Exploring LinkedIn s Publishing Platform. How to Skyrocket Your LinkedIn Reputation and Influence

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1 Exploring LinkedIn s Publishing Platform How to Skyrocket Your LinkedIn Reputation and Influence

2 Table of Contents I. LinkedIn in II. What Is LinkedIn s Publishing Platform?... 5 III. Benefits and Relevance to Your Business... 7 IV. Step-by-Step Publishing Walk-Through V. How to Use LinkedIn Publishing Effectively VI. Recap and Wrap-Up VII. About OutboundEngine and the Author... 28

3 I. LinkedIn in 2015 LinkedIn is the social network for professionals from all industries worldwide. LinkedIn launched in 2003.

3 3 I. LinkedIn in 2015 LinkedIn is the social network for professionals from all industries worldwide. LinkedIn launched in Today it s an enormous, thriving social network, growing at a rate of two new users per second. Other interesting facts about LinkedIn: It is the world s largest professional social network, with 347 million users and 187 active users each month. Each day, 40 percent of LinkedIn s users check the site. Students and recent graduates make up LinkedIn s fastest-growing demographic, with 30 million users. LinkedIn s mobile website unique visits accounted for 41 percent of the site s traffic. With this much popularity on a global scale, it s safe to say that LinkedIn is here to stay. But what value are its members whether they are Fortune 500 employees or small business owners finding from the growing, online destination?

4 4 The three core benefits that LinkedIn continues to offer its members are: Connectivity Increased Exposure Reputation and Influence Growth. Connectivity: LinkedIn is the best way for industry professionals to stay connected to their past and present clients, coworkers and others in their industry. It s truly the modern Rolodex. And as more people turn to their own social and professional networks for advice or job recommendations, it s in their favor to build an established presence on the network to stay part of that conversation. Increased Exposure: Whether you re seeking new clients or to boost visibility within your industry, LinkedIn is a powerful network to accomplish both. Linking to your past clients creates a closer degree of connection to their networks. The same is true with connecting to influencers in your industry. Publishing original content on LinkedIn will significantly boost your audience reach to new heights (more on that in a bit). Reputation and Influence Growth: The great thing about LinkedIn is that it s an active record of your professional life, even when you re not active on the network. Growing your connections and getting endorsements and recommendations for your professional experience help your reputation grow. With that reputation boost, your professional influence skyrockets to new heights. Pretty powerful stuff. With increased exposure, reputation and influence, you ll be a powerful individual, recognized as a leader in your industry and sought by potential clients. Getting you there is what this guide is all about. LinkedIn s publishing platform is how to get there. The platform is the network s latest feature and is the tool that will inject your presence into far-reaching circles and will make your voice heard.

5 II. What Is LinkedIn s Publishing Platform? If you ve used LinkedIn in the past few years, you ve undoubtedly seen your connections or the industry influencers you follow post original content.

5 5 II. What Is LinkedIn s Publishing Platform? If you ve used LinkedIn in the past few years, you ve undoubtedly seen your connections or the industry influencers you follow post original content. They are doing this using LinkedIn s long-form content publishing platform. Before I get into the publishing platform, let me explain how this tool came to be, and how LinkedIn as a whole evolved along the way. In 2012, LinkedIn developers recognized they needed to evolve the product to get people coming back on a daily basis. The three things they identified that kept people coming back to networks like Facebook, Twitter, blogs and news outlets were content, curated news feeds, and influencers.

