you will find an area like “For Business” at the top right. In the app, the entry point sits elsewhere depending on the version.
- Choose to create a page: there is an item like “Create a company page”.
- Choose the page type: for a business that is “Company”. There are also variants for educational institutions and sub-pages of large firms, which you do not need.
- Fill in the details and confirm: you confirm that you are authorised to act on behalf of the business. After that the page is created.
Step 2: The basic details
When you create the page, LinkedIn asks for some basic information. These fields are particularly important:
- Name: the way customers know you. “Gruber Electrical” is more likely to be searched for than the full registered company name with legal form.
- Public address: the part after linkedin.com/company/. Choose something short and clear, such as your company name without special characters, so that you do not have to change it later and update every link.
- Website: ideally your home page or a page where people can easily contact you.
- Industry, size and company type: choose the industry people are most likely to search under and the size that matches your team.
- Logo: square and easy to recognise even when small. A logo with a lot of text is often barely readable in the preview.
- Tagline: one sentence saying what you do and for whom. “Solar power and electrical installation for businesses in the Innviertel” is more helpful than “Energy with a future”.
Step 3: Complete the page
After creating it, you land in the page’s admin area. Take another half hour here, because a half-empty page looks abandoned. These areas matter most:
The description in the “About” or “Overview” section: a few short paragraphs on what you do, for whom, where and what sets you apart. An example for a plumbing business: “We are a family business with eight people in Steyr. We plan and install bathrooms, heating and heat pumps for homes and businesses around Steyr. With us you have the same contacts from the first appointment to servicing. We train apprentices every year.”
Then there are location, year founded, specialities and a cover image. A real photo from your business works well as the cover image, for example the team in front of the workshop. Many pages also offer a button, for example for visiting the website or getting in touch. Choose the destination that matters most for new customers.
Step 4: Add admins and connect the team
Add at least one second person as an admin. Otherwise, if you ever lose access or leave the business, the page is left orphaned. You will find the settings for this in the page’s admin area, usually under an item like “Admin tools” or “Settings”.
Employees appear on the page when they enter your business as their employer in their profile and select the page while doing so. This is voluntary. Ask your team whether they want to take part and explain why it helps the business, for example when looking for new people.
Step 5: The first posts
A page without posts looks empty. Before you promote the page, there should be a few posts on it. These topics have proven useful for the start:
- A welcome post: who you are, what you do and what visitors will find here in future.
- The team: a photo with a few sentences about the people behind it, with their consent.
- A current project: what you did and what the challenge was.
- An expert tip: an answer to a question customers often ask.
- A vacancy: if you are hiring, in your own words rather than just as an ad. More ideas are in the LinkedIn post ideas for businesses.
Step 6: Make the page known
New pages have hardly any followers at the beginning. That is normal. This is how the first ones come:
- Share from your profile: share important posts from the page on your personal profile. You usually already have contacts there.
- Invite contacts: LinkedIn lets page admins invite their own contacts to follow. Invite people for whom the page is relevant.
- Link to it everywhere: on your website, in your email signature, on quotes and invoices.
- Involve the team: when employees share or comment on the page’s posts, their contacts see it too. But do not force anyone.
Common mistakes
These points come up again and again on small businesses’ company pages:
- Only one admin: if that person is unavailable, nobody can get into the page any more.
- Empty fields: no description, no cover image, no website. That looks unfinished.
- Create and forget: a last post from two years ago is worse than having no page at all.
- Advertising only: if you only post offers, you will rarely be read. Mix in knowledge, insights and people.