Some of you may have gotten an email from LinkedIn this week, stating that they are making some changes to Company Pages starting April 14th.
If you didn’t receive it, this is what it said:
What’s changing and what you should expect
On April 14th, we’ll remove the Products & Services tab from all Company Pages. We constantly evaluate how features are used and are making this change to focus on areas of the product that have proven more valuable for administrators and more engaging for your followers.
Until then, you’ll still be able to edit your existing Products & Services tab, but you won’t be able to add new items.
Where you should share content about your products and services now
While this tab is going away, we offer two alternatives for sharing products and services content that many companies are already using and benefitting from: your company’s updates and Showcase Pages.
Understandably, you might have a few questions from this. Allow us to break it down for you.
What does this mean for my company page?
LinkedIn is the number 1 social network for driving traffic to corporate websites. That’s an impressive number and one that shouldn’t go unnoticed. This means you should definitely be focusing on making your LinkedIn Company page the best it can be. This also means that LinkedIn has that focus too. Any changes they are making are surely with the intention of giving you the best value on your profile. It’s important to take note of their changes and adjust your LinkedIn strategy to best capitalize on the social network. As they state in their email, the two ways to do this are through updating your company’s status and through Showcase Pages.
What’s a Showcase Page?
Showcase pages were introduced in November 2013. They allow you to more effectively target your content and extend the presence of the company page you already have. You can use a showcase page to focus your marketing message to engage a specific audience. By creating a showcase page, you create a page that’s dedicated to each individual aspect of your business. You can also share content that’s specifically geared towards that content. For example, we might create a Showcase Page specifically dedicated to SEO. This Showcase Page would include news, information and updates about SEO, plus how to contact us for SEO help. You can have up to 10 Showcase Pages associated with your Company page, so be sure to create a plan for segmenting your products or service.
What’s a company page update?
You might already have a strategy for sharing an update on your company page. When you are on your main company page, as long as you are an admin on your page you will see a text box near the top that says Share an update. This is similar to sharing a tweet or a status update on Facebook – use this tool to tell your followers “what’s up” in your business’ world.
What’s my next step?
Before April 14th, take stock of your products and services pages on LinkedIn. Use the information on those pages to make your Showcase Pages. You might need to update the content on these pages as well – this is a good opportunity to do some “spring cleaning” on social media.
If you don’t have products or services pages on LinkedIn, review your company’s product offerings. Consider making Showcase Pages so that you can further expand the reach on your LinkedIn.
If you don’t have a LinkedIn Company Page at all, what are you waiting for?! Create one as soon as you can or give us a ring at 732-380-8400 and we’d be happy to do it for you. For more details on how to get started with Linkedin, read our blog post, “Social Media Content Rules: 7 LinkedIn Tips for Your Business.”
