Week 8: Adding Products and Services
I love this section of the LinkedIn company profile and a lot of people don’t even realize it exists. You have the opportunity to add all of your products and services, as well as pictures or video of your products and services, special offers, and descriptions—you can even ask for recommendations for your products and services! So let’s take a look at what you can do with this section of your LinkedIn company profile.
Monday: Add Photos, Descriptions, and Specialties
To get to Add Products and Services section, go to your company page and click the Products & Services tab; then click on the product or service you want to edit. You cannot edit your products and services from any other page. Once you click on the Products & Services tab, your Admin Tools change, and you can then click on the Edit link, as shown in Figure 4-9. If this option does not appear, make sure you are not still on the Overview page.
Figure 4-9: Editing existing products and services
If you are adding a product or service for the first time, make sure you are on the Products & Services page, click Admin Tools, and then click Add A Product Or Service. When you add a product or service for the first time, you need to specify whether it’s a product or a service, as shown in Figure 4-10.
Figure 4-10: Adding a new product or service
Add your product or service’s name. While you don’t have to upload an image, I recommend that you do so. It’s best if you have a vivid image that’s 100 × 80 pixels. You can use a PNG, JPEG, or GIF file.
You now have 1,000 characters to describe your product or service. And you actually get to format this section! Your options are bold, italics, underline, numbered list, or bulleted list. (You are stuck with LinkedIn’s font.) Make use of these tools so you can differentiate your Products & Services page and look much more professional than your competitors.
Even though you’ve already added specialties to your company description, you can add a list of product or service features. Use keywords in this section. They will show up as a bulleted list at the bottom of your page.
You can see in Figure 4-11 that MLT Creative does a great job of adding services to their company profile.
Figure 4-11: MLT Creative’s company page
Tuesday: Create Offers
Did you know you can create special offers on LinkedIn? The Products & Services page has a special field just for that. As of yet I’ve not seen anybody use this feature. So why not you? See how in Figure 4-12.
Figure 4-12: Adding a special offer
On the right side of your LinkedIn company profile Products & Services page, you’ll see the link Add A Promotion For This Product Or Service. You can give it a title, add a URL if you have a special landing page for this product or service on your website, and then write a brief description (500 characters) of the promotion.
As you add new products or promotions to your company, add them to your company page. I have seen very few companies making use of this section, but as LinkedIn ramps up its targeted follower updates, I think this section will get much more attention. A good example might be:
Miles Austin of www.fillthefunnel.com uses TimeDriver.com as a link to send people to in order to book a free 15-minute consultation with him. I think this is brilliant!
Wednesday: Add Disclaimers and Employee Promotion
Some companies have disclaimers on their websites. LinkedIn gives you the same opportunity to write a disclaimer right on your Products & Services page. This is not a bad idea at all! If you already have a disclaimer somewhere on your website, go ahead and add it to this section.
Industries that should definitely consider disclaimers include:
- Legal
- Medical
- Financial
- Marketing
Figure 4-13 shows a good example of a disclaimer.
Figure 4-13: Example of a disclaimer
For a great list of disclaimers, check out http://emaildisclaimers.com.
You also have the opportunity to highlight or promote an employee in association with a particular product or service. Click on the product or service you wish to feature, and on the right-hand side about halfway down the page you’ll see the Contact Us field. Start typing in the employee name that you wish to feature or promote. The only caveat here is that you must be connected to that individual on LinkedIn.
Thursday: Add Video and Recommendations
Did you know that you can add video to your LinkedIn company profile? What kinds of video might you add?
- Showcase your product or service
- Demonstrate it in use
- Share a video testimonial from a happy customer
- Show a funny viral video featuring your product or service
The only limitation is that the video has to be on YouTube.
In Figure 4-14 you can see how to add video. Here are the steps:
Figure 4-14: Adding video
You can also get recommendations from your fans and clients. According to a June 2010 CompUSA study, 63 percent of consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews.
If you click on the product or service you would like a recommendation from, you will have the option to request a recommendation. A message box will pop up (as shown in Figure 4-15) and you can request recommendations from anyone in your network. Don’t be afraid to ask your existing customer base who is on LinkedIn to send you a recommendation.
Don’t go with the default message shown in Figure 4-15. You have a great opportunity to individually connect with your customer and re-engage. It might be just the touch they need to call on you for more products or services.
When an interested party lands on your product page, they can also proactively write you a recommendation. Don’t rely on this method to get recommendations. Unless your clients absolutely adore you, they might not be inspired to take time out of their day to write a recommendation.
Figure 4-15: Product recommendations
Another way to ask clients and customers to recommend you is a Recommendations button for your product or service that you can put right on your website or in an email signature. You can get the code for such a button at https://developer.linkedin.com/plugins/recommend-button to proactively send your happy customers to your LinkedIn company profile.
When a LinkedIn user recommends one of your products or services, that message is displayed on that product or service page. The total number of recommendations from all your product and service pages are also displayed on the Products tab on your page as are the statistics impressions and engagement.
Friday: Use Targeted Product and Service Pages
Well, I have given you a few light Fridays, so this Friday I’m going to make you work! You can add for what all intents and purposes looks like a banner ad to your LinkedIn company profile. Most companies have not made use of this feature.
You can create up to 30 distinct landing pages for targeted audience segments based on a LinkedIn member’s company size, job function, industry, seniority, and/or geography.
To add a targeted company page, select the Companies tab on your LinkedIn home page and click on your company. Then select the Products & Services tab and click Edit. Do not go to a specific product—just the general Products & Services page shown in Figure 4-16.
Figure 4-16: Creating a targeted company page
There are four steps to defining your products and services to a specific niche market using this tool:
Figure 4-17: Targeting your audience
To see a great example of the targeted company services page, check out MLT Creative’s company profile. You can find it at www.linkedin.com/company/mlt-creative/products?trk=tabs_biz_product, or see Figure 4-18. Notice the call to action to Visit Now.
Figure 4-18: MLT Creative’s banner
