Are you on LinkedIn? LinkedIn is the business network of choice for busy professionals. Did you know that LinkedIn also has business pages? The average household income of LinkedIn members is $109,000. Also, 45% of LinkedIn members are business decision-makers, compared to 25-29% of Facebook users. In an interview with Mike Stelzner of Social Media Examiner, Lewis Howes makes the case for using LinkedIn to grow your business.
LinkedIn recently made upgrades to their business pages to give them more interactive functionality. The overview page still allows you to insert your logo and write a summary of your company’s capabilities. Where it gets interesting is on the secondary pages listing your products and/or services.
I found 3 new features to be significant upgrades worthy of note.
Product and Service Spotlight
In this box, you are able to upload three pictures of your product or service. Three image formats can be used—jpg, gif or png. The image size requirement is 640 x 220 pixels and must have a destination URL attached to it —this allows you to drive traffic back to your primary website! The image box also has navigation arrows so that your visitor can view each image and potentially click through to your site three different times.
Video Boxes
In February 2011, comScore released a study revealing that 82.5% of the US Internet audience views video online. According to the study, viewers watched 75% more videos online in December 2010 than December 2008. Picking up on this, LinkedIn added video boxes on their Product/Service pages. Located in the right hand column, the video box gives you an opportunity to promote your company, services, and/or products in a video format. There are also video boxes on each of the individual product/service pages, so you have the potential to upload a video for as many products or services that you list. My only complaint is that the boxes sometimes appear below the fold, making them harder to find.
Page Templates
I’ve saved the best for last. LinkedIn now allows you to create a template page for your general audience. Once you’ve created your “default” version, you can go back in and create customized templates for your various niche audiences. LinkedIn asks you to name your target, choose targeting characteristics and then edit your default to fit your targeted audience. With multiple versions of your site, you can market more precisely to your visitors, based on keywords in their profile. I think this has the potential to be a real game-changer. Facebook doesn’t even do this!
Haven’t gotten around to creating your LinkedIn company page? Here’s an instruction booklet that LinkedIn created to help you do just that: http://bit.ly/jpfD4B Have at it and then feel free to post your new company link in our comments section. We’d love to see what you come up with!