What is a Linkedin Company Page & Do I Really Need One with Louise Brogan | 110

What is a LinkedIn company page and do you really need one?

In this episode we are talking about LinkedIn Company pages.

You'll learn the difference between a LinkedIn profile

and a LinkedIn company page.

We'll share what you need to consider for your LinkedIn company page plus

uncover what to post on your page.

Versus your profile, and stick around to the end to learn how your team can also

help leverage your LinkedIn company page.

Welcome to Architecture Business Club, the show that helps you build

a better business in architecture so you can enjoy more freedom,

flexibility, and fulfillment.

I'm your host, John Clayton, and if you're joining us for the first time.

Don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button so you

never miss another episode.

We're joined by Louise Brogan, a consultant, YouTuber podcaster,

and international speaker.

Louise works with small businesses and professionals who want to raise their

visibility on LinkedIn and YouTube.

She's also a small business champion in the uk.

And her proudest work moments are meeting the king at Buckingham Palace in

recognition of her work and getting her coveted silver play button for YouTube.

To get your free 21 step guide to using LinkedIn, head over to

louise brogan.com/ 21 steps, or click the link in the show notes.

What's the difference between a LinkedIn profile and a LinkedIn company page?

It's a brilliant place to start because people do

get genuinely confused about it.

So when you go to LinkedIn and you create an account, you create a personal profile.

So it's John Caton or it's Louise Brogan.

That is your personal profile.

That's what, um, when you go to work at a company, so say you go

to work at the BBC or you go to work at Microsoft, you create your.

Personal profile and then you attach yourself to your employers.

The employer's profile on there is actually the company page,

so you've got personal profiles and then you have company pages.

The big difference, John, is that so.

Some people do this incorrectly and will create their company

profile as a personal profile.

That's a big no no.

We can talk about those things, but you're, if you imagine

you're going to a conference.

So you and I met recently at the podcast show, right?

So that you and I going to that conference is you and I going onto

LinkedIn as personal profiles.

At the conference, we went up to sponsor booths or brands who were there.

Um, so let's just pick a, pick a random brand that's involved in podcasting.

Let's just say Spotify.

So when you go up to the Spotify booth, that is like going over to

the Spotify company page on LinkedIn.

So when you're at the booth, you meet Bob and Sandra and, and Will.

Those are the personal profiles.

As opposed to the company.

Does that make sense?

You've got the sponsor booth and underneath the sponsor booth you can

see at the, literally at the physical sponsor, if you're meeting people,

you go to a company page and if you click on the people tab, you'll see

the people who work at that company.

So that's what it looks like physically differently.

Then The other difference we have is that you and I have conversations

with people and connect with people as individuals, whereas a company

page puts out the messages and the branding, um, and showcases

its people on their company page.

But they do.

You cannot connect with a company page.

You can follow a company page, and that's the big difference

because actually on LinkedIn.

How you, um, get visibility on LinkedIn mainly is through having conversations

with individuals and connecting and building relationships, which is why it's

actually a lot harder for company pages to get engagement, um, because they literally

can't go out and connect with people.

You are showcasing your business and it's gonna be really interesting

content that someone follows your page, um, as opposed to you trying

to go out and connect with people to follow your page, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and I love the analogy that you used about this sort of conference,

so, so the LinkedIn profile is like us.

As an individuals at the conference event and those stands at the conference

is like the company pages representing each of those different companies.

And I think I've heard you talk about this idea before about treating LinkedIn

like it's, uh, a networking event.

So, you know, so

that totally makes sense, doesn't

Yeah, so we could do the whole podcast today.

Could, could be, that can be the analogy that we use because it's the

perfect way to explain it to people.

I think, you know, your personal profile is you presenting yourself, you are

connecting, you're having conversations.

That's how you should behave on LinkedIn.

We are gonna talk today about how a company can best represent themselves,

and we can do that as an analogy of, of being like at a, an event.

absolutely.

That sounds great.

So when it comes to.

The company page then, so we're gonna park personal profiles for now.

We're gonna focus on company pages.

When it comes to the company page, what do we really need to consider?

What do we need to think about when we're considering our company page?

Okay, so number one, make sure you have one.

Um, there might be some of your audience listening who are like, oh, well,

I'm a, I'm a one man, one woman band.

There's me and there's me and my assistant.

Do we really need a company page?

So I would say a hundred percent yes, because you cannot get your company

branding onto LinkedIn without one.

Hmm.

look at John Clayton's personal profile and

you have a company page, John.

