The ability to follow a company on LinkedIn was introduced to users at the end of April. But it was quite limited in terms of what you could actually see by following a company. You would be able to receive updates on basic information with recent hires, promotions, job opportunities, but the actual company page looked quite basic, and we were left wondering a little about what real benefits following company profiles would have.

But since the changes implemented at the end of September, company profile pages look very different. They now offer more opportunities for users to really see what your company is about on a much more attractive looking page.

It doesn't offer the same kind of interactivity as a company Facebook page or a Twitter profile, but you can now update your company profile with content by incorporating your other social streams by linking your company Twitter profile to display your latest tweets, and by putting on your company blog RSS feed.

So it's not a static page anymore, it's living and breathing with updates about your company, offering another platform to show what you do as part of the way you use LinkedIn to promote yourself and your business.

Users viewing your page will now get a more detailed view of your company, as the profiles of the employees have been used to create lots of different sets of statistics. There's company growth, the composition of job roles in comparison with similar companies, who out of your connections are employees or former employees at the company and also users can see which other company profiles people have viewed, years of work experience, universities attended and where employees call home and which employees are most recommended.

That's a lot of stats! It seems it's never been easier to a research a company and it's history. You can track it's real activity now with these extra features that allow updated content, rather than basic things before with company follow such as job hires. So following a company will really become a valued feature.

In addition to these changes to company profiles, LinkedIn have also added a 'Careers' tab to the profile, which will allow companies to post jobs for potential candidates, but will also allow them to give an overview of how you could work for the company and what it's like. Companies can post relevant content such as current employee endorsements, video content, recruiter profiles candidates can message directly and detailed analytics.

So it's being made easier for recruiters to find potential job opportunities and find and learn more about companies they would like to work for. This seems to be another step for LinkedIn in establishing themselves as 'the' online recruiters.

The new company profiles offer another avenue to promote your company on LinkedIn in addition to your personal profile. Being able to update them with fresh content and information about your company will now make you want to get those follower numbers as high as your Twitter followers.