LinkedIn launches new feature called ‘Company Pages’
LinkedIn today announced the launch of Company Pages to help businesses of all sizes attract new customers using trusted, professional product and service recommendations.
Company Pages help bring a brand to life by showcasing standout products and services on LinkedIn, an environment where millions of professionals turn to their networks for help making critical business decisions every day. By making it easy for customers and employees to become brand ambassadors, Company Pages help grow a company’s business virally through word-of-mouth, the most trusted form of advertising. At the same time, business professionals can write and share such endorsements to build out their personal brands, highlight their expertise in a given field and provide additional value to their connections.
“Company Pages take product and service recommendations to another level, allowing professionals to benefit from the considered perspectives of those whom they trust and relate to the most – the people they know,” said Jeff Weiner , chief executive officer of LinkedIn. “By displaying their strongest recommendations to prospective customers and employees on LinkedIn, businesses can use Company Pages to accelerate growth and trust in their brands.”
Today tens of millions of professionals follow more than a million companies on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date on new developments and opportunities. Company Pages makes it easier for businesses to engage with these professionals by serving as a dynamic, content-rich profile of record. In addition to product and service endorsements, businesses can display videos, featured product information and targeted ads on their Company Pages to drive sales and interaction. Company Pages are powered by LinkedIn’s new InPages platform, which in addition to enabling businesses to highlight product and service recommendations, allow them to spotlight star employees on their LinkedIn Careers tabs.
Several charter customers have already launched Company Pages to showcase their products and recommendations. These customers include leading-edge businesses of all sizes, ranging from Global Fortune 500 brands to innovative startups, such as Australian companies
LinkedIn’s Company Pages include several other exciting features to help businesses engage current and prospective customers and employees. For more details, please visit the LinkedIn blog, at http://blog.linkedin.com/ .
LinkedIn has always had the same problem though: it’s not where Australians are discussing these issues. Businesses are still using sites and forums (much like DB!
to discuss these things.
Companies need to be careful the don’t molest the new tool simply to create another brochure: I implore to articulate what reason their customers and brand advocates will have to (A) advocate their brand/products and (B) keep coming back.
Social media works: but for brands the hardest part is often the most overlooked: audience acquisition.
The brands and businesses who are continuing to offer expertise, value of facilitate the passions of their customers are the ones who are succeeding: not the ones with the biggest company page.
It’s no about what your customers can do for you: it’s about what you can do for your customers.
Jye Smith
I am struggling to find the differences between this and an advertisement or company website.
As Jye commented, there is not a big emphasis on helping others (in particular potential customers). This should be the focus of any good social media tactic.
If a business is confident of 90% of their customers being happy enough with their product/service, this could be a good way to house those recommendations for those that look them up online.
I think LinkedIn is a great service and tools such as this should provide businesses with another means of sharing information about their business. Where I have found LinkedIn lacking is in the group discussions area, as you point out that conversation isn’t happening within LinkedIn. For the businesses I have worked with anyway. Forums such as this and similar are much better. Not sure why because the number of groups and the signup to groups is large, its just that no one talks and they don’t talk about much.