A familiar pattern: the company's LinkedIn page posts an image every week, whether a holiday greeting, a hiring announcement or a graphic about its services. The likes come from employees and no messages arrive. Meanwhile the head of a competing firm writes a personal post about a problem he ran into with a client, and managers start messaging him to ask about his services.
What's the difference between a LinkedIn company page and a manager's profile?
The company page is the official reference, and the manager's profile is what builds relationships. People on LinkedIn engage with individuals they know or read. They treat pages the way they treat a company website, as somewhere to visit to check you out.
| Company page | Manager's profile | |
|---|---|---|
| Its role | Verification, credibility and hiring | Conversation, relationships and starting talks |
| What it posts | Projects, services, company news | Experience, opinions and questions from the field |
| Direct messages | Limited | Available with connections |
| Ads | Run from here | Posts can be promoted through the company |
How do you set up a manager's profile to attract clients?
Use the headline under your name to say who you serve and what you solve for them, instead of your job title alone. "Company founder" tells a visitor nothing. "I help training centers in Saudi Arabia manage registration and invoicing" tells them whether this profile is relevant to them.
- A clear, recent photo, and a banner that says what the company offers.
- An About section explaining the problem you solve and how the reader can reach you.
- A Featured section with a link to a service page or an article answering a common question.
- A link to the company page, so its logo appears in your experience.
What should you post on LinkedIn to attract B2B clients?
Post what you've learned from the work, in the voice of someone talking to colleagues. Business buyers follow you to see how you think before they contact you, so a post explaining how you handled a problem does more than a graphic about your services.
- A question a client asked you this week, and your answer.
- A mistake you keep seeing in your field, and how to avoid it.
- Your view on a change that affects your clients, such as a new law or technology.
- Details from a project you completed, with the client's permission.
Write the post as text meant to be read: a first line that pulls the reader into the problem, then short paragraphs, then a question that invites comments. Images and video help, though good writing is what makes a buyer stop at your post.
Once or twice a week, consistently, is enough. Useful comments on your prospects' posts also bring visits to your profile, and their effect can come close to that of your own posts.
How do you reach out to prospects without being a nuisance?
Build a relationship before you pitch. Send a connection request with one personal line about why you're reaching out, engage with what the person posts, and send a message when you have something useful for them.
- A short listCompanies and job titles that fit your service
- A personal connection requestOne line giving a real reason
- EngagementUseful comments on their posts for a few weeks
- A useful messageAn article or a note relevant to their work
- Ask for a callOnce there's clear interest
A message pitching your services the moment a connection is accepted gets ignored by many people and makes them less inclined to read what you post later.
What role do the company page and employees play?
Keep the page complete and up to date, because buyers will open it after reading your manager's posts. Post projects, services and team news there, and reshare the manager's posts from it. Ask employees to list the company correctly in their experience, which links their profiles to the page and widens who sees it.
How do you measure LinkedIn results?
By the number of conversations and meetings that started on LinkedIn, and then by closed deals. Likes and views tell you people are seeing your posts. They don't tell you whether any of those people are buyers.
Each month, track which of your target companies viewed your profile, how many messages came from people you don't know, and how many of those turned into meetings. Add UTM tags to the links in your posts and Featured section so you can see in Google Analytics what LinkedIn visitors do on your site. If you start running ads, install the LinkedIn Insight Tag on your website to track conversions from them and build audiences from site visitors.
When should you use LinkedIn ads?
When a client is worth a lot and you know exactly who you're targeting by job title, industry and company size. That targeting is more precise for B2B than what other platforms offer, and it usually costs more, so weigh it against the contract value. LinkedIn also lets you promote posts by people at your company through Thought Leader ads, so you can put money behind a manager's post that already performed instead of designing a new ad.
Keep track of who you've spoken with and when, in a spreadsheet or a simple system, and send interested contacts useful content through B2B email marketing. For a broader plan that brings the channels together, read a digital marketing plan for a small business.
We help companies set up managers' profiles, company pages and LinkedIn campaigns as part of our digital marketing service. Send us your profile link and company page, and we'll suggest the first changes.
Questions our partners ask
Which matters more, the company page or the manager's profile?
You need both, for different jobs. The page is the official reference a buyer visits to check you out. The manager's profile is what builds relationships and starts conversations.
How often should I post on LinkedIn?
Once or twice a week from the manager's profile, done consistently, is enough to start, plus comments on prospects' posts on the other days.
Are LinkedIn ads right for a small company?
They fit when a customer is worth a lot and you can define the audience by job title and industry. Reach usually costs more there than on other platforms, so start with a test budget and a landing page that's ready.
Written by the Visual Innovate team, the people who build, host and follow up systems, websites and apps for our clients in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Egypt.
