8 Easy Ways to Optimise Your LinkedIn Company or School Page

LinkedIn is one – if not the – best social media platform for business, known for its networking opportunities and professional profiles. With more than 820 million users in over 200 countries, and 180 million of those members being senior-level influencers and decision makers, LinkedIn is nothing to ignore.

Many brands fear that the network is too formal for their audience, but the truth is that it’s viewed as the most trusted social media platform and is an underrated marketing channel, particularly for the education community.

So how can you use LinkedIn for your school marketing and recruitment, or to build relationships with schools?

In this post we share tips on optimising your profile so that you can be found by the right people. If you’re a commercial business with a Company Page on LinkedIn looking to connect with schools, click here to skip to our tips.

How can schools use LinkedIn?

A LinkedIn Page for a school or university is a way to build brand awareness for your school, market yourself and build a community. It’s a place to show what makes your establishment special – academically, socially, and culturally.

Admins of a page can have conversations with the audience interested in the school, including alumni, current and prospective students or their families, and suppliers, faculty, or donors. With the LinkedIn audience being made up of professionals, it’s the perfect place to reach professional, affluent prospective parents and supporters.

It’s also a great place to brand yourself as an employer. You can share employment opportunities, updates relating to the school’s working life, employee recognition posts, and more.

What’s the difference between a Company Page and a School Page?

Some schools, colleges, and universities don’t have a Company Page or a School Page on LinkedIn yet. This means they’re missing out on the branding opportunities through current staff and alumni’s Personal LinkedIn Profiles. You can access step-by-step instructions for creating a new LinkedIn Company Page for your school here.

Some schools have a Company Page and not a Schools Page. This means that current and past employees can select the Company from the drop-down box in the ‘Work Experience’ section,  but it won’t appear in the ‘Education’ drop-down box for alumni to select (or if it does, it’ll appear with a dreaded grey logo and not your school’s brand!) If this is the case you’ll need to ?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ask LinkedIn to convert your Company page to a School page. This will enable students past & present to select the school and will also enable the Alumni functionality for you.

From here on, for simplicity, I’m going to use the term ‘Company Page’ for both schools and commercial brands.

How to create the best Company Page possible

Having a well-optimised LinkedIn Company Page will increase your chances of being discovered not just by LinkedIn members, but also by relevant web searchers. Go ahead and Google your company now… if you have a LinkedIn Company Page, chances are it’ll appear within the top search results.

On average, fully completed LinkedIn Pages will get 30% more views than those missing data. Taking the time to ensure you’ve got a top-notch Company Page will increase your exposure, build authority, and maybe even help to recruit that next top employee.

1. Showcase your brand

The first step is to upload a great profile image and banner. Most brands will choose to use their logo as the profile photo. Just be sure to resize it to LinkedIn’s requirements before you upload it.

The profile banner above your logo offers more room for creativity. Keep in mind that images that tell a story are always more impactful. You may want to consider using an image of students in action rather than a static image of the school’s exterior or your education product.

2. Write a compelling ‘Tagline’ and ‘About’ section

Your Tagline will appear on your Company Page under your logo. You only get 120 characters, so make it count! Consider including a brand tagline or positioning statement, or keyword-rich description, and perhaps include your unique hashtag, if you have one.

Your ‘About’ section is even more important. While you’re entitled to up to 2,000 characters, it’s important to make the opening sentence tightly worded and keyword-rich. Why? Well because the first 156 characters (the opening line) are what will appear as your search result description.

You want your About section to tell your brand story in simple, accessible language. To write it, consider answering these questions:

• Who are you and where are you based?
• Who do you serve and how do you help them?
• What is your core offering?
• What sets your brand apart?

Don’t forget to include an introduction to what your ’employer brand’ is. This includes how you keep your staff engaged, how you contribute to their continuing personal development, and how your workforce contributes to the world. What do they enjoy most about working for you?

For inspiration, take a peek at other Company Pages. There’s no perfect way to write your About description, but it should always feel authentic and aligned to your overall brand.

3. Consider the Workplace Module

A relatively new feature, the Workplace Module shows if employees come to work in-person, work remotely, or if your organisation follows a hybrid of on-site and off-site work.

4. Update your Locations

If you have more than one office or campus location, make sure they’re all added. If you don’t want to list the street address, you’re able to feature the City and Country only.

5. Select your key #Hashtags

Each Company Page can see and respond to up to three hashtag topics that matter to your page. For example, you can follow #Education, #SchoolMarketing, or more.

You’ll see posts with these hashtags in your Company feed, enabling you to react and comment as your school or brand on education-related topics and get yourself exposed to a wider audience.

6. Showcase Featured Groups

Featured groups are groups that can be spotlighted directly on the homepage of your company page. It’s a great way to showcase professional organisations or education bodies that you’re a member of.

7. Add a brand video

Video gets up to 5x more reach than standard text or image content on LinkedIn. So, if you’ve got a brand video, virtual tour, or taster day video, upload it!

Top tip: Don’t embed a YouTube link, as that will only show on your ‘Posts’ tab. Upload it directly to LinkedIn. It’ll stay on the video tab and be accessible for your audience to easily find and watch.

8. Leverage your staff

Request all of your faculty and/or staff to list your school or company as their place of work on their personal LinkedIn pages. Like most social media, LinkedIn is a peer-to-peer network, and ensuring all your employees have your organisation displayed on your page will increase your Company’s reach. LinkedIn also has a fantastic tool that enables you to ‘Notify Employees’ when you have a new post up. It’s a good idea to encourage your staff to share your Company Page posts, adding their own personal commentary to continue the conversation!

You may not be ready to dive fully into LinkedIn as a marketing channel, but if you carve out some time to follow these tips and optimise your Company Page you’ll be well on the way to increasing your visibility on the channel.

PS: we’ve created a short video showing you where within LinkedIn you can make these edits. Watch it below, and have fun!