LinkedIn Products & Services Tab to Disappear from Company Pages

In case you haven’t heard, LinkedIn Products & Services are going away – that’s right, LinkedIn is doing away with their Products & Services tab for company pages… and any recommendations that others may have posted for your company’s products & services will disappear as well 🙁

You can still download those recommendations (see the link and the below quote for details), so not all is lost. What it boils down to is yet another change in the rules, which just reinforces my belief that you shouldn’t do all your marketing on one platform that you don’t control.

What does this mean for your page?

Your Products & Services tab will be removed on April 14, 2014. Until then, you can edit existing products and services, but the ability to add new products and services will no longer be supported.

If you’re a Company Page admin, you can save recommendations by copying them from the tab into your own document. You can also request a copy of the recommendations that were present as of March 4, 2014. The recommendations will be available through Customer Support until Friday, May 30, 2014. Note: If you want to use the recommendations in promotional or marketing materials you’ll need to get permission from the individual who made the recommendation.

Going forward, you’ll be able to use “Showcase Pages” and Company updates to keep your customers and prospects in the loop about featured products and services, but LinkedIn is making it clear that these are to be used for long-term, not short-term marketing campaigns:

“A Showcase Page should be used for building long-term relationships with members who want to follow specific aspects of your business, and not for short-term marketing campaigns.”

Could this be a sign that LinkedIn is coming out with something new to address short-term marketing campaigns?  Or are they trying to boost LinkedIn ads?  Or is it really as they say, in line with their “aim to provide a simple and efficient experience for our members”?

The full article from LinkedIn is here:
https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/47952/

And here’s a link to their help center’s posts about using Showcase Pages:

https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/44865/related/1