Like the AR architecture business club.

If that was a company page, then you'd have the logo of

that on your personal profile.

So that's why it, the company pages are really, really important.

But also it gives you a second place to place all of your links

to your company on LinkedIn.

So when you create your company page, you want to think about, first of all.

A background image that reflects your company, right?

If you have a team, your team could go in that image.

Um, if you have, hopefully you've got a logo, your logo can go in that image.

Um, I actually find that putting text on the background photo works

as well, so you could put in, you could literally type your company's

website, URL, onto that background

image.

So use that space.

'cause the first thing people do when they're looking at a

screen is they connect with the images before they read the text.

So use the potential that you have there.

Then instead of having, where you have a personal profile, you

have your face on the circular bits that is your small square or

circular logo of your company brand.

And then so when you company posts show up in the newsfeed, we see your company name.

We see your logo on, on the, on the poster or on the comment.

So make sure that you have good branding and obviously it

should, um, it should mirror.

Your business cards, if you have a website, should, it

should all be connected through.

So all your branding should show through all of these things.

Um, if you spent money with a designer on creating your website, then use the logos

and the images that they've given you for that and put them over onto your LinkedIn

company page so that there's, you know, there's, so it flows between the two.

Then you add in links to your company website.

Very important.

And because LinkedIn is such a respected website that gives you

good SEO connections online between a really strong website like

LinkedIn connected through to your.

Company website.

Okay.

Um, I'm not an SEO expert.

John.

I'm sure you've had SEO people on before, um, who can talk more to that point.

But then you have, um, what's called your about section and this, in this,

you want to think of the key words.

People are looking for.

So if that's your specialty, that should say in your about section, you should

be telling me something about that.

So not just for me, if I come across your page and I read it, but for LinkedIn has

changed its algorithm quite a bit in the last recent months, and it's very much.

In real time using what I call an AI super brain.

That's not the official term, John, that's my term.

Um, whereas it is every, it is instantly instant updates on

everything you do on LinkedIn.

What I mean by that is if I'm on LinkedIn today, John, and I'm talking

about heritage architecture, um, it, it's updating in the background that

that's something I'm interested in.

So it starts showing me content on that.

the back engine basically of LinkedIn's being replaced by, it's, I think

it's four or five different ai.

Algorithm, machinery, whatever it is, they never tell you anything

anyway, so it's called 360 brew.

If people are listening are like, well, I want to know what, it's Louise.

It's 360 Brew is the name of the coding mechanism on the backend.

But basically that means it is updating our preferences, um, our what we want

to be known for, what we talk about, who we're connecting with, who we

are most engaged with in real time.

And that has been, people are complaining about a job.

But actually it's been fabulous for me because I do stick to talking about.

Particular things on LinkedIn and my engagement has actually gone

up, whereas a lot of people are saying that their's just gone down.

I'm thinking that's because you're not really.

Using LinkedIn in the way that's best for your business.

Um, so, so com on your company page.

All of that being said, set up your company page with the right

information so that someone goes to the company page, they understand

your products and services, who you work with, where you work.

You stand for, there's even a space for your company values on the company page

as well that most people don't know about.

You can say that these are the values that we stand for within this organization.

Um, and for that you can't just, it's not lip service.

You have literally got to link through to the page in your

website that reflects that.

So an example might be an equal opportunities, um, then it'll link through

your website to the page that shows us.

You know, here's, here's what this company stands for.

So, you know, they take it all very seriously and it's good.

So the more you, the more you fill out that, um, page

detail, the better it is for

Yeah.

And as you say that there's opportunities for more than one back

link back to your company website as well from that LinkedIn company page.

Um,

Yeah.

I, I, uh, I'm gonna hold my hand up and confess here

that at the moment I have, um.

This podcast has a company page.

Yes.

So that's good.

But I don't have a company page for the other, you know, ways

that people can work with me.

Um, and the re the reason is that originally I, I did posted

everything on my profile.

I didn't utilize a, you know, leverage having a company page.

And then because I, um, this year wanted to focus more on podcast production.

Content marketing done for you, services for people.

I, I basically split this out and created a company page for the content that

was specifically about this podcast.

Um, because I didn't want to just have all of that on my profile because the.

The content on my profile is gonna have a slightly different direction,

but what I haven't done, which I'm gonna add to my to-do list, which

seems to just be never ending, is to sort out a company page, an additional

company page that's full for me, for my company, the services that I offer.

Yes.

If we go back to the analogy of the conference, John, that you are at

the conference and you meet somebody.