6 6 In 2012, LinkedIn launched a new function for its members, allowing them to follow the most influential thought leaders on their network, without having to connect with them first. Additionally, LinkedIn provided influencers like Richard Branson, Tony Robbins and President Barack Obama a platform to create and broadcast original content. Until this time, LinkedIn users could only share content links, making for a rather bland news feed. Then in 2013, LinkedIn acquired Pulse, an app designed to take content from multiple blogs and news sources, and organize everything into an easy-to-digest format for mobile use. LinkedIn had been doing its own experiment with content curation through its LinkedIn Today product. But after this acquisition, the network now had the ability to deliver relevant, timely and organized content to each member. The last piece of this puzzle was launching long-form content publishing for all of its users. Starting with a small group of 25,000 users, LinkedIn rolled out its publishing platform early last year. Later in the year, the company expanded the capability to all its users. With all the pieces in place, LinkedIn has transformed from a static, online resume to a dynamic tool for growing your virtual Rolodex. Pulse is now a daily destination for professionals to read updates on their industries and, in turn, add to the conversation through original content. Think of the Pulse publishing platform as your own personal blog, associated with your LinkedIn profile, used to help build your professional brand across many networks.

7 7 III. Benefits and Relevance to Your Business If social media has taught us anything, it s that people will go to where the content is, and that building an audience personal or professional is a lot of work. LinkedIn publishing is now at your disposal to help you build off the professional network you ve already created and provide you a platform to ease the burden of distributing content. This is a huge win for professionals everywhere. On top of boosting your professional reputation and credibility, here are a few more benefits to using LinkedIn Publishing: 1) Continual Exposure to Your Connections Staying in front of your past and present clients and industry connections is crucial to keeping your business growing. Like most businesses, your growth comes from word-of-mouth referrals and repeat customers. Updating your LinkedIn profile is a smart way to stay visible in the news feed, but LinkedIn publishing puts you right at the top of your network s Pulse feed and daily digest.

8 8 2) Access to New Audiences Whether you re targeting content to build your reputation within your industry, or writing to engage past clients to gain new ones, this tool can help you achieve your goals. Remember, LinkedIn bought Pulse to help sort and organize the most relevant content for each member. So with every post you publish, you re not only hitting your own connections, but other professionals you re not even connected to through LinkedIn Pulse. While researching success stories for this guide, I came across an executive assistant named Karen, who worked for a nonprofit organization. Karen had fewer than 500 LinkedIn connections. She published her first LinkedIn blog last year and her post about personal transportation got over 5,000 views and several comments. Through LinkedIn publishing, Karen connected with a group of people more than 10 times the size of her personal network. I d say that s a huge success.

9 9 3) Beefed-up LinkedIn Profile Every time you publish a post, a link to that post is immediately placed at the top of your profile. When someone comes across your online profile, they ll be greeted with your content. What do you want your first impression to say about you? 4) SEO Benefits Web analytics company, Alexa, ranks LinkedIn as one of the most visited websites globally. Your Pulse content will be accessible through Google searches, so your content will be indexed. Articles written for your industry could help you build your credibility as a knowledgeable professional; and ones written for your connections can brand you as a trusted resource and partner. 5) Second Life for Original Content Ever have a blog post that just didn t take off the way you wanted? Take that same content, give it a few edits and post it to LinkedIn Pulse. Not everyone reading your blog is going to read what you post on LinkedIn (and vice versa). Posting to both can increase the reach of your message. Posting a shorter version to LinkedIn first could be a great way to lead readers from LinkedIn to your blog or site for the full version. Here s an example of how Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes maximizes his content using both LinkedIn publishing and his company website:

10 10 The jury is out on whether or not republishing a blog post from your business page to LinkedIn Pulse will count against you in terms of SEO, but that isn t stopping the experts.

11 11 IV. Step-by-Step Publishing Walk-Through Now that you ve learned how publishing on LinkedIn can boost your reputation, grow your network, and increase your audience reach and exposure, let s dive in for a step-by-step look at how to do all this. For this walk-through, I ll use a post that I originally published on the OutboundEngine blog and republished on LinkedIn as an example. 1. Getting to the Publisher From the homepage of LinkedIn, you ll see a bar under your name, with options to share an update, upload a photo or publish a post. Click on Publish a post.

