9 Addictive Content Tools You Can't Live Without

Do you research, design, edit and promote content? Then you might have seen all the available online tools to make this process easier, but which ones are really useful? I previously wrote a blog about useful blog tools you can use to create more valuable blogs. Now, I don’t only use blog tools but also tools for creating audience specific content such as images/infographics and social media (research) tools. I’d love to share them with you.

Smartphone tools:

1. STENCIL

A tool with which you can create the most beautiful images. You don’t have to be a designer to add beautiful creations to you social media posts. Choose royalty free photo’s, images, backgrounds or icons. Can’t find pictures that suit you? Then you can easily upload your own photo as well.

2. INFOGRAM

Besides designing infographics, you can also visualize your data with graphics or interactive maps. It’s useful when you want to process data in one go and it’s also a fun way to share information with your online audience.  

3. FEEDLY

Are you looking for inspiration for your blog or other content? Select categories you find interesting. You daily receive an update of the most recent published articles. In that way you stay up to date of the latest trends and developments in your niche. You also have reliable sources you can use with your content.

4. ANDERS PINK

A brand new tool of the creators of Buzzsumo and Bloomberry. You can find all the important news from your network and niche in one place. You no longer have to check multiple online channels. Filter on topic or time or work at your content as a team.

5. QUORA

You can use Quora if you want to know what your audience is concerned about. Based on specific categories you can ask your question or look for questions of your audience. Quora helps you define the needs and problems of your audience so you can adjust your content to it.

Desktop tools:

6. AFTER THE DEADLINE

A really cool tool when you want to write a flawless text. Copy paste your text to see where you can improve your writing, spelling and grammar. When you use Wordpress, you can download the plugin.

7. EASY WORD COUNT

Do you work in the cloud a lot and specifically Google Docs? Then you will love this tool. When you write a (guest) blog you’re often limited by the amount of words. The problem is that Google Docs won’t show you this. Copy paste your text into Easy Word Count and find out how many words you’ve written.  

8. BLOOMBERRY

The creators of Buzzsumo developed this new tool recently. Enter keywords and choose filters to find out what kind of content your audience loves. The topics are divided based on popularity so you can see what your audience talks about in one glance. Then, click the link to see detailed results.

9. SOCIAL MESSAGE OPTIMIZER

CoSchedule introduces a brand new tool. After the success of the Headline Analyzer they developed the Social Message Optimizer. It makes it possible to create successful social media posts by looking at which factor(s) you can strengthen your message(s).

As a result you can increase your reach and engagement.

What tools do you use for content creation? I’m curious for your thoughts. Do you want to know more? Download the ‘toolbox Content Marketing’ for more useful tools.

How You Can Write a Successful Blog [New Research]

Did you know 95% of all published blogs won’t get read? So how do you make sure you reach the 5% blogs that do? What’s the reason only a small amount of blogs score well? To find out I’m constantly researching successful blogs. In this blog I’ll share six easy steps how you can write successful blogs yourself.

These numbers confirm that it’s difficult to write a successful blog. That’s why I support the quote of Jodi Harris, Director of Editorial Content and Curation at the Content Marketing Institute: ‘Anyone can throw together some personal opinions or controversial remarks, toss in a few supporting stats or anecdotical examples, share it in a public forum, and call it a ‘blog post’, but that doesn’t mean it’s truthful, meaningful, or even valuable content’. Blogging is a profession if you want to do it right.

New research shows that more than half of all people (55%) are less than 15 seconds active on a page. That makes it important to write attractive so that it grabs the attention of your reader immediately and that you keep them hooked.

Did you know people don’t read but scan content online? Aligning your blog to it can increase the readability with 57%!

Step 1: Write a strong headline

It’s wrongly thought that a strong headline will sell your services or products, while instead it’s meant to inform people. You attract readers when you can touch them with your story, by offering something they feel attached too and want to know more off.

You can hook them by sharing specific information in the headline, such as the problem you solve or the audience or region you aim for. Another great option is to use a quote as your headline.  When you do this, the number of recurring visitors increases with 28%.

Source: Hubspot

Brady Dukart of CoSchedule researched strong headlines. The five most important factors are:

1.        Share an interesting (statistic) number;

2.       Share a tip the reader can take advantage off;

3.       Use adjectives;

4.       Don’t use more than 6-7 words;

5.       Ask an open question.

The research of PR Daily shows other elements for writing strong headlines. In addition:

-         don’t use more than 117 characters when you want to share your headline on social media;

-         don’t use more than 65 characters when you want your blog to be found in organic searches;

-         create a headline between 81-100 characters when you want people to click through (your website)

You can also use ‘brackets’ in your headline. Just like I did in the headline of this blog. It increases the click-through-rate (CTR) of your blog with 38%. The use of specific words in your headline can also increase the readability of your blog. Words like ‘photo (+ 37%)’ or ‘who (+22%)’ score well, because people are visually oriented (photo) and the word ‘who’ makes it possible to share your knowledge with others.

Blogs are even more successful when you combine ‘brackets’ in your headline with positive words (such as amazing, wonderful, great, superb etc.) because these kind of words have a positive impact on the mood of the reader.

You can use these guidelines for writing professional blogs, but you have to stay critical since every audience is different. By experimenting with various headlines you’ll find out what kind of headline scores best.

