Tag: linkedin

Who should setup a LinkedIn Company Page?

LinkedIn is the ‘business’ social media platform and is used directly for business purposes rather than just being ‘social’. Being able to connect with fellow professionals in your industry as well as potential clients, LinkedIn is the perfect social media platform for startup businesses to gain insightful knowledge from leading experts and for those company’s that are B2B ( or in another words , businesses that do business with other businesses. E.g Service providers, commercial builders, Lawyers etc ). If you sell a product that is more inclined to be a B2C ( business to customer ) such as retail outlets then LinkedIn is possibly not the perfect platform for you.

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If after reading the introduction you think a LinkedIn Page will benefit your business then you have to ensure your current LinkedIn Profile meets the requirements.

Before you even start to begin to consider adding a company page for your business to LinkedIn you MUST have all of the following as stated on the LinkedIn Website :-

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You can add a new Company Page only if you meet all of the following requirements:

1. You must have a personal LinkedIn profile set up with your true first and last name.
2. Your profile strength must be listed as Intermediate or All Star.
3. You must have several connections on your profile.
4. You’re a current company employee and your position is listed in the Experience section on your profile.
5. You have a company email address (e.g. [email protected]) added and confirmed on your LinkedIn account.
6. Your company’s email domain is unique to the company.

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Now if you are happy that you have all of the above then we can move on let’s get down to business!

Create a LinkedIn Company Page

To start you will need to navigate to the tab Interests > Companies and you should be greeted with a similar page to that below. Design Milk is one of the companies that I follow being a designer it is something I find particularly interesting, don’t worry if your screen is slightly different all you need to do is click the yellow button in the right sidebar ‘Create’.

Once you have clicked the magic button you will be greeted with a new screen where you need to add your company name and ‘professional’ email address. Once you have done that you will be greeted with several more panels, this is where you place your company information.

 Company Description

This is where you should put your company description. Think about giving a basic overview of your services and possibly previous clients you have had as well as the kind of people who would find your services most beneficial. Consider your target audience as much as possible.

If you do get confused or get writers block when you create your LinkedIn Profile I suggest researching and looking at other LinkedIn Company Profiles for ideas, particularly competing businesses in your industry. Take the best elements and of course, remove the not so good ideas.

Designated Admins

If you have more than one employee, possibly a social media manager then you can have more than one admin which can be useful to prevent updating the channel taking up unnecessary periods of time that could be spent doing other things. Pleaser note, you have to be connected on LinkedIn in order to be able to suggest the other admin.

 Image

Image appears at the top of your company page so is an opportunity to brand up your LinkedIn Page and create a call to action. Make it clear what your services are visually or maybe consider using a recent project. However you decide to communicate with your potential followers make sure the size of the image you create is 646 x 220 pixels or larger, a jpg, png or gif and the file size is no bigger than 2mb.

Standard Logo

Lets cut to the chase! The standard logo size Is  120 x 60px

 Square Logo

Just like the above image it has measurements you must adhere to which are 50px x 50px

Company Specialities

Of course this is elf explanatory but you should put the things you are best at and well-known for first and your other services towards the back as viewers will naturally think the order has some relevance.

Company Type, Company Size, Company Website, Main Company Industry, Company Operating Status, Year Founded

All these things are pretty self explanatory so I won’t bother wasting your time just go fill it in! Go go go!

 Company Location

This is the place where you put your registered offices and contact details. Maybe you don’t have an office as such because you are a freelancer or for some other reason, don’t worry, it’s not a compulsory section of the page.

Alternatively if you are a fairly successful global company and have over 10 offices then you will have to be chose your most prominent offices in the world as LinkedIn allows up to 5 locations to be added.

 Products and Services

To add your products and services to your company page there is a tab near the top of the LinkedIn Page ( seen in the image above ) click it and it will reveal some more new panels to complete. Below are examples of ideas provided by LinkedIn.

• Products: The printers you sell or the book you wrote.
• Services: Your financial consulting packages or a list of your marketing services.
• Other: Events you’re organizing or your company’s mobile apps.