12 Here s the link to access publishing directly: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/new.

12 12 Here s the link to access publishing directly: LinkedIn changes its layout a few times a year, so bookmark that link for future reference, in case the publish icon moves around. 2. Adding an Image to the Post All posts you publish on LinkedIn publishing will need an image. Find something that straddles the line of being a literal representation of your title and being an abstract representation. Avoid corporate stock photography if at all possible. There are plenty of free image sites out there, but my personal favorite is Pixabay. LinkedIn will automatically zoom and crop your photo for you in a landscape orientation, but it s best to find something already in landscape orientation.

13 13 Google indexes images along with text. So to help your post gain SEO traction, name your photo using the title of your post, or at least include a few keywords from your post.

Write a Catchy Title One of the best writing tips I can offer you is to write your title before you start writing your post.

14 14 Once you ve got your image, click on the add an image text in the middle of the screen. After it s been uploaded, use the drag and drop icon to position it appropriately for your post. 3. Write a Catchy Title One of the best writing tips I can offer you is to write your title before you start writing your post. This will help you zero in on what you re writing, so you don t get off track along the way. I ll have more on writing titles in Section V, but try to keep the character count low and the topic neutral.

15 4. Start Writing! You could easily start writing right on the page. But it s a good idea to first write in Google Docs or Microsoft Word, which have grammar and spell checkers.

For this example, I m using Google Docs, so I can share my work with my team for critiques and edits without having to worry about combining multiple Word docs before publishing.

15 15 4. Start Writing! You could easily start writing right on the page. But it s a good idea to first write in Google Docs or Microsoft Word, which have grammar and spell checkers. Writing drafts on a separate word processing program also prevents publishing gaffes, such as inadvertently hitting the publish button before your post is ready. For this example, I m using Google Docs, so I can share my work with my team for critiques and edits without having to worry about combining multiple Word docs before publishing. This next step is not necessary, but does help with formatting and makes your post look great. After writing, copy the post into a raw text editor. This removes any fonts, styles or formatting that might not transfer correctly to LinkedIn. On PC, I d recommend Notepad++ and for Mac users, TextWrangler is my favorite (as seen below).

16 Paste your post into your text editor, then recopy the text and paste it into LinkedIn. Voilà! You ve successfully pasted your post, free of formatting errors into the publisher. 5.

16 16 Paste your post into your text editor, then recopy the text and paste it into LinkedIn. Voilà! You ve successfully pasted your post, free of formatting errors into the publisher. 5. Format Your Text and Hyperlinks Now it s time to spruce up your post. People are instinctively drawn to layouts that are well organized and can be easily scanned. Organizing content into numbered lists is an easy way to order a post. It also gives readers upfront information about what they ll be reading and what their final destination is. For this post about marketing, I organized the content into a list of 10 questions. For each of my numbered headings, I applied an H1 (heading 1) format, which increases the font size and helps break apart the text so it flows into digestible chunks.

17 Where it made sense, I listed items. To format text as bulleted items, click the bullet point option in the text edit menu at the top. Also, good blog posts link to external sites.

17 17 Where it made sense, I listed items. To format text as bulleted items, click the bullet point option in the text edit menu at the top. Also, good blog posts link to external sites. If you re citing sources, you ll want to add links to those sources. Referencing an example or making a recommendation would be other good opportunities to link to external sites. Highlight the text you want to hyperlink, then click the link icon in the text format menu bar at the top.

than posts without. Images give color and life to your post and can help keep the attention of your reader.

18 18 6. Add Some Images We re all visual beings. As with ads, websites and other social media posts with photos, your LinkedIn blogs with images will perform better than posts without. Images give color and life to your post and can help keep the attention of your reader. To add an image to your post, place your cursor within the text, where you want it to go, then click the camera icon in the upper-right corner. When your image first loads, it will be disproportionately large.

19 19 Never fear! Simply click on your image, and grab one of the corners to resize. After you ve placed your images where you want them, you can also change which side of the post they appear on. Click on your image, and from the text edit bar, click the right-justify icon. This will place your image on the right side of the post.

