Benefits of LinkedIn's Company Follow Feature

LinkedIn Offers Another Social Media Marketing Opportunity

Online Research

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LinkedIn has a feature called "Company Profiles" that enables users to follow companies. These profiles often act as fact sheets to LinkedIn users and now these fact sheets just became a little more accessible and interesting. Company profiles are private unless you're logged in, but then you can view them freely.

It's a brilliant move on LinkedIn's part. LinkedIn has always been known as the professionals' social network or B2B networking playground online, so this feature only makes sense.

What You Get When You Follow a Company

Why would anyone want to follow a company? Because when you follow a company on LinkedIn, you can receive updates on new developments, business opportunities, and even job opportunities.

Company profiles display recent hires, related companies, recent promotions, and top locations for employees. They even showcase what they've determined are "popular profiles," meaning those individuals who get a steady stream of profile views and press mentions.

How Company Profiles Are Built

Company profiles are built with information gained from Capital IQ and LinkedIn user data. Capital IQ is a technology and financial services company that acts as the research division of Standard and Poor's. The company partnered with LinkedIn to provide company data, such as company overviews and revenues. All the relevant people and aggregated company statistics are based on LinkedIn network data.

What This Means for You

This feature provides a social media marketing opportunity, as it can assist in building your own company community of followers. You can update followers on relevant information and keep them informed of current happenings behind company doors. In addition, you can use LinkedIn as a vehicle for social selling or as a platform for publishing articles of interest to help boost your company's presence on the site.

You can also include one or several company photos to help identify your brand to followers. Make sure the pictures best represent your company. To add a company photo to your profile page:

  1. Sign in to your Page admin center.
  2. Click the Career Pages drop-down and select Life or What We Do.
  3. Click the correct targeted audience page.
  4. In the Company Photos section, add a minimum of 4 photos and no more than 20 photos from your computer.

Once photos have been added, they can be reordered by clicking and dragging them to the left or right.

To fit the fixed frame, photos need to meet the image specification of 900 px by 600 px.

How to Follow a Company 

LinkedIn users can follow a company by selecting the "Follow" button on the company's profile or on that of a member who is associated with a particular company. You'll be able to view the companies you're following and receive recommendations on other companies you might be interested in following.

To take advantage of this feature, you will need to set up a company profile on LinkedIn. It's an easy process that includes five steps:

  1. Log in to LinkedIn.
  2. Go to "Companies" in the menu on LinkedIn. You may have to click the "More" button to see it.
  3. Select "Add Company." 
  4. Enter some basic information about your company.
  5. Complete LinkedIn's wizard for creating your company profile. This is where you can add your logo, locations, and a feed to your company blog.

To enhance your brand, you can also customize your URL on LinkedIn.

Once your company profile is complete, you can suggest that people follow your company on LinkedIn, similar to building your business profile page on Facebook. And it offers double benefits. Others can follow you just as you follow them. It's a winning situation that requires little time and effort.