In mid 2019, LinkedIn added a new feature to help service providers, like our Eskperts, market their services inside the LinkedIn community. You should consider becoming a “LinkedIn Service Provider”. Unfortunately, LinkedIn makes it difficult to become a service provider; this article will help you unlock this potentially powerful marketing channel.
In their announcement, LinkedIn describes the process as “simple”:
- Visit your profile page
- Click “Add Services”
- Click “continue” and this will automatically be added to your profile.
But what if your profile doesn’t have an area to “Add Services”?
LinkedIn Makes it Amazingly Difficult
Turns out, this isn’t a profile setting that needs to be turned on. What you need to do is join a special LinkedIn Group call the “SMP Group”. To do that:
- Login to LinkedIn in a new browser tab.
- Then click this link. The link takes you to the SMP Group page inside LinkedIn. The group appears legit – it’s admins look to be LinkedIn employees however the group is rather poorly maintained. We wouldn’t blame you if you thought the whole thing looks a bit sketchy.
- Click on “Request to Join”.
Although it’s a difficult process, we recommend all our eksperts become visible within LinkedIn as professional service providers. Here’s a video explaining the benefits of joining:
