Yes, you can, too, publish on LinkedIn

In 2014 LinkedIn opened its formerly exclusive publishing platform to everyone.  On your homepage you might have noticed the button “Publish a post”.  This creates an exciting new opportunity to broaden the audience for your content, with very little downside.

Content posted on LinkedIn is automatically shared with your connections and visible to everyone.  LinkedIn’s built-in sharing features also make it easy for others to recommend your stuff to their networks on LinkedIn and elsewhere.

If you already contribute to a blog on a regular basis, consider cross-posting the content to LinkedIn.  Vary headlines to measure impact, remembering that lists and how-to advice work well with that audience.  My experience has been that LinkedIn generates more views, shares and comments than content posted on my blog.  There are prominent links to your profile if people want to connect with you, and your posts show up on your profile page.

I was pleased to see our Profitecture students, Jennifer Bridgeman and Kimberlee Kemble , taking advantage of this feature:

Viral Marketing, does it have its place in IT? by Jennifer Bridgeman of Present

I’m Still Standing (Or why I’ve stayed with IBM for 33 years) by Kimberlee Kemble of IBM

A friend of mine uses LinkedIn to drive traffic to his blog by starting the post on the LinkedIn publishing platform and then continuing it on his own site.  I love that idea!

One cautionary note: Google has warned in the past that duplicate content can negatively impact search engine optimization, but LinkedIn publishing users I’ve spoken to have said it hasn’t been a problem.  Even if there is a slight hit on search results, the expanded audience more than compensates for it.

 

About Paul Gillin

Paul Gillin is a writer, speaker, online marketing consultant and social media coach with Profitecture. Since 2005, he has helped business-to-business marketers at companies of all sizes and in many industries use social media and quality content to reach and engage with customers. He is also a prolific writer who has published more than 200 articles on the subject of new media. His books include: "The New Influencers" (2007), "Secrets of Social Media Marketing" (2008), "The Joy of Geocaching" (2010) and "Social Marketing to the Business Customer" (2011) and "Attack of the Customers" (2013). He has written the monthly New Channels column for BtoB magazine since 2006. Paul is a veteran technology journalist with more than 25 years of editorial leadership experience. His website is gillin.com and he blogs at paulgillin.com and Newspaper Death Watch.

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