Getting ready for the new LinkedIn Company Page

Social media is an area with many aspects to it and has important implications way beyond being a new marketing communications channel. Nevertheless, the basics are important and this post gives you a quick overview of the coming changes in LinkedIn’s Company Page and how to prepare for them.

Organisations will get a new LinkedIn Company Page “later this year”: this is an advance warning to start preparing your digital assets so that, when the new format is released, your content will be ready.

The main difference in the new layout is that a landscape cover picture at the top of the page is a key feature, similar to cover shots on Facebook and Google+. Updates get more prominence – compared to the About Section – and the layout has been streamlined to make navigation simpler and more intuitive.

The changes to Company Pages will only affect only the layout of your Company Page. In other words, no new features will be added; only the look-and-feel will be fresh.

LinkedIn is deleting the tabs that used to appear at the top of the page: instead, those sections have been highlighted in the right sidebar.

Some page elements, such as Recent Updates, Recruitment (We’re Hiring!) and the Products and Services sections of your page, are more prominently featured. The About Section will be moved to the bottom of your Company Page.

LinkedIn has now made the Follow button yellow and a bit more prominent. The button is directly across from the logo so that a natural eye movement will follow a grey strip to the right. These changes should increase the number of follows you get.

Mobile app changes

Another improvement for Company Pages is that they can now be accessed from LinkedIn’s iPad, iPhone and Android apps: they will have real-time notifications of actions taken by Connections and include the facility for Members to edit their Profiles on their mobiles.

Targeted content

The dialogue box that helps you target appropriate groups with company status updates.

LinkedIn is providing a more obvious option for targeting your Company Updates to certain segments of your audience. LinkedIn will be rolling out two new features for company pages, Targeted Updates and Follower Statistics.

Targeted Updates enable you to target company status updates to specific groups of followers so you can deliver the most relevant content to the most appropriate audiences. Companies can segment by variables like company size, industry, job function, seniority, geography and to include/exclude company employees.

While targeted updates will be displayed only on the LinkedIn homepages of the followers you target, all status updates you publish will be visible to anyone who visits your LinkedIn Company Page, regardless of whether those visitors were included in the initial targeting criteria.

After you post an update, you will be able to view metrics such as number of followers targeted, impressions, clicks, shares and engagement, as well as being able to review that post’s original targeting criteria.

The new Products and Services Section

The new version of the Products and Services page works in a very similar to the current one. The main difference is that it is now in the right sidebar and it also allows display of the names, job titles, companies, and Profile images of LinkedIn users in the visitor’s network who have recommended particular products/services on your page. This is a useful facility because it emphasises and displays testimonials much more prominently.

Below these highlighted users, you’ll find any videos you’ve added to the page in a similar way to the existing page layout. The layout is a bit more customisable, like the business pages of other social networks such as Facebook and Google+.