LinkedIn rolls out Follow Company button for all sites

LinkedIn announced a new Follow Company button Monday, which the social network thinks will make it easier for companies to communicate and interact with their customers. Beginning immediately, companies can grab the snippet of code to add it the button to their own sites and start collecting more followers.

“The Follow Company button makes it easy for the more than two million brands with LinkedIn company pages to attract new followers and engage with them socially in a uniquely professional context,” Hani Durzy, LinkedIn‘s director of corporate communications, told VentureBeat.

Much like adding a company as your friend on Facebook, clicking the Follow Company button while logged onto LinkedIn enables users to automatically follow the company and check in to see the latest information posted by that company on its official page. Status updates from the company will automatically appear on the follower’s home page, altering them to breaking company news, career opportunities (LinkedIn’s bread and butter), or industry trends.

LinkedIn currently has over two million companies in its network and some large brands have already deployed the Follow Company button, including Starbucks, DonorsChoose, Sony, American Express, and AT&T.

“Most of the 150 million LinkedIn members expect companies to have a presence on LinkedIn, and about 70% of LinkedIn members already follow or would follow companies on the platform,” said Durzy.