In another step to improve LinkedIn company pages, LinkedIn have rolled out a new (ish) idea: ‘Product Pages’.
Product pages are a way for companies to feature specific products – in a similar way to different pages on a website. It’s a great step from LinkedIn to help companies amplify their profiles and deepen relationships with their followers and customers. Product pages have been seen before on our company pages on LinkedIn so it’s good to see them back. (Thank you to Mark Williams for that intel).
What does this mean for companies?
According to LinkedIn:
“With Product Pages you can spotlight product endorsements and testimonials by your users, gather ratings and reviews from current users, and generate leads with a custom call-to-action button, such as a demo request or contact sales form.”
That’s quite an impressive list of tools on offer. As well as the ability to provide a full range of comprehensive product information, consumers are invited to participate in the pages in an easily accessible way.
With company pages, LinkedIn are able to provide an almost complete ‘wrap around’ service for consumers potentially reducing the need to leave LinkedIn to visit the company’s website. It’s a clever move by LinkedIn for sure. No doubt sponsorship and advertising opportunities will soon follow if product pages really take off.
Which companies are already using product pages?
Currently it seems that LinkedIn are focusing their attention on offering product pages to B2B software companies. I’ve seen product pages on the pages of, for example: Zoom, Agorapulse, Asana, Atlassian (the creators of Trello), and Shield, although perhaps surprisingly not on the pages of Apple or Microsoft.
What does the customer journey look like on product pages?
Product pages are easy to access by the consumer. All they have to do is click the tab on the left of the home page and the different products appear in a menu:
One more click will take the consumer directly to the product page they are after:
What is so appealing is how the page first appears with the review report being extremely visible.
A short scroll down and what appears is very interesting: it’s a list of the consumer’s connections who are ‘skilled at this product’. This refers back to the skills section on home pages of personal profiles. What this provides is instant ‘social proof’ of the product as well as the facility for the consumer to find people to help them use the product if required.
With more and more consumers conducting detailed research of goods online before purchasing, it is essential for companies to provide good quality product information for online shoppers. On LinkedIn product pages, it is possible to upload all of your walk-throughs, videos, demos, interviewed reviews and user generated content in an easily findable place. LinkedIn really do seem to have thought of everything.
Call to action
Visitors to product pages have the opportunity to continue to be engaged in many different ways. LinkedIn have made it very easy for the audience to amplify the reach of the product by being asked to share in a post, send to another LinkedIn user in a DM or give feedback right there on the page.
They can also, of course, visit the company website or, with one click, they can start using the product immediately:
This took me straight to a page where I could begin setting up my Trello board. It was almost too easy not to start creating one there and then. (I resisted the temptation as I knew I had to finish this blog first!).
How are product pages different from spotlight pages?
Large companies with multiple offerings also have the facility to set up ‘Spotlight pages’. This means, potentially a product could have 3 LinkedIn pages: one of it’s own, a spotlight page and also a product page. Even though the content on the pages could be very similar – think of the reach and exposure that could result!
So why bother with both? Product pages are configured in a very different way from spotlight and company pages and provide a much more interactive experience for the consumer. If you’re given the opportunity to add product pages, I would recommend spending some time setting up really high quality product pages to maximise their potential.
When will our company have this facility?
Here, I am afraid dear reader, I cannot help you. LinkedIn roll out their new features at their own behest with no apparent order or logic.
Product pages are purely for the B2B audience at the moment and are only available for products, not service based companies. According to @socialmediatoday, LinkedIn say that:
“Today we have more than 10,000 Product Pages, across the B2B software category with plans to add more industries in the coming year.”
So keep an eye on your company page down the left hand side to see if that tab appears and if it does, get busy populating that page with information for your audience. Alternatively, you could always get in touch with @linkedInhelp to see if they can do something for you!
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