By bbr

by Sarah Warlick, content director

You know those lovely words in praise of your firm that you proudly display on the firm’s LinkedIn Products & Services tab? Guess what? They’re going to disappear, along with the tab!

In the latest round of social media changes, LinkedIn is retiring their Products & Services tab as of April 14. That means you’ll need to make some adjustments to share the content that’s currently displayed on this tab in other ways. And lest you take this news with a yawn, figuring you’ll get to it…later…maybe…there is at least one aspect to the change that you really should not ignore.

When the old P&S tab goes away, the recommendations that are displayed on that page will disappear as well. Don’t let this happen! You work hard to please clients, and service that inspires a written recommendation shouldn’t be forgotten. To save these marketing treasures and ego boosts, it’s important that you take steps to save and transfer them to a new location.

You can go into your firm’s Page, assuming you have administrator privileges, and copy the recommendations to a Word file or other document saving tool. If you’d rather not for some reason, you can use this link through May 30, 2014 to ask LinkedIn to give you a copy. The platform offers you a copy of any recommendations as they appeared on March 4, 2014 for you to keep. Do remember that you have to get specific permission from the recommender in order to use their words for marketing or firm promotion.

What should you do with those old recommendations once you have them? Use them on LinkedIn, of course! Just because the old P&S tab is going away doesn’t mean you have to trash those wonderful words extolling your firm’s fabulous service, or any of the other wonderful content currently displayed on the tab. Your best options for communicating the kinds of information are using Showcase Pages and Company Updates.

LinkedIn suggests using Showcase Pages “for building long-term relationships” with those who follow your firm on the platform. This is where you can go into detail about what you do and for whom, and what makes your firm stand out from competitors. It’s also a great place for utilizing the recommendations that your firm has earned from clients and others with whom it works.

Company Updates are the posts you make that appear in the newsfeeds of all your followers, as well as on your firm’s Company Page. These are best for news, videos and current commentary, although you might also consider including the occasional glowing recommendation as it comes in (assuming its author is okay with that).

However you decide to use the recommendations that clients and others have given your accounting firm, you don’t want to let them just fall into the cracks of social media tectonic plate action and disappear forever. Words like these are special enough to merit a dedicated search and rescue mission, even if it’s just so that you can read them and smile. Being reminded that someone thinks you’re awesome is worth more than a little inconvenience.