With more social media conversation shifting to DMs, and away from public feeds, LinkedIn’s looking to build out its messaging tools, with a view to facilitating more professional connection and interaction via InMails in the app.

And this could be a big step – today, LinkedIn has launched a new option that will enable Company Pages to send and receive DMs.

As you can see in this example, now, users will be able to DM a Company Page, and start a conversation in the app, with Page admins able to respond as the Page, providing another engagement option.

As explained by LinkedIn:

“With Pages Messaging, members can reach out to brands through a one-to-one message, which has previously only been available for member-to-member interactions, about topics like products and services, business opportunities and more. Organizations will have a dedicated inbox so that they can manage these two-way conversations and prioritize inquiries that matter most to their business.”

That’ll no doubt see a lot more people messaging companies to ask about opportunities, which, for big corporations, could require a bit of management. But with LinkedIn’s ‘focussed inbox’ process also separating DMs based on priority, and topic settings for page messages, that should take at least some of the work out of sorting through such – while brands will also be able to switch off the Message option if they choose.

LinkedIn’s been testing the option out with selected users over the past month, so you may have already seen it in action in the app.

LinkedIn says that over 63 million companies are actively posting to their Company Pages in the app, which underlines the potential of Page messaging as a connection and engagement option, and it could facilitate all new types of direct interactions, and spark new opportunities.

And it might also soon have an AI assistant element too, which is another aspect that LinkedIn’s working on. That could be particularly helpful for lead nurturing, giving you the capacity to research the user that you’re engaging with in-stream, without having to scroll through their profile or posts yourself.

There’s a range of ways this could be used – I wouldn’t say that it’s a ‘game-changer’ as such, but it’s another potentially valuable consideration to factor into your LinkedIn marketing approach.

LinkedIn says that Company Page messaging is being rolled out from today.