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Search Engine Optimization

How Do I Set Up LinkedIn for My Small Business?

Unlike some online platforms, LinkedIn requires you to demonstrate that your business is legitimate and that you are employed by it.

Note: This article was written in 2017. The account creation steps might have changed. We’ll be updating this article soon.

Requirements for setting up a LinkedIn Company Page

  • You must have a personal LinkedIn profile
  • Your profile must be at least seven days old
  • Your profile strength must be at least intermediate or all star
  • You must have a few connections on your profile
  • You must be a current employee of the company with your position listed in the experience section of your profile
  • A domain cannot be used more than once to create a company page
  • Domains such as gmail.com, yahoo.com, or similar generic emails are not unique to one company, therefore cannot be used to create a company page
  • You must have a company email address added and it has to be confirmed on your LinkedIn account
  • Your company’s email domain must be unique to the company itself

Step 1: Create a company page

Click the Work icon in the top right corner of your LinkedIn homepage.

If you don’t have a confirmed email address associated with your LinkedIn account, you’ll be prompted to add and verify your email address.

A red error message may appear if your LinkedIn account has recently been created or you don’t have enough connections.

create company page

Step 2: Select the type of company page that you want to create

There are four choices but most likely you’ll choose the Small Business category.

Step 3: Enter your company information

  • Choose your Industry, Company size, and Company type.
  • Add your logo. The best size is 300px x 300px and .png is usually best but a .jpg will do if you can’t get a .png.
  • Check the verification box to confirm you have the right to act on behalf of that company for the creation of the page.
  • Click “Create Page”.

Step 4: Add a cover photo and logo

The recommended cover photo size is 1,536px wide x 768px high. Click the edit link and upload a photo from your file system.

Step 5: Add location details and other content

Add your business location/s, phone number and other details requested. Your business location/s is a crucial step of the setup process so make sure you add it. Location (and Industry) are two of the filter options available when using the LinkedIn “advanced people searching” function. These filters are used by people who are looking specifically for your services and expertise.

All Page URLs will be structured as linkedin.com/company/[YOUR COMPANY NAME].

Hashtags were added to LinkedIn in 2018. Using hashtags on LinkedIn will make your content more discoverable and help you connect with members that may be interested in your company. Learn more about LinkedIn hashtags which you’ll see in the page setup details.

Step 6. Add your employees and yourself

Your employees have to re-add your new LinkedIn Company page by editing their Profiles. They’ll need to go into their Profile and choose your new company page from the Edit area of their Experience timeline.

After they do this they will show up as People within your Company LinkedIn page.

Adding employees to your company also allows them to like, comment, and share information and updates about your company which can expand your reach and visibility in LinkedIn.

As with other social media channels, make sure all posts have been checked by compliance.

Step 7. Manage and update your LinkedIn business page.

Click on “Me” in the top navigation after you login to LinkedIn. In the dropdown choose the business you want to edit under Manage.

Step 8 (optional). Add disclaimer or disclosure.

A disclosure might be required by your compliance department. Here’s a version that might work:

Disclosure: [Firm Name] reserves the right, to the extent permitted under applicable law, to retain and monitor all electronic communications including LinkedIn. [Firm Name] will not accept purchase or sale orders via LinkedIn or its messaging systems. [Firm Name] is not responsible for content posted by third parties. Statements and messages are for US residents only. Our privacy policy can be found on our website (link below).

Step 9 (optional). Hide endorsements or Opt Out of Endorsements.

Why would you want to opt out of endorsements? Endorsements are typically a great thing within LinkedIn. However, many financial advisors cannot use endorsements in their online advertising and activities. For this reason most financial advisors should opt out of LinkedIn endorsements. All other business types should probably accept endorsements from peers, colleagues, and customers that are willing to provide them.

To show or hide your skill endorsements:

  • Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn main page.
  • Click “View profile”.
  • Scroll down to the Skills & Endorsements section and click on the name of any of your skills.
  • In the pop-up window, switch the toggle to the right of any people whose endorsements you want to hide or unhide.

To opt out of endorsements:

  • Click the “Me” icon at the top of your LinkedIn main page.
  • Choose “View profile”.
  • Scroll down to the Skills & Endorsements section and click the Edit icon.
  • Click “Adjust endorsement settings”.
  • In the Endorsements pop-up window, switch the toggle next to I want to be endorsed to No.
  • Click the X in the right corner to save.

