Maximizing LinkedIn, Part 5: Claiming your Agency Page

Whether you work in a large multi-location agency with a well-known name or in a small agency on Main Street, a LinkedIn company page is another way to show up on LinkedIn, and it’s an opportunity for free advertising that you shouldn’t pass up.

To get started you must have a LinkedIn account. Don’t worry about upgrading to a paid account at this point; a free account is all you need to start a company page, or even to do most things an agency should do on this social platform.

Choose a password that you’re comfortable handing out to employees or contractors if they maintain your company page, or change it if you already have a profile.

If there are more than two agency employees who have listed the agency in their profile, LinkedIn will automatically create a basic page. Search for the agency name in “Companies.” Once you are on the agency page you can click the “Admin Tools” button on the right side of the page to edit the information. In the edit mode you will be able to upload your logo, add a description of the agency, your blog’s RSS feed, and, most important, your company specialties.

Cutting and pasting your entire “About Us” section from your website isn’t recommended if it’s wordy. On LinkedIn, you should whittle the description down to one paragraph so it will be easy to read.

To post jobs in the Careers section of your agency page, you must have a paid LinkedIn subscription, and then pay for a Gold or Silver career page. Paid subscription fees start at $26 a month. This feature is likely of benefit only to a larger agency; a smaller agency can get by with listing open jobs on its own site and posting a status update to its LinkedIn page when a new position becomes available.

Next, you can add products and services to your agency page under the “Products & Services” tab, but you should add only major lines of business your agency writes. You can send visitors to your website for more details. However, don’t ignore this tab entirely (as many companies on LinkedIn do), since it helps prospective clients find and understand your agency.

LinkedIn also lets you add videos, name an agency contact, and insert lots of other details. For example, you could call your service “Producer in Nashville,” and assign the responsible salesperson. The contact needs to have a LinkedIn profile to participate, so encourage your employees to sign up if they haven’t already.

Once you’ve entered a product or service, “Recommend” and “Share” links appear beneath it. Ask loyal customers on LinkedIn if they won’t mind making a recommendation for your agency, which will appear along with a link to their profile in the right-hand sidebar of your product or services page.

Now that you have edited your agency page, ask employees to go back and edit their own profiles so that the new agency page appears. They can do so by clicking “Edit Profile” and then clicking “Edit” beside their position at your agency; once they start typing the name of the company, they can choose the agency page. The benefit for you is that visitors to their profile will be able to click over to your agency’s page.

Finally, you can and should post status updates on your agency page. This is in addition to the update you post on your own LinkedIn profile page. Only designated administrators can post on an agency page from within LinkedIn.

This wraps up the final article in a five-part TechTips LinkedIn series. Below are links to the previous LinkedIn articles just in case you missed one.

Wishing you much success using LinkedIn!