LinkedIn is a professional networking platform that allows both individuals and companies to create profiles. While there are some similarities between personal and company profiles, there are also key differences that users should be aware of.
Overview of LinkedIn Personal Profiles
A LinkedIn personal profile allows an individual to showcase their professional background, skills, accomplishments, and more. Personal profiles are used to connect with other professionals, search for jobs, join groups, follow companies, and build your professional brand.
With a LinkedIn personal profile, you can:
- Customize your profile with info about your work experience, education, skills, and interests
- Connect with colleagues, classmates, and other professionals
- Join groups to connect with professionals in your industry
- Follow companies to receive updates about new jobs and products
- Search and apply for jobs
- Get recommendations from colleagues to showcase your capabilities
- Publish articles and posts to build your professional brand
A strong LinkedIn profile is essential for any professional’s career development and networking. Recruiters and hiring managers frequently look at candidates’ LinkedIn profiles when evaluating them for job opportunities.
Overview of LinkedIn Company Pages
LinkedIn Company Pages allow businesses and organizations to establish an official presence on LinkedIn. Company Pages showcase useful information about a company to attract customers, recruits, and partners.
With a Company Page, businesses can:
- Share company updates, news, products, and events
- Promote job openings to attract qualified candidates
- Display company culture and values to showcase their employer brand
- Promote influential employees to attract more followers
- Analyze page analytics to gain insight on followers and engagement
- Publish long-form articles to establish thought leadership
- Respond to follower messages and comments
Maintaining an updated, comprehensive LinkedIn Company Page is essential for brands today looking to hire talent, engage with customers, and build credibility.
Key Differences Between Personal and Company Profiles
While LinkedIn personal profiles and Company Pages serve related purposes, there are some notable differences between the two:
| Personal Profile | Company Page |
|---|---|
| Represents an individual professional | Represents an entire company or organization |
| Used to network, search for jobs, and build a personal brand | Used to attract customers, talent, and partners |
| Connections are made between individuals | Followers subscribe to company updates |
| Shares professional background, accomplishments, skills | Shares company news, products, job openings, events |
| Individual has full control over content | Multiple admins may manage Company Page |
While both profile types aim to establish professional credibility, personal profiles are individual-centric while Company Pages focus on representing an entire organization.
Guidelines for Personal Profiles
To create an effective personal profile on LinkedIn, here are some key tips:
- Professional photo: Have a quality headshot to give off an approachable, friendly impression.
- Headline: Summarize your professional identity and current role in your headline (e.g. Software Engineer at XYZ Company).
- Summary: Use your summary section to provide an overview of your background, skills, and accomplishments.
- Experience: List at least your last 2-3 roles. Highlight responsibilities, achievements, and skills gained.
- Education: Include your degrees, fields of study, and graduation dates.
- Skills: Add keywords and skills that are relevant to the roles you are seeking.
- Recommendations: Request recommendations from managers and colleagues to back up your capabilities.
- Accomplishments: Feature publications, certifications, languages, volunteer work, honors, and awards.
- Customize URL: Set a unique URL for your profile like www.linkedin.com/in/yourname.
Optimizing each section with relevant details will make your LinkedIn profile stand out.
Tips for an Impactful Summary Section
Your LinkedIn summary section is valuable real estate to showcase your most compelling qualifications. To write an impactful summary:
- Focus on your professional identity and brand
- Use clear, succinct language – avoid buzzwords
- Quantify accomplishments with numbers/data
- Mention current skills, capabilities, and goals
- Align to roles you are targeting
- Include keywords recruiters search for
- Explain motivations and what makes you unique
- Adopt a personable, approachable tone
Keeping your summary concise, authentic, and keyword-rich can drive engagement on your profile.
Tips for Showcasing Your Best Work
In addition to listing your work experience, you can enhance your LinkedIn profile by featuring examples of your skills and achievements in action. Some ways to showcase your best work:
- Embed or link to media from projects – images, videos, slide decks
- Provide in-depth descriptions of accomplishments from each role
- Highlight testimonials, ratings, press mentions, publications
- Cite data demonstrating your impact – sales figures, revenue growth, campaigns
- List awards and recognition received
- Include publications, patents, or coursework
- Showcase volunteering, activism, or leadership
Calling out specific, measurable examples of your contributions makes your experience stand out.
Guidelines for Company Pages
For businesses looking to maximize their LinkedIn Company Pages, here are some top tips:
- Complete page: Fully complete sections like Careers, About, Products, Culture, etc.
- Employee spotlights: Highlight notable employees and achievements to humanize your brand.
- Page analytics: Track follower growth, post reach, and engagement with analytics.
- Compelling updates: Share useful company news, career growth tips, leadership angles.
