Since its launch in May 2003, LinkedIn has become an essential tool for business professionals and companies. As well as being a networking tool and virtual CV for users, the Company Pages have developed hugely over the years and now enable significant brand development potential. They allow your company to connect and engage with followers interested in your brand.
Currently, if you have a Company page on LinkedIn, you have the ability to display the products and services that your company has to offer. Alongside the specific products and services images, links and descriptions can be added. However, as of April 14^th 2014 this will change. LinkedIn have announced that they will be removing all “Products and Services” sections from company pages. To help overcome this, LinkedIn have recommended ways of conveying the same information to your followers. 

Company Updates

Company updates can be seen both on your Company Page as well as on the newsfeeds of your followers; they can be added to and updated on a daily basis. Not only this, but they give you a chance to engage with your followers and the people who are interested in your brand. To take advantage of this, it is important to ensure that the information you are sharing is appropriate for your brand and target audience. Remember it is your Company not you or your individual employees speaking.

Showcase Pages

Similar to the soon-to-be defunct “Products and Services” section, these are subpages of the Company Page. Here, companies can showcase the specific services they offer and post regular updates to their followers.  Contrastingly to the “Products and Services” pages, these can be followed by users in the same way they would follow an individual Company Page.

Other features include:

• Analytics are available so that you can track what content your followers are interested in and engaging with. This is separate to the Company Page as a whole.
• Groups can be featured on the page, allowing you to promote networks that you are part of or are linked to your company.
• Just like the Company Pages, you can add the Showcase Pages to your Hootsuite account, making sharing content that little bit easier.
• If an individual is following one of your Showcase Pages this does not mean they will automatically be following the Company Page. This means users can be segmented and only be informed of the news that specifically interests them.

Company Recommendations

Company Recommendations are currently a part of “Products and Services” pages. When these disappear there will be nothing to replace them, or if there is LinkedIn have given no indication as to what this might be yet.

If you are an admin for a Company page, you can easily save the recommendations by copying them into a document. If you’re not able to do this before the 14^th April deadline, you can still request a copy of the recommendations direct from LinkedIn through their Customer Support Centre until 30^th May.

Although the section of the Company Page dedicated to recommendations will be gone, there is nothing stopping you from creating a Showcase Page dedicated to these testimonials, keeping them all in one place and easy to find for your followers.