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So that’s it, pretty simple really isn’t it, if you do have any trouble with your company page or images please do feel free to contact me and I will do my best to help you. Do you have any suggestions what makes a good LinkedIn company page? Please leave your thoughts in the comment box below and if you create a company page please feel free to link to it from this page.

P.S. Don’t forget to visit my new LinkedIn Company Page and follow it, I will be posting all my future posts so you’ll have easy access to all my future tutorials, creative pieces and thoughts. Click here to visit my newly created page, I look forward to connecting with you.

What social media is best for me? Choosing the right social media platform for your needs & business mission can be quite tricky as more and more social websites start to saturate the market. Depending upon your product and goals different social media platforms will better fit your needs to use than others. Below is a infographic I discovered when on pinterest. I think this helps in making it clearer what kind of value your business will likely gain ( if used correctly ) from each platform.

Knowing which social media is best for your purpose can be tricky. With so many social media platforms out there it has become quite difficult to decide which ones to use for your business or personal progression. Using them all may not be as beneficial to your company as you may think. It is probably better to harness the power of one than dribble only a little bit of great information out to the public realm. In this post I will discuss various different social media tools and what type of account it is most likely to benefit.

Twitter

For B 2 B , B 2 C, fans & industry news

If used correctly, Twitter is the most broad ranging tool, that is so easy to get found for those wanting to connect with people in their industry and keep abreast of what is happening. I recommend when you start using twitter to find users that have the same interests as you so for example, i follow artists, designers, marketers, architects, gamers & spiritual people. These are my main interests and so they will also be interested in those areas of my own thoughts thus a follow back process will begin. You will then be able to exchange and share, retweet and make some virtual friends in your little old community! Nothing like meeting those with like minds ay! 🙂 This is why this is my preferred social medium.

Best time to use :

1pm to 3pm

Traffic Builds after 11am

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Facebook

B 2 C, fans, industry news & younger market

Facebook has the largest audience which you may think is probably the best social media platform to choose for any business but you would be wrong. Why? Well the majority of people who currently use Facebook are young people ( mainly women ) up the ages of 29. These are the people who have little in the way of equity  I would only recommend using this social media platform if you are confident that you are targeting the younger market generation such as music sales and awareness, gaming, fashion & other youth products. In my opinion its a bit harder to get your facebook page found without advertising.

Best time to use :

1pm to 4pm

Wednesday at 3pm is the best traffic time

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LinkedIn

B 2 B, Industry news & Job Hunting

LinkedIn is a great tool for those who do a lot of business with other businesses such as those that offer services. Consultancy firms, building maintenance, builders, engineers & such like would find this very beneficial. It is the social network for professionals to create links. It is also a fantastic place to find work. When you enter your skills to your profile LinkedIn use these tagged keywords to bring you jobs that match your ability and to jobs local to where you live! Could you ask for anything better?! If you ever get tired of your job you will never have far to look even in this terrible economic climate.

You can also show how competent you are in your profession by joining groups & answering  questions, posing questions & more! You will make new connections & start to become a recognised voice that obviously loves their industry that way.

Traffic is always best before working hours and just after 5pm Tue – Thu . Mon & Fri aren’t as good for traffic

Best time to use :

7am -9am & 5pm – 6pm

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Pinterest

B 2 C, fans, great for e commerce

The majority of Pinterest users are female living in rural areas with middle to high incomes. It is a social networking platform initially set up to find inspiration to for your next major project but it can also be a great place to showcase products particularly if you are an e commerce owner selling things like jewellery, artworks, fashion or gifts. What is also interesting about pinterest is that out of the current users 50% have children. Sell something children might like? Pinterest is the place for you to be!

Best time to use :

 8pm – 1am & 2pm – 4pm

Traffic is highest of a Saturday morning

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There are many more platforms for social media ( of which i know quite a few for creatives ). I will be sharing them in the very near future on this blog so don’t forget to check back shortly for more tips and tricks on using social media.