Many of you should now be aware of changes which will soon occur for Linkedin Company pages. Rather than the product and services tabs (which incidentally I quite liked), there will be a move to Showcase pages and making company updates. What does this mean for you and your company page?
- On 14 April the Products & Services Tab will be removed
- If you have any recommendations against specific products, please contact Linkedin to request a download of these recommendations so that you can repost them later. (You should receive an email from Linkedin explaining changes and a link to customer support to request this information up to 30 May, 2014)
- Right now you can edit tabs but not add any new ones.
- You will be able to create “showcase” pages which are essentially like a landing page for prominent products and services but these are not intended for short-term events such as a conference, workshop or trade show. Showcase pages may also be followed individually.
- You will need new images for the showcase pages. The “hero” image is 974 x 330 pixels. PNG, JPEG, or GIF. Max file size 2 M.
Square logo 50 x 50 pixels, Logo 100 x 60 pixels (both will resize to fit) - There is a limit of 10 Showcase pages per company page.
I have a small concern that the move to real-time might lead to more and posts via status updates, particularly for short-term services/products therefore Linkedin may start to seem more “spammy” with lots of posts trying to stay in the followers eye. There are positives of course, which are highlighted in Linkedin’s information on the changes.
Showcase pages will come with a URL but at this point these are not customisable which is a shame.
Here is an example of a showcase page.
Here are three reasons to use your company updates for your products and/or services content:
- Updates appear on your Company Page and in your followers’ feeds on every device – plus, when followers interact with your updates, your content is shared with their connections, helping your message spread further, faster.
- Company updates let you share compelling visual content, including videos that play directly in the feed, and direct members to customized landing pages rather than a one-size-fits-all destination.
- The real-time nature of updates makes them perfect for sharing news about your offerings, so your content feels relevant and timely.
Having updates post on company page and in followers feeds is great. Also love the move towards more visual content, but please please, make it relevant and useful, not pictures of cats and thousands of quotes. Moving to this may let even more bots infiltrate the platform.
I also feel that by having to repost recommendations, some of the benefit of having them posted directly by clients is diminished. Does this create an opportunity for the unscrupulous to embellish recommendations thereby further eroding the transparency that having recommendations post by clients provides? It might be appropriate to approach those who have provided personal recommendations to make that recommendation on your profile.
This has been a very quick overview. I would love your thoughts and feedback.
Fiona