Tools Used In This Recipe
Before You Begin
To create a Company Page on LinkedIn you need to already have a personal account. We won't cover that step in this Recipe, but if you don't already have one, the process is straightforward starting from the LinkedIn homepage.
Once you are logged in, in the upper right of the page next to your profile photo you'll see a button labeled Work. This is a menu button for all of LinkedIn's services for businesses.
Click the Work button to expand the menu. At the very bottom you'll see a link labeled Create a Company Page. click that.
This will take you to the start of a multi-step process where you can create your company page. In the first step you'll need to select your company type. Most likely you'll select Small business.
Next you'll set some basic information about the page, including the name (just use your company name, and you don't need to include the registration information such as Inc or LLC), and a handle for your public URL. You'll also need to provide a link to your website if you have that set up.
Next you'll enter information about your company's industry, size, and corporate structure. If you have already identified your company's NAICS code you can use the matching entry here, but if not pick the one that seems closest to your industry.
Next you'll have an opportunity to upload your logo and enter a tagline.
As you enter data, LinkedIn will show you a preview of how your page will look when you are finished. If you aren't happy with the results you can go back to the relevant form field and change it.
Once you are satisfied, check the box to indicate that you are an authorized representative of the organization and click Create page. Your new page should be immediately available for you to manage, so you can start to customize it by adding a cover photo and a first post.
Listing your affiliation with the company page
Listing yourself as a founder on LinkedIn can help reinforce your commitment to your startup and it's a fun way to celebrate the work you've done so far. To list your affiliation with your company you can add a work experience record to your profile listing your startup. To do so, click your profile photo in the upper right (you may need to switch away from your company page to do so) and then click View Profile. Now scroll down to the Experience section of your profile and click the plus icon to start editing.
By default if you add a new work experience to your profile, LinkedIn will add a notification to all your connections to let them know. If you are not ready to announce your startup, or if this is a side hustle and you are connected to co-workers at your employer, you may not want to give people the impression that you're starting a new job or planning to leave. If you want to add a work experience without notifying your connections, you can use the toggle to disable notifications for this job update.
On LinkedIn's Work Experience form, select your title and employment type (full-time, part-time, etc). In the Company name field, enter the name you used for your company page and select it from the dropdown. Enter a location if applicable, a start date, and whether you are still working at the organization that's listed on LinkedIn as current. Click Save. LinkedIn may ask you about whether you found the job on its site, but if you don't want to answer you can click the X in the upper right to close the window. Once it's saved you will see it on your profile.
Wrapping up
You can use your new company page to start recruiting staff and also to assist with sales and marketing. Using LinkedIn search to identify decision makers at companies in your sales pipeline, when you engage with their posts on LinkedIn's feed they will receive a notification that will contain the name of your company. You can combine this with other outreach efforts to start landing customers and growing your startup.
The contents of this Recipe are © Innovation Works, Inc. and are licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 . Contact us with questions or feedback, or to learn more about our structured program in Entrepreneurism based on Startup Recipes.