One of the things that I always check for when getting ready for a training session are the profiles of the people who will be attending – I look at a number of elements that we can then look at during the session. Most of which are very much outward facing and designed to communicate with their desired audience, the readers of their profile page.
There is one element, however, that is very simple yet also impactful that I check and that is whether they are successfully connected to their Company Page.
Connecting to the Company page may sound natural but it is in fact something in most cases that you have to actively do. LinkedIn did used to try to connect you automatically but there were so many mismatches that they no longer bother, so we have to.
Why connect?
There are a number of reasons why you might want to do so.
i) The obvious one is to actually re-inforce the fact that you work somewhere which is natural enough;
ii) It also pulls throuogh the logo that appear on the Company Page and dsiplays it both alongside your job role in the Work Experience section but also, importantly, it appears at the top of your page as well giving a key leg up to your branding;
iii) It creates a clickable link through to your Company Page from your profile giving a additional route to find out more about what you and your company does.
To check if you are successfully connected already, just see if the logo from the Company page appears succesfully on your page – if it does, all is good. If your Companny Page doesnt have one then click on the grey logo next to your job role and see if it takes you to your Company Page – again if it does then all is good … but do remember to get your logo into your Company Page as soon as possible.
How to connect to the Company Page
If that isn’t the case then you need to link it manually.
Taking the example of BP as a company then you would procede as follows:
1. Go to the role that you have as at BP and, as below, we can see that there is no logo so the likelihood is that you are not successfully connected. Click on the ‘edit’ symbol on nthe right to start the process.
2. Next, click on the Company field and start to type in the name of the company that you wish to link to.
3. You should find that LinkedIn creates a list below the box displaying a list of those that match what you have typed in.
4. When you see your company appear then click on that name and you should see it populate the field with both the name and, importantly, a mini thumbnail of the logo. That will usually indicate that the system has successfully identified it and you can now click on the ‘Save’ button at the bottom of the page.
5. Now looking back at your profile proper, the logo should now successfully appear and you can check by clicking through to your Company Page as well.
