‘Great piece! You should publish that on LinkedIn Pulse!’, is what I told one of my valued contacts last week. The look on his face told me he had no idea what I was talking about. There are still so much people in my network who have no idea about the existance of LinkedIn Pulse. Let alone what it can bring. In Holland, the most popular blogs for marketing and entrepreuneurship have published little about this topic so far. Just a little bit about the use of LinkedIn Pulse as a news app. While I think that’s the least interesting application of Linkedin Pulse…
The value of LinkedIn Pulse
Not many people know you can publish your own articles at LinkedIn Pulse as from Febuary this year. Sharing valuable information (called content) is a great way to position yourself as the go-to expert in your branche. And the good thing is, when you publish relevant information, this automatically appears in the timeline of your LinkedIn connections.
Also, your connections will receive an update about it in their inbox. So you don’t have to send a seperate direct mailing to them! Whoever has installed the LinkedIn Pulse app on their smartphone will see a notification on their screen when one of their connections has published a new Pulse blog.
“I would like to emphasize that publishing on LinkedIn Pulse is not the same as sharing a LinkedIn update on your timeline. At your LinkedIn homepage you’ll find three buttons: share an update, upload a photo, publish a post. If you want to create a post for LinkedIn Pulse, you should click on the last option.”
In the last few months, I posted 3 blogs on Linkedin Pulse. I received a few nice comments from a few influencers in my niche because I mentioned them in my blog. Also, the number of profile views increased significantly. Most of the viewers I didn’t know yet but they where active in my niche. At the moment I think I have almost 600 LinkedIn followers. That’s easier and faster than building an email list!
Repurpose existing content for LinkedIn Pulse
For all of you who think blogging on LinkedIn Pulse is a time consuming job, think again. You don’t have to start creating content from scratch. Be smart about it and use what you already have! You don’t need to have your own blog (yet). We all create content on a daily basis. We write emails, columns, tutorials, create slide shares, video’s and give interviews for the local newspapar or an industry publication. That’s al very suitable for repurposing. A few tweeks here and there might just be enough to create an interesting pulse for LinkedIn Pulse.
If you already are a seasoned blogger the trick is even easier. Post the blogs that are on you website (or somewhere else) also on LInkedin Pulse. We always think people will go to our website to check out our news. But what do you visit more often, company websites or Linkedin? Just copy paste your content, Pulse even copies the links. Images should be inserted seperately.
Learn to engage the your target audience
Being a PR pro, I’m very interested in finding out whether my blog ended up being red by my target audience. Because that’s the only way you can learn to publish true valuable content for your target audience. LinkedIn Pulse keeps track of this with analytics for every individual blog. Not just the views but also who saw it (top industry, job title, location, traffic source). My second blog post ‘How to Frustrate Journalists With Your Pitch’ was mostly viewed by journalists (42%). The rest of the viewers where entrepreneurs, PR and marketing specialists. This post was targeted at these last three, not so much for journalists. Analytics showed me journalists where the main readers of this blog. It turned out this happened because I explicitly mentioned ‘journalists’ in the headline. A wise lession for my next blog.
Critics state content on LinkedIn Pulse has lost most of its core value now that over 1 million people post about 130.000 posts every week. There’s some truth in that but I don’t think it is a legid reason to ignore what’s happening here. About 45% of the readers are managers, VP’s and CEO’s, they are the decision makers!
Follow influencers on LinkedIn Pulse
First lession in communication, it’s sending and receiving. So, just like on Twitter, Linkedin Pulse made it possible to follow other professionals and comment on their publications. In 2013, LinkedIn invited the first 150 so called LinkedIn Influencers to start publishing on Linkedin Pulse. These influencers can be recognized easily because they have an ‘in’ icon behind their name. This was such a great succes Linkedin invited another 500 influences to join. I started following a few influencers in my own niche to keep updated on the latest industry trends and news. I follow Alex Pirouz, LinkedIn Expert and Jeff Weiner, CEO of Linkedin for example. But also Hillary Clinton to learn how she uses LinkedIn for her presidential campaign. These people are not my LinkedIn connections (unfortunately) but I can track what they publish on LinkedIn and comment on it. I once asked Alex a question in a comment on his blog and he responded a few hours later. How cool is that?!
Do you want to find interesting companies or people to follow? Navigate to the top menu of Linkedin and choose ‘Interests’. In the sub menu choose ‘Pulse’. There you see a button on the left side, again with the name ‘Pulse’. Click on this and another menu reveals itself. Use ‘discover’ to look for interesting sourses that match your interests and area of expertise. Do you see something you like? Click on ‘follow’ to receive all updates of this source in you timeline from now on.
How to publish on Linkedin Pulse?
Publishing on Linkedin Pulse is so, so easy. Click on the button ‘Publish a post’ at the top of your timeline. You can immediately start writing!
If you want to know more about:
- how to find great blog ideas;
- how to write a great headline;
- how to design an image header for your LinkedIn Pulse post in a flash;
- how to choose the right ‘tags’ for your blog etc.
Then read my previous blog ‘12 Awesome Blog Tools To Create More Valuable Blogs’. This is packed with tips and tools you can apply immediately.
I’m curious for other people’s experiences with Linkedin Pulse. Are you a reader or a contributor? What to you think? Do you consider it to be a valuable source of information? I’d like to invite you to share your thoughts.
Want to learn more? Download ‘The Ultimate Guide To Master LinkedIn Pulse‘ for FREE down below!