As an example: I was publishing a LinkedIn post about email marketing. It just so happens that I recently wrote a guide to email marketing.

20 20 7. Calls to Action In addition to boosting your reputation and influence, your content can help grow your business. For me, helping my business grow comes by collecting lead data from content downloads. To boost my content downloads, I insert an image that serves as advertising within the text. As an example: I was publishing a LinkedIn post about marketing. It just so happens that I recently wrote a guide to marketing. Without making my guide the primary focus of the post, I promoted it to readers through an ad. To make your image clickable and take readers to a landing page, select the image you ve added, then click the link button in the text edit bar. This links your picture to your website. While my call to action is to download my guide, yours may be to join your newsletter list or to take a tour of your website. Inserting an ad is just another way you can get value from posting on LinkedIn.

21 8. Credit the Source Since I originally posted this email post on our corporate blog, I added this statement to the bottom of the post,

Hootsuite s CEO first publishes content to LinkedIn and then posts the same content to his corporate blog, citing LinkedIn as the original

21 21 8. Credit the Source Since I originally posted this post on our corporate blog, I added this statement to the bottom of the post, to lead people to our website: And if you ll recall from Section III, this practice can go both ways. Hootsuite s CEO first publishes content to LinkedIn and then posts the same content to his corporate blog, citing LinkedIn as the original source. 9. Publish and Promote After giving your post a quick read through, you re ready to push it live. Click Publish in the upperright-hand corner and confirm Yes, publish it.

22 Congratulations! You ve officially published original content on LinkedIn! The next screen you re taken to is your live, published post. From here, it s time to spread the word.

22 22 Congratulations! You ve officially published original content on LinkedIn! The next screen you re taken to is your live, published post. From here, it s time to spread the word. Use the social share buttons at the bottom right side of your header, or copy and paste your post s URL and manually share it with your networks. Check out the full version of my published post here. 10. Track Your Progress As you become more comfortable with publishing your own content, you ll want to track your progress. Check the post dashboard to see how many views your posts have had, the number of likes they have received, and any commentary. Click here to get to your post dashboard.

23 Now that you re publishing content, people will be able to follow you, in addition to connecting with you on LinkedIn. In the image above, you can see my follower count is now in the 1,000s.

23 23 Now that you re publishing content, people will be able to follow you, in addition to connecting with you on LinkedIn. In the image above, you can see my follower count is now in the 1,000s. Pretty cool, considering I have 600 connections on here. This means that more than 400 people have subscribed to get my updates when I post original content on LinkedIn. Lastly, as I mentioned earlier, LinkedIn does a number of product updates throughout the year and it s in your best interest to bookmark that link as well.

24 V. How to Use LinkedIn Publishing Effectively Now that you know the benefits to publishing content on LinkedIn and seen how easy it is to do, let s talk strategy and how to make the most of your

24 24 V. How to Use LinkedIn Publishing Effectively Now that you know the benefits to publishing content on LinkedIn and seen how easy it is to do, let s talk strategy and how to make the most of your time. 1. Figure Out Your Audience Before you start writing, decide if your post is meant to reach your existing customer base or if you want to elevate yourself professionally within industry circles. Your audience will impact what you write. When targeting your client base, to stay top-of-mind and be seen as a trusted professional, focus your content on something that your clients will find useful. For example, if you re in real estate, write about selecting a contractor or a top-10 list of design sites. If you want to build your reputation in the real estate industry, write content that showcases your real estate knowledge. You might want to write advice on how to make the most out of Zillow ad spend or increase referrals from past clients.