So you met my friend Luke at the conference and Luke's chatting to you.

So John, what do you do?

And you say, um, I help people of podcast production.

And he's gonna say, oh, okay, well, you know, where can

I find out more about that?

So you want to send him to your

Yeah, it's like I'm at the, I'm at the conference now.

But I haven't got a stand.

Whereas if I've got my LinkedIn company page, I'm like, Hey, well see that.

Stand over there.

Go over there and you'll, you know, you'll, you'll get all the information.

And that's like what I'd be able to do with having a LinkedIn company

page and for anybody listening that that's what you'd be able to do too.

Yeah.

And, and just think about, you know, anybody can say, oh, yes, I help you with

podcasts, but the listener is going to, if they're presented with two people and they

like both of those people, the one person who, who says, well, here's my shop front.

Here's a list of my products and services.

Here's a link to my website, here's my branding.

And the other person says, yeah, no, I've been doing this for 10 years.

And you go, uh oh, okay.

Can I see some examples?

And they're, and you're like, oh yes, I'll email that over to you.

You're going to go with the one, whether they're the better one or not.

John, you the one who looks more professional.

And that's what I think having that on your company page can help do for you.

for sure.

And this is something that, um, I mean people can do this for free.

This is, it's a free

Oh, totally.

do, doesn't require a paid LinkedIn account to have a LinkedIn

company page that's helping to showcase what you do and, and doesn't have to

be something that takes ages to do.

So.

So what should we post on our company page?

This is a question I get asked on every, every webinar that I do.

I love it, especially John from, I get a lot of, I do, uh, regular

almost weekly free webinars.

So anyone grabs that 21 steps guide.

They can come and sign up for a webinars or it's louise bruen.com/webinar.

Um, will be to the link to the next one.

And I always get asked, well, Louise, it's just me.

And never say just, I am the, I am the only person in my business.

I am a coach, I am a consultant.

Um, I, you know, I'm working with large brands, but I am

the only person in my business.

What do I, how do I post on the company?

Why do I need a company page?

And, and all those reasons we've spoken about already, but.

Having a company page as, as you are the single person in your business, you spend

the majority of your time on your personal profile, building your personal networks,

and, and having conversations with people.

I highly, highly recommend that.

However, on the company page so that people who go and look at it can see

that your business is active, um, that you are working on projects.

I suggest that you post.

Maybe once a week or once every two weeks, something on the company page

so people can see the directive.

And it's gonna be more around projects you're working on, um, what

kind of things you're involved in.

Do you do stuff within the community?

Um.

You're not on your personal profile.

You're saying, I do this, I am connected with, or I met this person.

I met this friend.

But on the company page you'll say stuff like, uh, we, we just delivered a

project on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Um, so you are writing it a different way.

You're not writing it from your personal point of view, but you

do want to show up on there.

So say for example, John.

You've got this podcast and you on the post, on the company page about

the podcast will say, this week I interviewed Louise Brogan, um, about

LinkedIn Company pages, and here's why.

I think architects need to really think about whether they

need a company page or not.

And here are three key points that Louise mentioned, um, make

sure and tune into of the episode.

Whereas on your personal profile, you will say, I interviewed Louise

Brogan this week about coming pages, and she really made me think about.

You know, creating one for myself, here's something that she shared.

And do you have a company page?

So you see it's the same kind of post, but it's just written D

from a different point of view.

Does that make sense?

I love that example.

And don't be surprised if I completely steal that example

and, and post that out the week.

Yeah.

Thanks Louise.

You just saved me some time there.

Um, yeah, yeah.

The week that this comes out, that those will be the posts,

uh, that will be going out.

Yeah.

So I suppose, um, for the kind of solopreneur type business owner, the

business of one, would you say it's kind of like maybe like an 80 20 split kind

of, you know, spend sort of 75, 80% of your time on LinkedIn focusing on your

profile and 20 to 25 on your company page?

I Would

no, I'd say it's nine.

For a single solopreneur.

I'd say it's 95 5.

Okay.

That's my honest answer, um, because I want you

people to do business with people.

Your company page is there to show that you have a brand, you have a

business, and to be linked through and to give you, um, credibility.

But you will get the business if it's, if it's you are entrepreneur, you will

get the business from connecting with people, having conversations out on the

newsfeed, um, following up with people who seem interested in what you're

doing and getting those people off.

LinkedIn onto a call with you.

So I would say 95% to 5%.

Now with a company, with a team, it's completely different advice.