This action will:

  • Prevent your connections from endorsing you.
  • Hide all of your endorsements.
  • Prevent endorsement suggestions from displaying on profiles you view.
  • Prevent endorsement suggestions from displaying on your own profile when others view it.

LinkedIn Tips and Notes

  • Views are measured differently for posts and articles. Articles typically get fewer views than posts, but generate more likes. A view of a post means that someone saw your post in their LinkedIn homepage feed. It doesn’t necessarily mean they read the post.
  • “Viewing” an article means that someone has clicked on and opened your article in their web browser or on the LinkedIn mobile app. Views of your articles are therefor more likely to generate Likes than someone liking the snippet of content and the small photo in your home page feed.
  • Hashtags are important to make content more easily discovered.
  • If your article content is engaging enough for your connections to share it with their networks, it reaches a much broader audience.
  • Some of your LinkedIn posts should be about how to be a better leader and professional. This is consistent with LinkedIn being a social media platform for professionals in business. It’s okay to repost your website blog posts on LinkedIn but if you want an in-depth strategy you’ll have to come up with unique content for LinedIn.

Should you bother with an in-depth time-consuming strategy for LinkedIn? Probably not. The financial advisors I’ve talked to that have done this have not had great results. Instead your strategy should be to post monthly. You’ll be active enough to get shown on some of your connections timelines and occasionally show up in the “what’s new” emails from LinkedIn.

Deleting a LinkedIn Business Page if You Don’t Have Admin Access

It can be difficult to delete a LinkedIn company page if you don’t have admin access. The page may have been set up by an old employee who’s no longer with your company, or you just don’t know who initially set it up.

Since you’re not the admin, you’ll have to ask the LinkedIn customer support team to delete it for you.

Steps to take before asking LinkedIn to delete the old page:

  • Ask your company employees to connect their LinkedIn accounts to the new company page that you just set up. To see the team members who need to do the update go to the old company page you want to delete and click on ‘See all employees on LinkedIn’ below the company banner on the right. LinkedIn won’t removed an account with more than 10 employees still connected.
  • Let your followers know you’re deleting the old account if you have followers of the old business page. You can send them an Inmail through LinkedIn and include the link to your new profile.

The next step is to contact LinkedIn and ask them to delete the duplicate page for you. They will usually reply back to you in one or two days with an answer to your request.

See Who Has Viewed Your Profile

Note that the default Profile viewing option is: Private Profile Characteristics which only shows your Industry and location, not your name. If you want to view the names of people who are viewing your profile you must change your profile viewing option to: Your Name and Headline. You have to share your info to see others info in Free mode.

If you click to see who has viewed your profile and the only option you have is to buy a paid account you’ll see a link on the top right of this area to Turn off private mode. Click it and you’ll go to the settings (setup notes below) that allow you to share your info and see others, while on a free account.

To see others info while you remain anonymous you must upgrade to LinkedIn Premium for around $30 – $80/month depending on options.

To set your profile viewing options to display your name and headline, and more importantly have the ability to see who has viewed your profile:

  1. Click the  Me icon at top of your LinkedIn homepage.
  2. Click Settings & Privacy.
  3. Select the Privacy tab at the top of the page.
  4. Under the Profile privacy section, click Change next to Profile viewing options.
  5. Under Select what others can see when you’ve viewed their profile, choose to show your name and headline.
  6. Changes will be saved automatically.

See Who Has Viewed Your Company Page

Unfortunately you cannot see who has viewed your LinkedIn Company Page. You can see who Follows, Likes, Comments and Shares your Company Page posts. You can also track who follows through to landing pages and/or subscribe pages through your company page, if you use website tracking codes such as Google Analytics or Clicky.

Get the linked image in your profile to appear if it’s showing a broken image

You need to use og tags in your webpage.

The following was taken from LinkedIn’s help pages:
Below are the og: tags that must exist and their correct format:
meta property=’og:title’ content=’Title of the article”
meta property=’og:image’ content=’//media.example.com/ 1234567.jpg”
meta property=’og:description’ content=’Description that will show in the preview”
meta property=’og:url’ content=’//www.example.com/URL of the article”

Here are the image requirements specific to the LinkedIn sharing module:
Max file size: 5 MB
Minimum image dimensions: 1200 (w) x 627 (h) pixels