- Industry keywords: Incorporate relevant industry terms throughout your page.
- Multimedia content: Use images, videos, and presentations to capture interest.
- Calls to action: Include CTAs to drive job applications, content downloads, purchases, etc.
Completing your Company Page and posting regular updates can help boost awareness, recruitment, and sales.
Tips for Showcasing Company Culture
Promoting company culture is a major benefit of LinkedIn Company Pages. To provide insight into your work environment:
- Share photos and videos from office events and team activities.
- Explain unique traditions, rituals, and values.
- Highlight programs like mentorships, EAPs, learning stipends.
- Let employees take over your page for a day to share their experience.
- Conduct virtual office tours with recorded videos.
- Describe your diversity and inclusion, community service, and sustainability.
- Ask happy team members for culture testimonials.
Giving candidates a peek into your culture can help talent acquisition efforts and employer brand.
Tips for Promoting Job Openings
LinkedIn Company Pages have built-in tools to promote open roles and attract candidates. Tactics include:
- Adding an eye-catching Careers page banner
- Posting openings to your Company Page feed
- Paying to sponsor your listings to broader audiences
- Listing employee testimonials about working at your company
- Highlighting benefits, perks, salary info, and advancement paths
- Publishing interview tips and career advice
- Promoting referrals and employee share incentives
- Analyzing click-throughs and applications generated
Promoting roles across your Company Page and follower network can expand your quality applicant pool.
Best Practices for Both Profile Types
While personal profiles and Company Pages differ in focus, there are some universal best practices that apply to both:
- Choose a professional profile photo and background image
- Customize your URL for better branding
- Provide detailed contact info
- Showcase expertise with long-form articles and posts
- Join relevant industry groups and follow influencers
- Publish regularly to build an audience
- Monitor notifications and respond to messages
- Leverage analytics to refine your strategy
- Complete your profile fully with keywords
- Use rich media like images, audio, and video
Applying these tips to either profile type can help maximize your presence and effectiveness on LinkedIn.
Should You Have Both a Personal and Company Profile?
Maintaining both a strong LinkedIn personal profile and a Company Page offers the following advantages:
- Expanded reach: A greater network and audience for your brand message
- Credibility: Showcasing both individual experts and company success
- Thought leadership: More content and perspectives to share
- Employment branding: Highlighting your culture to candidates
- Sales opportunities: Increased visibility to attract more customers
The two profiles work hand-in-hand to promote your professional capabilities and company achievements.
For individuals, having both allows you to:
- Network for career opportunities while promoting your employer
- Demonstrate expertise in your field by referencing company success
- Show your ability to contribute to an organization’s objectives
- Spotlight company content you have produced or contributed to
For companies, having both enables you to:
- Promote your employer brand while highlighting individual employee expertise
- Attract talent by showcasing leaders and team members
- Add a layer of third-party validation through employee recommendations
- Increase engagement by empowering workers to share content
Together, a personal and Company Profile offer greater visibility and credibility across LinkedIn.
Can You Convert a Personal Profile to a Company Page?
Unfortunately, LinkedIn does not allow users to convert an existing personal profile into a Company Page. Some key reasons why direct conversion is not possible:
- Profiles have different structures – you cannot change a personal profile type to company after creation.
- Company Pages require company email verification while personal profiles use individual emails.
- Profiles use different account settings for administrators, analyitcs, etc.
- Individual profiles feature recommendations while Company Pages have followers.
- Certain personal profile sections like Volunteer Experience and Interests do not apply to companies.
Due to these inherent differences, users must set up Company Pages as new and separate profiles on LinkedIn rather than converting their existing personal accounts.
When creating a new Company Page, it is beneficial to:
- Associate your personal profile with the Company Page
- Link to your personal profile from the Company Page
- Cross-promote content and updates across both profiles
- Transfer over relevant background sections when possible
This allows you to connect your individual brand with your company’s brand while conforming to LinkedIn’s profile separation requirements.
Conclusion
LinkedIn personal profiles and Company Pages serve complementary purposes for professionals and businesses. While profiles have distinct focuses, leveraging both can maximize your brand presence and effectiveness on LinkedIn.
Key takeaways include:
- Personal profiles showcase individual professional backgrounds and networks.
- Company Pages represent overall organizations and promote content.
- Profiles should be customized fully with keywords, media, and analytics.
- Quality content and regular posting build followers and engagement.
- Maintaining both a personal and Company Page generates greater visibility.
- But existing personal profiles cannot directly convert to Company Pages.
Understanding the right applications and best practices for LinkedIn personal and company profiles allows professionals and brands to develop a stronger presence and connect with the audiences that matter most.
