New Product Pages Offer Upside For Both B2B & B2C

LinkedIn unveiled a pre-Christmas treat for marketers as it announced Product Pages on the 15th of December.

Product Pages are a new offering from the social media platform. LinkedIn explains more, through their Product Marketing Manager Ryan MacInnis.

Ryan MacInnis, Product Marketing Manager, LinkedIn.

“(It’s) a dedicated tab on your LinkedIn Page to help you nurture conversation and build brand affinity with your customers and followers around what they love most about your company — your products.”

Product Pages are designed to build a community around your products to grow your business. They are also supposed to help brands and marketers connect with LinkedIn’s audience of 722 million users.

What Are They Good For?

You can use them to shine a light on endorsements and user testimonials, while Product Pages can also be a conduit through which you gather reviews of your products by your users. LinkedIn states they can also be used for:

1. Generating leads with custom call-to-action buttons
2. Add products you want to feature to the Products tab
3. Specify job roles that would benefit from your product

So there is some decent functionality for brands and marketers, who can use Product Pages as another avenue to try and build the business and connect with future clients – as well as show off their product offering via reviews.

Same, Same, But Different

Product Pages are a distinct offering from Showcase Pages and LinkedIn Pages.

Where a LinkedIn Page is designed for establishing a brand presence, a Showcase Page is to show off different brands under one parent company, but a Product Page should be used to build a community around a specific product.

LinkedIn thinks it has a unique place in the product review site space with their offering because they provide accountability through the community they want to build.

LinkedIn Product Pages FAQ

“Other product review sites provide basic product information and anonymous reviews from users that cannot be verified. With LinkedIn Product Pages, we’re creating a community and adding meaningful value to multiple stakeholders.”

The community consists of three stakeholders; buyers, users and brands, who all have their part to play and who all can find benefit in Product Pages.

All views and comments are from users with a full LinkedIn profile, which is designed to build trust within the network, while LinkedIn says it will police the space for fake profiles and act swiftly to remove.

There is one massive restriction. LinkedIn Product Pages can’t be used for services.

Sadly, at launch, they can only be used for a tangible thing sold to market. However, it will be launching a services marketplace ‘in the near future’.

Accessing & Using Your Product Page?

To access a Product Page, you need to be given admin rights. The LinkedIn Page admin will be able to do this for you, in a jiffy, if you do not currently have set up.

LinkedIn Product Pages FAQ

“Once you are a LinkedIn Page admin, you will see a “Products” tab at the top of the admin view of your LinkedIn Page. Selecting this will give you access to the Product Pages that were published.”

Brands and marketers who want to use LinkedIn Product Pages need to make sure they can get high-quality reviews. These will make or break your Product Page.

LinkedIn recommends that one of the first things you should do after publishing is to find these quality reviews. Here are some best practices, as per LinkedIn:

• Your first 20 reviews are the most important in setting the tone for quality, holistic reviews on your Product Page; please spend time strategising your outreach
• The best reviewers have in-depth knowledge of your product and can speak about specific features and experiences; customers with case studies are a great starting point
• Ask your Product Marketing, Customer Success, Social, or other Community Managers for customer contacts and outreach support

Interestingly, maybe try not to lean on your employees for product reviews.

Reviews made by employees will be distinguished with a badge, and users may not find these as trustworthy as reviews sources from customers.