Our clients approach us all of the time asking about social media and how to leverage it for their business.  In addition to that most don’t really think of using LinkedIn as a social media tool. While it is great for hosting your resume and trying to connect with colleagues, what does it have to do for social media and small businesses?  Well, quite a bit!  Below is a fantastic article from Search Engine Land laying out the steps on how to leverage a LinkedIn Business page for a small business and social media strategy.

by George Aspland

I was recently doing some link building for a client and noticed that a LinkedIn profile for their top competitor appeared in the listing of strong incoming links in one of the review tools we use.

But our client also has LinkedIn profiles pointing to their website, so I wondered, why weren’t those links appearing in the strong link listings too? So, I set out to look at the differences that might affect the strength of incoming links from LinkedIn.

In this article, I’ll cover a couple of steps you can take to help improve the visibility of your LinkedIn content with search engines as well as within the LinkedIn community, increase the exposure of your LinkedIn updates, and improve traffic to the Web content you point to in LinkedIn updates.

It’s important to realize that LinkedIn isn’t only for B2B. It’s effective for any company to network with connections in the industry, with vendors and partners, to find resources, for recruiting, etc.

Setup A LinkedIn Company Page

One of the main differences between our client’s LinkedIn Profile(s) and the profiles of that top competitor was that their competitor has a LinkedIn Company Page with employees associated with it. Our client has some employees with profiles that link to their website, but they do not have a Company Page.

What are LinkedIn Company Pages?

From Linkedin: “Company Pages are a company’s profile of record on LinkedIn and a powerful way to speak to millions of professionals through word-of-mouth recommendations and trusted testimonials. It’s like a LinkedIn profile for a company.

Company Pages present an opportunity to reveal the human side of your company. Provide a peek at the individuals behind your brand and highlight how members use your products.

As an example, here is Search Engine Land’s LinkedIn Company Page.

How To Setup A Linkedin Company Page

A current employee whose position is listed on their own LinkedIn profile can setup a Company Page. You’ll need a company email address (e.g. john@companyname.com) that is one of the confirmed addressees on your LinkedIn account.

Start here and follow the steps to setup your Company Page.

Here are some helpful resources about Company Pages:

LinkedIn Learning Center article on Company Pages

LinkedIn FAQs about Company Pages

Associate Employees With Your Company Page

Once your company page is setup, have some of your employees associate their LinkedIn profiles with your Company Page.  Here are the steps to associate a profile with a Company Page:

1. Click Profile at the top of your home page.
2. Click Edit next to your current position at the company.
3. Click the Change Company link.
4. Type the full company name.
5. Select the correct company name from the dropdown list.
6. Click Update.

Read entire article at: Search Engine Land