Most LinkedIn 'experts' either don't have an active company page or recommend against using a company page. I have read one 'expert' claim how that it was too hard to get people to both follow him & his company page.

However, there are advantages and disadvantages in creating, maintaining and distributing content using your company page. We have had an active company page for a little under a year and are very pleased with the results. But, you may have a different experience.

So, here are the two primary considerations to help you decide between publishing long form on Pulse versus using your company page to distribute content to LinkedIn members.

#1. What type of analytics do you need?

You can either share articles, create long form posts on Pulse, or publish on your company page. But, you won't get equally good analytics from each method.

a. Sharing

LinkedIn is phasing out one of our favorite widgets -- "Who has Viewed your Updates?"

In the latest LinkedIn interface, you will only get occasional notices of how many people have viewed your updates.

The reach of organic sharing has been steadily diminishing over the last 18 months.

Look, even though Joe has over 10,000 connections, his sharing of this article had only 45 views. Sharing is nice, but because of the limited organic reach it is no substitute for serious marketing.

b. Long Form Publishing on Pulse

Now, if you are publishing long form posts using Pulse you can get better analytics.

Here are the numbers from my last 6 Pulse posts.

These are average numbers, 150 -250 views with 1-4 comments. But, at least you get the analytics for each of you posts.

c. Publishing on Company Pages

Now, if you want even more analytics, then you need to be posting your content with your company page.

The analytics are considerably more in depth, and LinkedIn has just added a new feature: Notifications.

You can get trends, daily, weekly and monthly views.

You cannot, however, get reports.

Here are what some of these analytics look like, from our company page.

Note, that the articles we are publishing are now getting over 1,000 views on a daily basis. More than a 20x increase over just sharing. That's worthwhile, if you want a larger audience.

Conclusion: If you need detailed analytics on per post basis, you will have to create a company page and publish your content on it. On the other hand, if you are content to simply share and don't really care about your limited reach, then you should not create a company page. It will be too much work for you.

#2. Getting An Audience for Your Company

It is much easier to get people to connect with you in comparison to task them to follow your company.

The reason for this is simple. You and I connect because we see something interesting in each other's profile.

It is not so obvious why would want to follow a company, though.

For example, over the last 8 years my first connections have grown from 0 to over 6,000.

But, during the last year from March 2014, we have only grown our company followers from 114 to 516.

Conclusion: Unless you have a compelling offer, it will be hard to get LinkedIn members to follow your company.

Now for us, the advantages of better analytics out-weigh the difficulty of getting followers. And that is why we have a company page on LinkedIn.

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