Um, so we could go there next if you'd like,

Uh, yeah,

or do you wanna just talk about your, for yourself, John?

I think, no, not, not at all.

Um, no.

I think I was gonna ask a, a little bit about.

The differences again, but I think we've, we've kind of covered that in that example

because you've given a really good example of the difference between the type of post

we'd put on a company page and the type of posts that we'd put on a personal profile.

I mean, maybe what could be useful, I guess is if you, I'm putting you on

the spot now, but if you could think of another example to sort of like, this

is a typical, you know, another example of a company page post and another.

Example of how it would differ on a personal profile, and then we can

move on to talking about, well, what do we do if we've got a team and

you know, how can we leverage that?

Does that

Well,

yeah, I've got a brilliant example of a client that we work with who are in the

learning development space and on their company page we will talk very much about

projects and products that they have, and we will highlight their staff members,

which is a huge part of your company page.

So I will maybe interview somebody who works within the business and they will

talk about what it's like to work there and what they enjoy about their role.

And it's very much, you know.

A lot of the company page content for larger organizations is actually

around being attractive to people who are in, who are looking for work.

So what kind of company and, and also other organizations who work with

companies like yours checking you out.

Do the people who work here enjoy their jobs?

What kind of company is this?

What kind of ethics does it have?

Are they, do they have integrity?

Um, you know.

If you can get your team members of staff to show up and talk about

what it's like a, you know, working there a day in life of working there.

And that's phenomenal both to people who want to hire you or buy from you

as well as people who are job seeking.

So that's, that would be really good content.

So we did, um, an a LinkedIn live series with this client and.

We, uh, had experts, guest experts who came in and talked about learning

development and, you know, the updates in learning development.

So if you imagine like going to university and you go to a lecture on.

I don't know stones that people use in heritage architecture.

I know nothing about architecture.

Um, but we're very good at taking what our clients know, our experts in

and taking into content for LinkedIn.

But say you go to a lecture and it's all about, um, masonry or something

like that, and the lecturer is, is.

Teaching you something and you're learning something and you leave the lecture and

then you go to LinkedIn and you say, just, just went to this phenomenal lecture, um,

about masonry and, and the stone types of stone you find in the lake district.

And I really loved it when they set with the, when they

gave this particular example.

'cause it reminded me of something that I did when I was at school, you know,

and people love that 'cause they love to hear a little bit about personality.

Um, but on the company page, it's gonna be very much.

You know, did you know in the Lake District they have this

particular kind of granite?

I don't know.

Um, and, and, and it's been used for years to build the towns of

X, Y, Z. Um, and here's, you know, here's why it's such a good, a good

stone to use in particular projects.

So you see the difference there.

There's the company is.

Telling us something interesting.

We're learning from it, but it's kind of sparking curiosity, whereas the person is

going, this is what I learned about that.

And you know, I was, it made me think about this other thing and, and then

we're starting a conversation about it.

Yeah, so it, it's a little bit like, um, if you think of the company

page, it's in the company's like voice.

So it'd be the similar way that if you, uh, if you were writing, um, an article or

whether it was something on your website or going in print and you were like the

spokesperson, like you were representing the company, the face of the company.

It's completely

It would be different than if you are just sharing something

personally, like, you know, you might be talking about exactly the same project.

So in the, the case of architecture, maybe on the company page, we've

got some nice glossy photos of the, the project that we're working on.

And it's like, you know, talking about that very much.

It could be sort of a bit like what you see on a lot of.

Architect's websites when you see the sort of portfolio, case study

type photos and that sort of thing.

Whereas the post on the personal profile could be sharing something specific

about like, you know, I've personally, our practice has done this project.

I've personally been working on it.

This, I had just come out this great meeting with the client.

The client had this great idea and it sort of made me think about how

we can use this on other projects and

yeah, so that I could really see how that could work.

Yeah.

I think, and in, in, in an industry that has project based work.

To me that is a, a wonderful client for us to work with because we will literally

say, okay, so there was a client, um, I did a training with a training with this

client in Northern Ireland and they ship.

Really large, heavy machinery around the world for quarry crushing.

So they literally the, it's a kind of a bonkers fact, but I think 25% of

the world's quarry crushing machinery, the whole world comes out of a 30

square mile part of Northern Ireland.

No way.

Which is amazing.

And so they will sell this gigantic, gigantic piece of machinery and they'll

be shipped all the way to Australia.

So that makes amazing content for LinkedIn because you talk about, you know.

