LinkedIn.com Adds Company Profiles

LinkedIn, a professional social networking site added a new feature last week where companies can create their own company profiles to be listed in the LinkedIn Company Directory. In the past, LinkedIn only permitted individuals to sign up and create a personal profile that somewhat resembled a resume. This profile could be used for networking, finding jobs, or staying in touch with old friends or colleagues. Now, in addition to the personal profiles, companies can build their own profile page broadcasting their areas of specialization, location, number of employees, new hires, website, etc.

The great thing about LinkedIn is that personal profile pages are public and get crawled by the search engines. Therefore your profile page can show up in the search results. If the company profile pages go public, there is the potential for your company’s LinkedIn profile page to show up in the search results, which is an additional way to promote your product or business.

Many companies, such as Yahoo and Google (screen shot below), have already created their LinkedIn company profile page.