How to Create a School Page on LinkedIn

Setting up a LinkedIn Page for your school is one of the most effective ways to build a professional community around your institution. It provides a central hub for prospective students, current attendees, alumni, and faculty to connect and engage. This guide delivers a complete, step-by-step walkthrough for creating a LinkedIn School Page and offers actionable strategies to make it a thriving online destination.

Why Your School Needs a LinkedIn Page in 2024

A dedicated LinkedIn Page isn't just another social media profile to manage, it's a powerful tool for branding, recruitment, and community building. In a professional context, it establishes credibility and offers a platform to connect with audiences that other social networks can't reach. It effectively transforms your educational institution into a dynamic hub for its professional network.

Here’s exactly what a strong LinkedIn presence can do for your school:

• Showcase Your Brand and Culture: Your Page is the perfect place to communicate what makes your school unique. Share your mission, highlight groundbreaking programs, celebrate achievements, and give a behind-the-scenes look at campus life to build a compelling brand story.
• Recruit Top-Tier Faculty and Staff: LinkedIn is the world's leading professional network, making it the ideal platform to attract talented educators and administrators. A well-maintained Page signals that your institution is a forward-thinking and desirable place to work.
• Attract Prospective Students: Today's students (and their parents) are savvy researchers. They look beyond traditional viewbooks and websites. A professional LinkedIn Page allows you to connect with them by showcasing academic rigor, student life, and, most importantly, the successful career outcomes of your alumni.
• Engage and Empower Your Alumni Network: Your alumni are your greatest advocates and a source of immense value. A LinkedIn Page provides a dedicated space for them to reconnect, network, share their successes, and serve as mentors for current students.
• Build Strategic Industry Partnerships: By highlighting your school's research, innovations, and talented student body, you can attract the attention of corporations and organizations looking for partnerships, internships, and recruitment opportunities.

Before You Begin: What You'll Need

LinkedIn has a few requirements in place to ensure that only authorized representatives can create a School Page. Before you start, make sure you meet the following criteria to avoid any roadblocks. It’ll make the process much smoother.

• A Personal LinkedIn Profile: You must have a personal profile that is at least seven days old.
• An Established Profile: Your personal profile needs to have a strength rating of "Intermediate" or "All-Star." This generally means you have a profile picture, work experience listed, and a decent number of connections (LinkedIn doesn’t specify a number, but more is better).
• You Must Be a Current Employee: You must be listed as a current employee of the school in the "Experience" section of your profile. This is non-negotiable and one of the most common reasons page creation fails.
• A Valid School Email Address: You need a school-issued email address (e.g., you@yourcollege.edu) added and confirmed within your personal LinkedIn account's settings. A generic email (like Gmail or Yahoo) won't work.
• Your School Can't Already Have a Page: Do a quick search on LinkedIn to make sure a page for your institution doesn't already exist. If it does, you'll need to request admin access from the current page managers instead of creating a new one.

Meeting these conditions confirms to LinkedIn that you are a legitimate representative of the institution, preventing unauthorized page creation.

Step-by-Step: How to Create Your School Page

Once you’ve confirmed you meet all the prerequisites, the actual creation process is quite straightforward. Follow these steps to get your page up and running.

1. Access the Creation Menu

Log in to your personal LinkedIn profile. In the top-right corner of the navigation bar, click the "For Business" icon, which looks like a grid of nine dots. A dropdown menu will appear. Scroll to the bottom and click on "Create a Company Page +".

2. Select "School" as Your Page Type

On the next screen, LinkedIn will ask you to select what type of page you want to create. You'll see options for "Company," "Showcase page," and "School." Click on the "School" option. This page type is specifically designed for educational institutions, ranging from high schools to universities.

3. Fill Out Your Page Identity Details

This section establishes the basic identity of your school's page. Pay close attention to these fields, as they are the first things people will see.

• Name: Enter the full, official name of your institution. Avoid abbreviations or colloquial names to ensure clarity and searchability.
• LinkedIn Public URL: This is your custom vanity URL. Aim for something clean and recognizable, like linkedin.com/school/your-university-name. LinkedIn will tell you if the URL you choose is available. A simple, branded URL is much easier for people to remember and find.
• Website: Enter the URL for your school’s official website. This directs traffic to your home base.

Step 4: Add Your School Details

Here, you will provide more specific information to help categorize your institution on the platform.

• Industry: You should select "Higher Education" or "Primary/Secondary Education" from the dropdown menu, depending on your institution.
• School Size: This field refers to the number of students. Choose the range that best reflects your current student body.
• School Type: Select the most appropriate option, such as "High School," "Educational Institution," or "University."

Step 5: Upload Your Profile Logo & Tagline

These visual and textual elements are critical for branding.

