LinkedIn Pulse is a feature that LinkedIn have added so that you can publish your own content, similar to a blogging platform and start reaching their huge member base.
Accounting firms have recognised the value of sharing content via their own blog – and we’ve long recommended that they do so. But how does a blog work with LinkedIn Pulse? Can they work together? Is duplicate content an issue?
The main difference between having a blog on your website and a blog somewhere else is that when you publish a new LinkedIn Pulse article or piece of content, everyone that you’re connected to will get a notification that you’ve published it. Also if people you’re connected with start to like it, comment and share, people that they are connected to will also see the content that you’ve published.
It allows you to get in front of not only your own connections, but also new people that you haven’t met, and mutual friends and mutual connections with the people that you are connected to. It’s a really powerful feature but it’s a bit hidden away in LinkedIn and not everyone knows how to use it or benefits of using it.
If you go to LinkedIn.com/Pulse you’ll see your own LinkedIn blogging feed with different content that people have published. There will be updates from influencers like top CEOs, people who have large companies and you’ll also see posts from people in your network.
Is it duplicate content?
In short, posting your content on LinkedIn and your firm’s blog will not mean your website will get penalised by Google. The only thing that will happen is Google will choose to rank one of those websites where your content appears higher than the other. This isn’t a problem for most people since the goal is to get more people to read your content regardless of where it is they actually read it.
The only way duplicate content is an issue is if:
- Your website copies everything from another website
- Someone else 100% copies your content and gets credit for what you wrote
Why try LinkedIn Pulse?
- Get exposure to LinkedIn’s huge audience – you will be able to reach a lot of people that you won’t be able to reach through guest blogging or other social media channels.
- Short articles can do well on LinkedIn – over 70% of Pulse featured articles are under 1,000 words.
- Instant approval – Pulse articles are published instantly when you hit the publish button. With guest blogging, popular blogs will often take a few weeks to go live.
- Build your profile – Your articles will be added to your LinkedIn profile page so any of your connections (or prospects if you’ve got an open account) can see what you’ve written, and advised on.
What to consider when writing your post
Consider how you can you provide value to your connections
It’s not necessarily always talking about you, or your firm – especially if you’re doing this on a regular basis. You can weave in the odd one now and again if you have a big announcement. The main content needs to appeal to your target audience, provide valuable insight or advice into the topic.
Note – don’t post every day, or people may get a bit tired of the notifications. Try once a week, or every few weeks.
Spend time writing an amazing headline
When writing on LinkedIn, the headline is critical, especially if you don’t have a large following. Your topic needs to be clear and appeal to your target audience.
If people click on your post to read it, LinkedIn’s algorithm will display your post to even more people. If other people like, share or comment on your post, this activity will show up on their LinkedIn feed and be visible to all their connections.
Example of a good headline:
How-to posts perform best for post views, likes, comments, and shares than any other post type. “How to take advantage of the upcoming holiday season”.
Example of a bad headline:
Posts where the headline poses a question like “Why use cloud accounting software?” perform poorly across the board in terms of LinkedIn publishing metrics.
Grow your followers
People with more followers tend to get more article views and engagement, especially if publishing consistently. Growing your connections, with the type of prospects you want is a great way to make the most of LinkedIn Pulse. Anyone you connect with on LinkedIn automatically becomes a follower.
So how do you publish a Pulse post?
- Go to your homepage on LinkedIn. You’ll see that on the main screen there are three types of social media updates that you can post on your profile: share an update, upload a photo or write an article.
- Click on ‘write an article’, then follow the instructions – write a headline, enter your content and attach a great image relating to your content that will capture people’s attention.
- Click on publish and then all your connections are notified.
- Everyone you’re connected to will get a notification to their LinkedIn account. They’ll see a flag in their notifications which will highlight your post. All your connections will know about this at the same time, even people you’ve not spoken to in a while.
Next steps to get the most value from the post
Articles on the main Pulse page are sorted by the number of views: those with the most will appear on top and articles with less total views will appear below. The more views your article gets in 48 hours, the more likely it is to be featured in the main Pulse page.
- Share your post outside of LinkedIn
If your article makes it into the Pulse, you can gain even more awareness of it by sending your clients and prospects an email highlighting the post and linking to it. Another quick win would be to share the post on your other social media channels as you may have a different audience on each.
- Send a tweet to the Pulse team if you think you wrote something amazing
There’s so much content on LinkedIn it can be hard to stand out to the editorial team. If you think you’ve got a strong article why not send them a tweet @LinkedInPulse to make them aware of it. Make sure to tell them why it’s a great article in the tweet along with your headline.
- Call to action
Remember to include a call to action within the post so that you can capture their details. This could be a link to more content (that they can download) on your website, sign up link for your email newsletter or a webinar your hosting.
LinkedIn Pulse is a fantastic social media tool to help you reach a wider audience with your services. Learn how to maximise your LinkedIn use, download our intro video here.