LinkedIn is an incredible valuable social media tool which allows professionals and companies to interact with each other online. It can be used for networking, recruiting, making connections and establishing a name for yourself in your chosen career field. Many professionals have already created profiles and used this great career-minded networking social media platform to its full potential.
If you have a company with a presence on LinkedIn (and if you have a company, you should have a presence on LinkedIn), there are many advantages to switching to the new style of company profile. The new profiles are similar to Facebook profiles in a way because they present a large banner image at the top of the page, similar to a Facebook cover photo.
Your company updates will be displayed at the centre of the page, which allows page visitors to interact with your content in an easier and much more prominent way. The visual focus of the new design allows companies to emphasise their products and services and attract new employees, customers and clients. Company pages have also become available on all mobile devices via the LinkedIn Android, iPhone and iPad apps. The update stream is easier to use and much more relevant, which means that it will be much easier to get your brand across to your targeted audience.
LinkedIn is urging all members with company pages to upgrade to the new design before 30th November, which is when everyone will be switched over automatically. This could lead to lost content, so you will be safer as well as ahead of the game if you make the transition now.
How to Make the Switch
Making the switch over to the new style of profile is not as difficult as you might think. All you have to do is go to your company page in LinkedIn and click on the “Admin Tools” button. It will give you a drop down menu from which you can choose “Upgrade to New Version”.
Once you have upgraded to the new style of Company profile, you should change your banner image to make sure that your profile looks good. The dimensions of this image are 974 X 240 pixels so you might have to custom crop the image on Photoshop before uploading. LinkedIn will also give you the option to download your previous photo, edit it and re-upload it to the page.
With the new design, you can also have your banner image offer a link through to your website or another website of your choosing. You can do this by selecting “Provide a Click-Through URL” located underneath the banner image.
The new design also allows you to create a company “tagline” and a headline. This should be a short and snappy sentence summarising what your company does in an enticing and concise way. Put a lot of thought into the tagline and the headline because they will be prominent areas of your profile and are very vital to creating a great first impression on people who view your company page for the first time. Make them short and sweet and as impactful as possible, leaving out anything confusing or unnecessary.
On the new profile you can also add job openings to your company profile, which will display in the featured section on the sidebar. You can also upgrade your About Page, as the new design allows you to incorporate YouTube videos and photos as well as links to your website and other social media accounts.
When you are finished with the design, click “Publish” and you are ready to use your new upgraded profile to take advantage of all of LinkedIn’s networking opportunities.
Author Bio
JonJon Yeung is a freelance writer and enjoys writing on Technology, Entrepreneurship, Business and lives a Savvy lifestyle. He writes about software products for businesses (in particular Intuit products http://www.intuit.co.uk). He also provides tips for small businesses.
