To begin with, ‘the social web’ presented a problem for businesses. The value of social media was clear, but how could they take advantage of platforms designed for individuals?

Thankfully, all the major social platforms were quick to realise the role that businesses had to play. This is how company pages came about.

Recently, company pages have crept back into the headlines. Services like Google+ and Klout have recently allowed companies to create business pages. Twitter have also started experimenting with ‘enhanced’ brand pages giving companies even more reason to invest in their micro-blogging service.

Has all this attention got you thinking? Wondering whether you should have a company page?

Well, I hope this article will help.

Do We Need A Company Page?

On Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ this is an easy one. If you own a business you should have both a personal profile and a company page. This is how these platforms have been designed. They work best if you use them that way.

Company pages are a valuable channel for building awareness, getting to know your customers and building your online profile. If you run a business, you NEED a company page.

The one exception to this rule is Twitter. Twitter’s guidelines for businesses are far more flexible. Though they do offer large companies access to ‘enhanced’ brand pages, most companies simply use a standard Twitter account. The simplicity of the platform means that, unless you are a multinational corporation, this is by far the best option.

Building Your Page

When most people build their personal pages they speak too much about their business and not enough about themselves. With brand pages this is exactly what you want. When you are writing your company page make sure you focus on the primary aims and endeavours of your business.

Remember: the key to building trust, influence and brand sentiment is AUTHENTICITY.

Though you may be tempted to copy and paste content from your website and duplicate it on all your company pages, this really isn’t the best idea. Aside from the issues created by duplicate content, each platform is slightly different. Your community on LinkedIn might be very different to your followers on Google+. You need to write your pages with this in mind. Write in a way that appeals to your community on each individual platform.

As with any webpage, when you’re building your company page it’s important that you pay close attention to the way it looks. One of the most important elements is your avatar. On all the major platforms, your avatar occupies a dominant position and will always draw people’s attention. Make sure that your company logo is consistent across all the different social platforms – and that it displays correctly on them all.

Company pages are a relatively recent social development. Though many companies are using them, very few are using them well.

When you build your company page ask yourself these questions:

• What do we want to achieve?
• Who is our ideal community member?
• How can we deliver more value to those members?

If you can answer all of these questions, and implement strategies that solve them, you will already be using your company page more effectively than 90% of UK businesses.