Social media platforms such as LinkedIn are constantly tweaking existing features or introducing new features to help businesses better connect with their followers and customers.
LinkedIn recently introduced new features that could be helpful for your business to engage with customers in completely different ways:
- Create a Showcase page: a static page, similar to a landing page on your website, that showcases a particular product, service, or other offering that you want to highlight.
- Create an event: a live page that exists for a specified period of time broadcasting your perspective on a particular topic.
Both new features give you the opportunity to connect with your audience in different ways. Let’s dive into how to utilize these new LinkedIn features.
Creating a Showcase Page on Your LinkedIn Business Account
Get Started: When you are logged into your LinkedIn account, select your company’s business page from your profile dropdown menu.
Then, when looking at the Admin view, click on the Admin Tools dropdown menu to select “Create a Showcase page.”
What You’ll See: A pop-up window will appear with the ability to start creating a new Showcase page. The only options in the pop-window are titling the Showcase page and then adjusting the end of the URL.
- ProTip: Include the name of your business in the Showcase page title and the URL to ensure that the Showcase URL is tied to your business name when using the URL externally. For example, linkedin.com/showcase/your-business-name-2020-tax-support
Then, once you complete the title and URL fields, you will be able to start dropping in the content for your Showcase page.
When to Use this Feature?: LinkedIn recommends using the Showcase page to represent a new company initiative such as a new product, service, or offering, or if you are making a major company announcement such as a new business initiative. This is not recommended as a short-term marketing campaign or one-time event.
Showcase Page Features: Showcase pages include many of the same tracking features and general features as your LinkedIn business page. These include:
- Page analytics
- Activity notifications
- Sponsor updates
- Featured groups
- Social media content management
- Appear in search results for searches and Ads business accounts on LinkedIn
- Members can follow the Showcase page
The Fine Print: Unfortunately, you cannot migrate followers from your business LinkedIn account (or parent page) over to the new Showcase page. This means you will need to strongly promote the new Showcase page using your main LinkedIn business page feed.
Also, a Showcase page can only be associated to one LinkedIn parent page, which means if you have multiple LinkedIn business pages, you need to select which parent page is best associated with the new Showcase page.
Overall: This is a great tool to use when promoting or announcing something new that you want to get in front of a specific audience on LinkedIn. You may also want the news to remain visible and promotable for an extended period of time, rather than just disappearing into the abyss of your audience’s LinkedIn feed.
You can also extend your marketing promotion around the new offering by packaging a Showcase page on LinkedIn with a blog and Landing Page on your business website and an email to your marketing lists. Customizing the content for LinkedIn, the blog, the website page, and the email will help get your news in front of as many eyeballs as possible.
Creating a New Event on Your LinkedIn Business Account
The newest LinkedIn feature is the ability to create an event on your LinkedIn business page.
Get Started: When looking at the Admin Tools dropdown in the Admin view, click “Create an Event.” A pop-up window will appear with a lot of information to fill in.
What You’ll See: A lot of options! Let’s break this down.
– You can create an online or non-online event using the slidebar. Let’s focus on an online event.
If you already have an event scheduled, such as a Zoom webinar, you can drop in the broadcast link, add the date and time the event will begin and end, and add a description of the event.
If you would like to broadcast your event through LinkedIn Live, you do not need to drop a link in this pop-up window because LinkedIn will help you create the broadcast link. You should still set the date and time and add a description of the event.
– For a non-online event, the options change. For example, if you are hosting a seminar at your place of business or a special training session at an off-site training location, you will want to fill in the name of the location and the venue details.
You will also still have the option to create a broadcast link that allows you to broadcast the non-online event through LinkedIn. This would require you to have a camera set up at the location to broadcast the event.
– Another decision to be made at the event is whether this is a public event or private event. LinkedIn will ask you to select public or private no matter what type of event you are creating (online or non-online).
- Public event: this is visible to anyone on LinkedIn to attend.
- Private event: this is visible only to invitees and anyone else with the event link. If someone on LinkedIn comes across your event and they want to attend, they would need your approval to watch the event.
The Fine Print: LinkedIn has a designated Terms and Conditions page for the use of LinkedIn Events. The key elements include:
- Keeping your event professional, respectful, and safe.
- Not using the service to communicate or administer a promotion.
- Being upfront about any fees or costs to be charged during the event.
- Not abusing the platform such as making false claims or making misrepresentations about the event or the event content.
Overall: This is a new feature, so there are some technical or set-up issues that your business will need to work out when using the platform. However, this could be a great opportunity to leverage your LinkedIn Business page following to talk to your audience.
For example, you could host a webinar, host a topical discussion that positions you as an industry thought leader, or address a recent development in your industry. This is the ideal platform to send one message to a large audience.
Constantly Considering New LinkedIn Features for Our Clients
As a content marketer, my mind immediately jumps to opportunities for our Marketing Refresh clients to utilize new LinkedIn features.
For some clients, there is a clear opportunity to create Showcase pages promoting new offerings. For other clients, the ability to create an event on LinkedIn to talk directly with their audience represents a huge opportunity to build their industry influence and authority in the market. For some clients, both new LinkedIn features are great tools!
We will certainly be thinking through how our clients can utilize these new tools. We would also like the opportunity to work with your business to incorporate these tools into a larger content marketing strategy.
Need help with your content marketing? We have the know-how and tools to support your business. And, we’re pretty fun to work with. Let us know how we can help!
