Manage your employer brand with LinkedIn

With over 11 million users in the UK, LinkedIn is the country’s most popular employment site.  It is the most widely-used online tool for investigating career opportunities and has far more visits than any job board.  Any good candidate will do their research prior to applying for a role, and these days that includes looking up your organisation on LinkedIn.  Your company page should be set up to ensure these potential employees are attracted by your organisation, not turned off.

In this blog post, we look at how not for profit organisations can make the most of their LinkedIn company page to help make sure the best talent in the sector wants to work for them.  LinkedIn rolled out a new look for company pages to everyone last year, making it even easier to boost your employer brand.  And the great part is, with a small amount of effort, smaller organisations can look just as impressive as a larger employer, helping to level the playing field when it comes to candidate attraction.

If you haven’t set up a page yet

Although setting up a company page correctly may take a while, it is worth investing the time to have it done right from the start, as your organisation will appear professional and credible.

Before you create a new company page, check whether a page has already been started by one of your employees, ex-employees or supporters.  If so, you can ‘claim’ it and save confusion later on, as it’s very difficult to get a company page deleted once it has been set up and employees have linked to it.  Make sure you also check for alternative or misspelled versions of your organisation’s name.

Make sure you add a few employees as designated admins for your company page, so that there is always someone who can access it.  You’ll need to be connected directly to someone to add them as an admin.

Complete your profile

If you haven’t started filling in your organisation’s basic profile, click on the 'edit' button in the top right corner on your company page.

Filling out as much company information as you can will make your organisation appear professional and attractive.  If your company page is missing a postal or web address for your organisation, or doesn’t have a logo or any pictures, jobseekers are less likely to take you seriously as a potential employer.

Your company description should be a couple of paragraphs long and give a basic outline of what your organisation does, who it benefits and where you work.  You can use the specialties boxes underneath to list the different services your organisation provides.

Logos and images

• Cover image (646 x 200 pixels)

The new cover image option gives you an opportunity to add an eye-catching and attractive picture that visually summarises your organisation’s brand.  You could use it to show pictures of your employees, or to display changing messages supporting campaigns you are running.

Some good examples of cover images on non-profit organisation profiles include:
Sue Ryder
Breast Cancer Care
Mencap
Save the Children
Scope

• Standard logo (60 x 60 pixels)

This appears at the top of your company page.  The logo appears over a white rectangle, so logos with a white background will generally look better than those with a coloured background.

• Square logo (50 x 50 pixels)

This logo appears next to your status updates on the news feed of someone following your page.  It’s best to keep this consistent with the standard logo.

Products and services

Although LinkedIn calls these pages 'Products and Services', there is really no limit on what you can use them for.  As well as talking about the services you provide, you could include ways to show support, locations of charity shops, events you are running, or PR you have received.  It’s a good idea to include a ‘why work for us’ section, showcasing what makes you an attractive employer.

The top product or service in your list will also be featured on your company homepage, so make sure this is the one you want to emphasise.

Here are a few examples of charities using the products or services listings:
Mencap
Oxfam
Parkinsons-UK
British Red Cross
The Brain Tumour Charity

Status Updates

Posting regular status updates will make your company page much more engaging, as it gives a good idea of what your organisation does.  Status updates also appear in the news feeds of all the people following your organisation, so they can keep jobseekers and passive candidates in the loop.

You could post updates about your organisation’s campaigns, upcoming events, news, press releases or PR, blog posts or information relevant to your supporters.  And of course, you can post all your jobs as status updates.  LinkedIn charges for jobs posted on their job board, so this is a great way to get them on LinkedIn for free.

When you add a link to a status update, a picture may be automatically added.  If the picture isn’t relevant or looks rubbish, you can uncheck ‘include photo’ to get rid of it.  LinkedIn now allows you to share your own images or files, so you could post your organisation’s brochures or pictures from events.

Check your employee list

Under 'Careers' / 'View all employees', you’ll be able to see a list of everyone on LinkedIn who has listed your organisation as their current employer.  It’s worth having a look through here, as it may include ex-employees who have not yet updated their LinkedIn profile, as well as people who are not employees but claim to work for you, whether by accident or design.

Removing these people is a good idea as it prevents potential employees or supporters from contacting the wrong person.  The only way you can currently remove people from this listing is to use LinkedIn’s Remove Member Form.  You’ll need to include full name of the person and the URL for their LinkedIn profile, plus an explanation of why you’d like them removed.

Rolling it out

Once your LinkedIn company page is set up, it’s time to start collecting followers.  Whenever someone follows your page, they will see your status updates in their news feed, as well as notifications on jobs, joiners and movers within your organisation.  Make sure you include ‘Follow us on LinkedIn’ links or a button on your website, emails, newsletters etc.

Encouraging your staff to set up and use their own LinkedIn profiles can further extend your reach.  If you post a status update and your employees ‘like’ it, it will also appear in the news feeds of people connected to them.

Linkedin Board Member Connect

LinkedIn are currently trialling a new service that helps leaders of nonprofits find and connect to potential board members.  It includes free upgraded access to LinkedIn, webcasts and group membership.  Unfortunately, this service is only available to organisations based in the US at the moment, but hopefully LinkedIn will roll this service out to the UK soon.

TPP on LinkedIn

To keep up to date with what’s happening at TPP, follow our company page on LinkedIn, or connect directly with the consultants you deal with.