25 25 2. Have an Updated Profile This advice should go without saying, but it s still incredibly important to mention. When you publish a post, people outside of your network will be able to view it. So you need to make the best first impression possible. Update that photo and have your byline and current title filled out. These are the two things that people will see with every post you publish. ADDITIONAL READING: 30 Quick Tips to Spring Clean Your Social Media Presence 3. What to Write About It s tough to write, especially if you re not sure what to write about. Here are five steps to help you figure this out: 1) Define strategy: Define your own strengths and use them to your advantage. Write from your experiences. 2) Build personas: Figure out the characteristics of your audience. What excites them? 3) Identify problems: Make a list of common questions or problems that your audience has. 4) Create solutions: Use these problems as topics and from your own experience, write the answers. 5) Assess content: Does your post provide a solution to a problem that your audience cares about? ADDITIONAL READING: Why Customer-Focused Content Marketing Rewards You in the Long Run 4 Secrets to Finding Inspiration, Motivating Yourself to Write and Making it Meaningful 4. Title Best Practices Titles are the only incentive people have to read your content and it s easy to breeze through this step without giving it a second thought. But even your best post can have minimal success if the title doesn t grab attention. Here are a few pieces of advice to writing high-performing titles: Write three to four titles and ask a friend or coworker which one they d click. Make your title 40 to 49 characters long (this length will get you the most views). Don t ask questions. Question posts perform poorly, compared to statements. 5. When to Post The best answer to the question, When should I post content? depends on what sort of success you ve seen personally, experimenting with different days. However, OkDork has found that Thursday (by far) is the best day to post original content on LinkedIn.

26 26 6. Write for 11-Year-Olds Not everyone is as smart as you are, nor will they devote 100 percent of their focus on your content. People skim, digest quickly and move on. That s why it s imperative that you write for an audience of 11-year-olds. Avoid complicated words, break up your copy with section headers, and include photos. 7. Try Different Lengths The jury is still out on this one. One study says that LinkedIn posts between 1,800 and 2,000 words outperformed other content; another study said that posts with fewer than 1,000 words are the way to go. While not specific to LinkedIn posts, Tomasz Tunguz sums this dilemma up nicely: The best length for a blog post is the length required to capture and convey the message. No more, no less. 8. Be Neutral As it turns out, getting your audience fired up with an alarmingly negative post title or one that is overwhelmingly positive are not the way to go. Neutral posts performed the best on LinkedIn. 9. Get Featured Here s a nifty little pro tip to help get you featured by LinkedIn Pulse. When promoting your posts on Twitter, tag the LinkedIn editorial team using at the end of your tweet. Don t just tweet the title of your post though. Make it a call to action. Here s what I tweeted about my post: Stop guessing and Googling; the full list is compiled. Most burning Q&A s about marketing The LinkedIn editorial team has a full write-up on how to get their attention here. 10. Use LinkedIn s Resources Lastly, always take advice from the company providing the platform. LinkedIn has a super helpful resource page devoted the best practices and what not to do for publishing posts on Pulse.

27 VI. Recap and Wrap-Up LinkedIn has given users an amazing opportunity to build their online reputations, both in their professional, as well as their customer circles.

27 27 VI. Recap and Wrap-Up LinkedIn has given users an amazing opportunity to build their online reputations, both in their professional, as well as their customer circles. While publishing long-form content to Pulse is only one aspect of LinkedIn, it is the best tool on the network to catapult your name and voice into the great beyond. The key things to remember are: Know your direction and audience before you start. Write for your audience, not for yourself. Follow the advice and best practices of others. Learn through experimentation. Never stop exploring.

with customers and prospects, and turns online engagement into revenue.

28 28 VII. About OutboundEngine and the Author About OutboundEngine OutboundEngine is a 100 percent done-for-you , social media and content marketing platform that helps business owners stay top of mind with customers and prospects, and turns online engagement into revenue. The cloud-based platform automates the delivery of timely, tailored s, as well as social media and content marketing campaigns for all kinds of industries. Its personalized approach helps business owners nurture and reach customers, while freeing them up to do what they do best their jobs. For more information, see: About the Author As Product Marketing Manager, Travis Balinas is responsible for communicating to the world about OutboundEngine. From all content creation on the website, social media channels and documents both internal and external, Travis crafts everything to help our clients reach their goals.

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