• Logo: Upload a high-quality version of your school’s official logo. LinkedIn recommends a 300 x 300 pixel image. Your logo will be your page's profile picture across the platform, so make sure it's clear and instantly recognizable.
• Tagline: Write a concise, impactful tagline (up to 120 characters) that captures the essence of your school. This could be your official motto or a short phrase that communicates your mission. For example, "Innovating Higher Education Since 1905" or "Educating Thoughtful Leaders for a Changing World."

Step 6: Verification and Creation

Finally, you must check the box to verify that you are an authorized representative of the school and have the right to create the page on its behalf. Once you’ve done that, click the "Create page" button. Congratulations, your LinkedIn School Page is now live!

First Steps: Optimizing Your New Page for Success

Creating the page is just the beginning. To attract followers and build an engaging community, you need to fully build out and optimize your page. Completing these next steps will make your page look professional and provide valuable information to visitors.

Fill Out Your "About" Section

This is where you tell your story. Go to your new page and find the "About" section. Write a detailed description of your school. Include its history, mission, values, academic programs, and what makes it special. Use keywords that prospective students or employees might search for, such as "liberal arts college in New England" or "engineering university with a focus on robotics."

Upload a Compelling Cover Image

The cover image is prime real estate at the top of your page. The recommended size is 1128 x 191 pixels. Use a high-quality photo that captures the spirit of your institution. Great options include:

• A scenic shot of your campus.
• A photo of students collaborating in a lab or classroom.
• An exciting moment from a sporting event or graduation.
• A collage showcasing diverse aspects of student life.

Update your cover image periodically to reflect different seasons, events, or campaigns.

Set Your Custom Call-to-Action (CTA) Button

Right below your cover photo, you can add a custom CTA button. You can choose from several options, such as "Visit website," "Learn more," "Sign up," or "Contact us." Link this button to the most relevant page on your website - whether that’s the admissions page, the careers page, or the main homepage.

Publish and Pin a Welcome Post

Your first post should welcome new visitors and followers. Briefly introduce your new page, explain what kind of content people can expect to see, and encourage them to follow. Once you publish it, use the "Pin" feature to keep it at the top of your page feed so it's the first thing new visitors see.

Building Your Audience: Content and Engagement Strategies

An amazing page is useless without an audience. Growing your follower base requires a thoughtful content strategy and consistent engagement.

Invite Your Followers

As a page admin, LinkedIn gives you a monthly credit allowance to invite your personal connections to follow your school's page. Start by inviting colleagues, current students, and alumni you’re connected with. A personal invitation is often more effective than waiting for people to discover the page organically.

Create a Content Strategy with Pillars

Don't just post randomly. Plan your content around key themes, or "pillars," that reflect your school's identity. This ensures your content is varied, consistent, and highlights all the best aspects of your institution. Consider these pillars:

• Student and Faculty Spotlights: Share video interviews or short articles featuring outstanding students, a professor's groundbreaking research, or a staff member making a difference on campus.
• Campus Life and Events: Give followers a look at day-to-day life. Post photos from club activities, short videos from sporting events, and updates about upcoming guest lectures or performances.
• Alumni Success Stories: Nothing demonstrates the value of your education better than the achievements of your graduates. Feature alumni profiles with photos and a small Q&A about their career journey.
• Academic Program Highlights: Go beyond the course catalog. Create engaging posts that detail what makes a particular major or department unique, like special projects, new facilities, or hands-on learning opportunities.
• Industry Insights and Thought Leadership: Share articles, research papers, or commentary from your faculty. This positions your institution as an intellectual leader in various fields.

The key is consistency. Aim to post 3-5 times a week to keep your page active and your audience engaged.

Level Up: Using LinkedIn’s Powerful Alumni Tool

One of the most valuable, and often underutilized, features of a LinkedIn School Page is the dedicated "Alumni" tab. This tool automatically aggregates the profiles of all LinkedIn members who have listed your school in their education history. For visitors, especially prospective students, this is an incredibly powerful resource.

They can see:

• Where your alumni live and work.
• Which industries and companies they work in.
• What they studied and the skills they acquired.

This provides tangible proof of the career outcomes your institution facilitates. As a school administrator, you don't have to manually manage this data, LinkedIn does it for you. You can, however, use these insights to identify strong alumni networks in certain cities or companies, discover potential guest speakers, and highlight notable career paths in your content.

Final Thoughts

Creating a LinkedIn School Page is a straightforward process that grants access to a powerful platform for connecting with your entire educational community. By following the steps to build, optimize, and share content on your page, you can create a vibrant professional hub that strengthens your brand, engages alumni, and attracts the next generation of students and faculty.

Once your page is live and optimized, maintaining a consistent stream of content is what will truly bring it to life. At Postbase, we designed our platform specifically to help with this. We find that a simple, visual calendar makes it much easier to schedule out your student spotlights, alumni stories, and campus event updates weeks in advance. With reliable scheduling for the visual content that performs best - like short videos and photos - we can help you build an active presence on LinkedIn without the daily stress. If you're looking for a modern way to manage your school's social media, give Postbase a look.