The machinery, you can create videos of it being loaded and you know, all

this really cool stuff and it's at the other end and, and you show it out

and then people are like, oh, right, that's, we need a machinery like that.

And then on the personal profile, you know, the project manager

will say, you know, I've just completed work on this project.

We were, we met this client three years ago, um, at a trade show in Amsterdam.

Uh, we had a brilliant relationship.

You know, we were able to find.

Right piece of machinery for them and they, we've just delivered it

to, you know, to Western Australia.

Like, what a brilliant day.

I'm off to celebrate.

And people are, and people will be like, it's a brilliant story.

It's a brilliant story because locally people involved in your economy will

love it because it's a good news story.

Um, you're sharing the personal aspect of it, um, how you were involved in it.

And then the company page, it's like easy.

It's, well, I say easy.

It's a lovely piece of good news and people like that.

And then what you do if you have a team is you talk to your team and you say,

right, guys, you know the machinery that's just arrived in Western Australia?

We're gonna post about it on LinkedIn.

So do you remember the training we did with Louise on how to use LinkedIn?

We would like all of you to go to that post.

Comment on it and share it with your network and say why you're sharing it.

And the amplification of that kind of content is enormous, John.

So as long as your team know what the

yeah.

LinkedIn and why they're doing it.

Unfortunately, um, many companies don't do this and actually

if they can get that employee advocacy, get their buy-in, um, yeah, they

can really, really help, um, support those posts that you put out and

get them a lot more reach for sure.

Yeah,

I'm available for training and workshops.

Yes.

Yeah.

And um, yeah, definitely would recommend Louise for that.

If anybody that's, um, wanting to learn more about, um, using LinkedIn or for

their company, um, yeah, contact Louise for sure and book one of her workshops.

Um, Louise, this has been really good.

Um, and I've.

I've learned something about company pages, a few things, and I've

also got a few things I need to add to my own to-do list as well.

So this has been a really actionable episode for me personally.

I'm sure it will be for the listeners too.

Um, what would be the main thing that you'd like everyone to take

away from this conversation?

So the one thing I would like people to take away from this,

if you do not have a company page yet on LinkedIn, please create one because

you're giving yourself twice the chance of getting found, um, by your

target audience, your ideal clients.

And then if you have got a company page, try and post on it

at least once a week and think.

What projects can we share?

And the third thing is please empower your team to know why.

They should be sharing this content on LinkedIn.

That's so important.

People don't wanna do stuff just 'cause you tell 'em to do it.

They wanna know why.

What's the point of it?

The point of it is to get your business more leads, which brings in

more business to the company, which gives the company more stability

and gives their jobs more stability, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So why they should be doing it and then show them how.

To do it because what I have found is that a lot of people are like, okay, I

understand that I'm supposed to do this, but I have literally no idea how to do it.

What am I actually supposed to do?

You know, what is a post, what's a repost?

All this stuff.

So, um, John, everything I teach is available for free on my YouTube channel,

so people can go and look at that.

There's buckets of stuff about company pages.

Um, but obviously of course they can reach out to me and have a chat.

Um, I'd be delighted to help them.

Yeah.

Uh, Louise.

Has got a ridiculous number of subscribers on a YouTube channel.

It's a testament to, to how good her content is.

totally practical and uh, really, really useful.

So absolutely, go and check that out.

Um, there's no fluff.

No, it's no fluff.

was there anything else you wanted to add that we haven't

already covered about this topic?

We've covered quite a bit there, I think.

We have covered quite a bit.

I mean, I don't do, I am not an expert in LinkedIn advertising, but I've seen

new stuff coming out where companies can sponsor individuals posts on LinkedIn.

So for example, um.

Microsoft could, it's a gigantic example, but Microsoft could sponsor

their CEO's posts and it's called Thought Leadership Advertisement,

which is kind of interesting.

LinkedIn's definitely going down a route of pay to play a lot more recently.

So I think, I think we should keep an eye on

the paid aspects of LinkedIn.

Um, but that's a whole, that's a whole other podcast episode John.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Well, let's save that for a, for another day.

You know, maybe you can come back on the show next year and we can talk about that.

you remind everyone, um, about the, the freebie that I mentioned in the

Yes, yes.

So I have a, a guide that's called 21 Steps to using LinkedIn Successfully.

And if you go to louise brogan.com/ 21 steps and it's, it's two one steps,

um, yeah, go grab that and, and then come along to my next free webinar.

I do them all the time.

I love, I love teaching people how to use LinkedIn.