This content is from Social Media Examiner
Are you looking for more ways to use LinkedIn for your business?
Have you considered showcase pages?
LinkedIn showcase pages enable you to promote certain products or services to specific customer segments.
In this article, you’ll discover how to use LinkedIn showcase pages for your business.
What Are Showcase Pages?
Showcase pages are an extension of your LinkedIn company page and allow you to highlight a particular product line or brand. Although you need to have a company page to create showcase pages, they’re somewhat of a standalone feature. Each showcase page has its own followers, status updates and functionality, sort of like a mini LinkedIn company page.
A showcase page works similarly to a company page. It has its own followers, and you can post status updates to the page.
Any showcase pages you’ve created for your business are listed in the right column of your company page. For example, IBM has a number of showcase pages, including IBM Cloud, IBM Analytics, IBM Security, IBM with MSPs, IBM Social Business and IBM Watson.
All the showcase pages you’ve created are found in a list on the right side of your LinkedIn company page.
Here’s how to set up showcase pages for your business’s products and services.
#1: Choose a Page Name
First, you need to choose a page name. To take advantage of showcase pages for SEO, include your target SEO keywords as part of the page-naming process. For example, because I provide search engine optimization training, I claimed, created and optimized the showcase page with the same name: Search Engine Optimization Training.
The URL for the showcase page I claimed is http://www.linkedin.com/company/search-engine-optimization-training.
As you can see from the URL, showcase pages are not directly linked to your LinkedIn company page. The URL just says …/company/…, and only the name of the showcase page is included in the URL. This means no one else can claim a LinkedIn showcase page with that same name. It’s sort of like registering and claiming a really cool .com URL and making it yours.
#2: Create a Showcase Page
To create a showcase page, log into your LinkedIn company page, hover or click on the down-pointing arrow next to Edit and select Create a Showcase Page from the drop-down menu.
To create a showcase page for a product or service, go to your company page, click the Edit button and then select Create a Showcase Page.
You can claim up to 10 showcase pages for your company. If you need additional pages, reach out to LinkedIn’s support team and request them.
#3: Optimize the Page for Search
Without a doubt, Google loves LinkedIn company pages, and frequently ranks them high in search results if they’re properly optimized. The same principle applies to showcase pages. The more followers you have and the more actively those followers engage with your showcase page, the better.
There are a number of ways you can optimize your showcase pages for search. You get more SEO juice by including target SEO keywords in the showcase page name (as described earlier) and in the description. You can use up to 200 characters to draft an engaging and compelling product or service description, so make good use of this real estate.
In the Website area of your page, make sure you include a link to the corresponding service or product page on your website.
To optimize your showcase page for search, include target SEO keywords in the product description, add your website URL and upload a logo and header image.
Also add your logo and a header image to your showcase page. For the header image, you can upload an image in the PNG, JPEG or GIF format. The maximum file size for the image is 2MB, and it must be 974 x 330 pixels or larger.
Be sure to invite people to follow your showcase page and encourage them to engage with your posts. When you post status updates on the page, keep them focused and include your target SEO keywords.
Companies Using Showcase Pages
Here’s a look at how three well-known companies use showcase pages to promote their products and services.
Adobe Creative Cloud
The Adobe Creative Cloud showcase page has more than 15,700 followers and features an excellent and relevant header image. The Adobe company page encourages visitors to follow all of their LinkedIn showcase pages.
The Adobe Creative Cloud showcase page includes the product logo and an eye-catching header image.
Intel IT Center
The Intel IT Center showcase page, which has more than 47,200 followers, takes advantage of the Featured Groups function to cross-promote their Intel IT Center LinkedIn group. They also have a status update pinned to the top of the page to maximize visibility and engagement for the post.
The Intel IT Center showcase page cross-promotes their LinkedIn group as well as includes a status update pinned to the top of the page to make it more visible.
LinkedIn Social Selling
The LinkedIn Social Selling showcase page, which has more than 37,200 followers, also takes advantage of the Featured Groups function to cross-promote their corresponding group. Attracting attention these days can be challenging, so having two ways to reach your target audience on LinkedIn is a great strategy.
You’ll notice LinkedIn also pinned a status update to the top of this page. This feature is great for A/B testing to learn which posts and content your target audience responds to.
The LinkedIn Social Selling showcase page has an update pinned to the top of the page as well as cross-promotes the related group.
