LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 722 million members worldwide. As the leading platform for business professionals, LinkedIn offers a unique opportunity for individuals and companies to establish their professional brand, network with others in their industry, share content and insights, and generate leads. With so many professionals on LinkedIn, having a strong presence on the platform can be a significant competitive advantage for any business. But is taking the time to create and maintain a LinkedIn business page really worth it? Let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons.
Pros of Having a LinkedIn Business Page
Increased Visibility and Credibility
Simply having a LinkedIn business page boosts your visibility in search and allows you to claim your brand name on the platform. Much like securing your company’s website domain, claiming your LinkedIn page url ensures no one else can create a page using your business name. The more complete your page (with a logo, header image, company information, employee profiles, etc.), the more legitimate your company will appear to visitors. Your page serves as your company’s professional profile on the world’s top professional network, conveying trust and credibility for your brand.
Targeted Lead Generation
With over 55 million company pages on LinkedIn, the platform offers unmatched opportunity to generate B2B leads. LinkedIn allows businesses to target ads and sponsored content to users based on their job title, industry, location, interests, and more. By promoting your page and content to your ideal audience, you can drive relevant traffic and generate quality leads through the platform. LinkedIn even provides lead generation forms that allow visitors to request demos or content offers directly through your page.
SEO Value
Well optimized LinkedIn company pages can also benefit your broader SEO efforts. Pages allow you to include keywords in your headline, description, employee details, and content links. This keyword optimization helps surface your page in LinkedIn search, Google search, and Bing search. Quality engagement on your page, including followers and content shares, signals to search engines that your brand is credible and worth showing in results.
Company Culture Marketing
A LinkedIn page also provides a way to highlight your company culture and employer brand. Through the Career Pages feature, businesses can showcase open positions, employee photos and stories, diversity initiatives, benefits programs, awards, and company values. With the Great Place to Work badge and Comparably awards, companies can flaunt culture achievements directly on their pages. This level of employer branding attracts top talent.
Thought Leadership Platform
Publishing long-form posts on your LinkedIn page is a great way to demonstrate your company’s thought leadership. These posts appear prominently in follower’s feeds and help drive traffic back to your website. You can also share links to great content from your blog or other sites. This allows you to repurpose and amplify your best content. Through their page admins, businesses can also publish content and engage directly with prospects through commenting and messaging.
Cons of Having a LinkedIn Business Page
Time Commitment
It takes real time and effort to create an eye-catching company page, cultivate followers, and maintain a consistent publishing strategy. Most brands treat their LinkedIn page like another social channel that needs fresh organic content and engagement multiple times per week. This requires having someone on your marketing team own the responsibility of managing your LinkedIn presence. If you don’t have the bandwidth to keep your page updated, it may not be worth the investment.
Low Follower Engagement
While growing your followers and engagement takes effort, the payoff may not always be there. Unlike other social platforms, most content on LinkedIn only receives a fraction of the impressions compared to your follower count. So amassing 10k followers does not guarantee 10k content views. Followers are also less likely to actively comment on or share posts compared to other networks. Only providing resources followers truly value will get traction.
Compliance Rules
LinkedIn company pages must abide by the platform’s compliance requirements. This includes restrictions around contact information, promotional messaging in posts, third-party ads, and a formal review process. Some regulated industries like healthcare and education have additional rules for their LinkedIn pages and pre-approved content. These compliance needs create more work for page admins compared to your owned media channels.
Linking Your Personal and Company Profile
While connecting employee profiles to your page can strengthen your company presence, not all employees may want their personal brand tied to their employer on LinkedIn. Some users prefer keeping their individual profiles separate for privacy or professional reasons. Forcing employees to link their profiles could discourage them from engaging with your company page, limiting your ability to build followers and content reach.
When is it worth creating a LinkedIn page?
Overall, most B2B, mid-market and enterprise businesses can benefit greatly from having a LinkedIn presence. Here are a few key signs it’s time to create and invest in your company’s LinkedIn page:
- Your target audience for sales and recruiting is on LinkedIn
- You have the resources to create a robust, well-branded page
- You have employee hosts able to actively publish and engage
- You want to increase brand visibility and credibility
- You have products, content and messages that align to the platform
For most organizations, the potential gains outweigh the effort needed. Even a basic page with your logo, header image, employee profiles and sporadic posts can make a difference in brand awareness and search visibility. While followers and content engagement takes time to build, the more you put into your page, the more value it can provide.
Tips for creating a stellar LinkedIn page
If you decide creating a LinkedIn business page is right for your company, here are some best practices to create the best presence:
Optimize Your Headline and Description
Take advantage of the 120 characters in your headline to succinctly convey who you are. Include your company name, industry and unique differentiators. Use the 200 character description to share your value proposition, keywords, and compelling reasons to follow your page.
Choose Visual Brand Assets
Upload a logo and header image that reinforce your brand. Align to your brand guidelines in tone and color scheme. Show off your office, products, culture or mission through visuals.
Showcase Employees
Adding employee profiles with photos presents your human side. Sort profiles by title to showcase your organizational structure. Encourage employees to link to your page in their profiles. But avoid forcing employees if they opt out.
Curate Your Content Well
Only share articles, images, videos and messages that cater to your followers’ interests and professional needs. Aim for your last 10 posts to showcase your brand’s thought leadership.
Engage With Other Pages
Follow partners, customers, influencers and competitors in your space. Comment on and share others’ content regularly to organically boost your visibility.
Promote Your Page
Share your LinkedIn page url and content across websites, email signatures, social posts, and print materials. Run LinkedIn ads promoting your page to target the right audience based on their professional profile and interests.
Analyze Performance
Use LinkedIn’s analytics to see follower growth, post reach and engagement. Double down on what works and improve areas falling short. Watch for trends and optimization opportunities.
Conclusion
Creating and actively managing a LinkedIn page does require work, but the visibility benefits for B2B companies make it a smart investment. LinkedIn provides unparalleled opportunity to strengthen your brand, establish thought leadership, generate leads, recruit talent and build trust with professionals in your industry. By creating content that caters to your audience and strategically promoting your presence, your company can thrive on LinkedIn. Just be prepared to devote sufficient in-house resources to run and optimize your page for maximum impact. Most brands find the effort well worth the rewards of owning their professional brand space and reaching the right audience on the world’s largest professional network.