Should I use my Personal Profile or my Company Page on LinkedIn? This is a question that comes up a lot in my trainings.
Let’s first make sure we understand the difference betwee a LinkedIn Company Page vs. LinkedIn Personal Profile
The Personal Profile on LinkedIn
This is your personal page on LinkedIn. It’s where you tell us about who you are, what you do, who you help, and your past accomplishments. If you own a company you also tell us about what your company does. The Personal Profile should (in my humble opinion) be written in a personal tone, so that you come over as very approachable. If you need some help, check out my LinkedIn Profile Quick Fix Video Course.
The LinkedIn Company page
This is your company’s profile on LinkedIn. It is a page that can be managed by multiple people within the company. It’s mainly a broadcasting tool, to get more visibility for the company.
So now that we know the main differences, let me explain why I think you should focus more on your Personal Profile:
People want to connect with people, not companies
In my experience it’s very hard to get followers for your company, unless you are Apple or Dell. It’s because people want to connect with YOU, the business owner, not your company. They don’t care about your company, but they do care about you! So stop trying to force feed them something they don’t want. Just create the human contact first, business will come naturally after. On LinkedIn that’s done by connecting with people via your Personal Profile. (Read my post on the Pros and Cons of a big LinkedIn Network)
Company pages are static, can’t be used for anything other than broadcasting
In my open letter to Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn I wrote the following about company pages:
Improve LinkedIn Company Page
All LinkedIn Trainers, me included, realize the importance of personal profiles and we do our best to explain this to our clients. However, we often hear a big frustration when talking about the LinkedIn Company Pages. And let’s be honest here: they really aren’t very interesting anymore. So why not bring back the Product & Services pages ?And the recommendations?
It’s true, ever since LinkedIn has taken away the Product & Services pages, the LinkedIn Company Page is really not much more than a one-way broadcasting tool. Which is great to generate notoriety & visibility for your brand, but unfortunately in the era of human-to-human that’s not enough anymore.
Personal Profiles are more complete
Other than the description and a visual, there’s not much you can do to make your Company Page on LinkedIn stand out from others. However, the Personal Profile is another story. Here you have numerous options to make your profile shine! You can add videos, pdfs, powerpoint presentations, publish articles with LinkedIn Pulse, add causes you care about, projects you’re working on … and much much more.
Here are a few things you should change on your LinkedIn Profile right now. And if you need some more help, check out my LinkedIn Profile Quick Fix Video Course.
So, should you still create a LI Company Page?
Yes! Despite my comments above I still recommend that you create your company page on LinkedIn for the following 4 reasons:
1. Show up in search results
LinkedIn Company Pages are well indexed in Google and if someone searches for your company it can’t hurt that besides your website they’ll also find your LinkedIn Company page.
2. Helps your company branding
If your audience is on LinkedIn, having a company page and sharing content will definitely help your company branding & awareness.
3. Links together all your employees
If your employees have set up their personal profile correctly, a LinkedIn Company page is a great way to link everyone together. On top of that your company logo will show up on all your employees’ personal profiles.
4. You can run sponsored updates (and send free updates to your followers)
And finally, if you want to run sponsored updates, you need a company page to target specific prospects.
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