Are you leveraging the online networking opportunities with LinkedIn? In 2012, I blogged about, How to Use LinkedIn to Generate Business Two years on and I still love LinkedIn. Hands down THE social media platform that generates the most leads and business for More in Store.
Just like the other social media platforms, LinkedIn continues to adapt and evolve their presentation and features. Most recently, LinkedIn announced that effective on April 14th they will retire the “Products and Services” tab from “Company Pages” and removed from LinkedIn all together.
As of April 14th the product and services tab has be deleted, effectively the tab is being replaced by the Showcase Pages. Showcase pages can be tested out now.
According to LinkedIn, here are three reasons to use a Showcase Page for your product and/or service content:
- ‘Showcase Pages’ were built to enable you to highlight a particular brand or product line.
- ‘Showcase pages’ make it easy to build a dedicated community on LinkedIn and start an ongoing conversation about a particular product or brand.
- ‘Showcase page’ followers know to expect news about your ‘product or service’ – in fact, they’re looking forward to it! And since Showcase Page updates work just like company updates, they offer all of the benefits detailed above.
I tried out this new feature and created a ‘showcase page’ for my Inbound Marketing Services. A couple of cool features that I liked about the new ‘Showcase pages’ are…
- ‘Showcase pages’ are Indexed and appear when using LinkedIn Search
This is a wonderful feature that we didn’t see with the ‘Company Page’s Service and Products’ tab. With the page being index you have the opportunity to gain exposure with non-followers – name your page wisely using highly searched terms to attract prospects.
2. Once your showcase page is set up, you can choose to post to your Company Page, to the Showcase page or to both. This will ensure the most targeted reach of your updates on LinkedIn.
The showcase pages are also more visual than original Company Pages’ Service and Products tab. The full width image allows you 973 x 330 pixel area to showcase your offering. Much like other social platforms you’ll need to layout your text around the logo that LinkedIn adds to the bottom left and the follow button they also insert over the full width image.
I can see the value of the Showcase pages and will likely create a few more. Are you putting a LinkedIn Company page to work for you? Not sure where to get started? Make tackling this important tactic easy with my free ebook, LinkedIn Company Pages.
And if your personal profile could use a little TLC, I have a free ebook for that too! Download a copy of Creating an Effective LinkedIn Profile.
Topics: linkedin, social media marketing, social media tips, inbound marketing, content optimization system, online marketing