At least make sure your headline appeals to your audience, choose a unique angle and a specific audience. Creating a sense of urgency is also very effective.

Step 2: Write a compelling introduction

This is the point where people decide if they read the (complete) blog or not because 8 out of 10 people don’t. Here are a couple of guidelines for writing a compelling introduction.

1.        Share a problem and a solution;

2.       Start with the end of your blog (and work towards the beginning);

3.       Share advantages for the reader;

4.       Keep it short and to the point.

People find it hard to write a compelling introduction, so these four guidelines can help you. You can also use the problem/solution/advantage formula.  

·         First, determine the problem by asking yourself: ‘What is the problem of my audience?’ Identify it and mention it in your introduction;

·         Share a solution for all parts of the problem;

·         Share an advantage that can help solve the problem.

The reader recognizes his/her problem immediately in a compelling introduction. When the solution also seem interesting, the reader will read further. If you succeed in both these things, the reader will most probably read the rest of your blog as well.

Step 3: Use keywords and referrals

You've set some expectations in your headline and introduction. The reader hopes you can accomplish them. With keywords and referrals you can keep them engaged. Problogger researched keywords and found out that it’s best to use keywords two to three times throughout the text. The first keyword can best be used in the first 150 words of the text.

Referrals support your story which increases your credibility. It also helps you share a positive reputation online. That’s why Brian Dean advises to use two or three referrals with every 1000 words.

Step 4: Increase readability  

Use short sentences  for high readability. Make sure you only use words in a sentence that are necessary. Can you still understand a sentence when you remove specific words? It’s easier to keep your reader engaged when you write short and effective sentences. 

Step 5: Choose an image

Images can increase engagement, because people are visually oriented by nature. Your audience will read your blog faster and they stay longer on your page. You can also share information in an appealing way by using infographics and screenshots, because then, 80% of all readers will read more then just the headline and introduction.

Often, it’s difficult to select great pictures. What do you have to look for when selecting images? There are various websites on which you can find great photo’s for your blog. Here are some guidelines:

-         Use high resolution photo’s;

-         Avoid stock images;

-         Use the same width for your photo as for the text;

-         Use all kinds of images in your blog.

Step 6: Activate the reader

You write a blog with a purpose, because you want the reader to do something. Before you start writing you have to ask yourself what it is that you want your reader to do. For example, do you want the reader to leave a comment? Or do you want him/her to visite your website for more information? In marketing we call this a ‘call-to-action’ (CTA). A CTA is extra information that isn’t mentioned in your blog, but can be very interesting for your reader. There are all kinds of CTA’s. So be creative!

Conclusion

By writing a strong headline you earn attention from your audience. You can keep the reader engaged when you also write a compelling introduction. Especially when the solutions and advantages seem interesting to them.

You can use keywords and referrals too make sure the reader reads the complete blog. Keywords and referrals are great for search engines and it also increases your credibility.

Use short sentences and appealing images to increase readability. You can't only inform but also activate the reader by using all kinds of call-to-action’s (CTA’s) in your blog.

There are a lot of factors you can use for writing a successful blog as you can see. I’m very curious for your thoughts and experiences about writing successful blogs. Do you get the results you hope for? Please let me know!

Blogging versus Copywriting: the Difference Explained

What is the difference between blogging and copywriting? I can imagine that this question surprises you a bit. Well, you’re not the only one. For a long time, I was also unaware that there was a difference. This changed when I got a temporary job as a content specialist. At that time, I had already written a couple of blogs myself. That made me aware that you don’t just write a blog post. It took me more than six months (!) before I published my first blog because it was a constant process of writing…deleting…putting it aside…..and rewriting.

What I mostly learned was that writing an instructive blog post is an educational process for the writer. Despite the topic you write about.

With that in mind, I went to work. I soon found out that in this company, blogging meant something completely different. I had to finish each blog post in one hour. When also a visual had to be created, it decreased the writing time. It felt like a competition, with the goal to write as many copy as possible. This obviously affects the quality of the blog. Blogging and copywriting are two entirely different things.

Since then I have noticed that the word ‘blog’ is also used when people actually mean ‘copywriting’. Copywriting is completely different from writing a great blog post.

Blogging versus copywriting

Copywriting is something that usually has to be done quickly, because people don’t want to fall behind in the ‘content race’ and they want to see quick results. Many of these texts have to be actively written with the aim of putting the reader directly into action. While blogging is much more about providing valuable information to educate the reader.

Blogging is part of content marketing. It means that you write online articles in which you share valuable information to engage an audience. So that eventually the audience knows where to find you for a particular product or service instead of cold calling yourself. So blogging is a way to reach and attract potential customers.

The differences between blogging and copywriting are summarized in the table below.

Depending on what you want to achieve, you can choose copywriting or blogging. Keep in mind that, when you choose blogging, you can only aspect long term results because of the status you have to acquire and the audience you have to build. When you write copy it often involves short- term results.

Michael Brenner, of ‘The Marketing Insider Group’ says we focus to much on content that needs to help sell our products. The result is that we choose copywriting but sell it as ’blogs’ and that’s incorrect. Blog posts are created to educate or inform people instead of selling something because a long-term customer relationship is acquired.

The aim of copywriting is to sell products in a short period of time, often without focusing on the needs of the (potential) customers. Chances are that your audience won’t see the copy you’ve created, because their needs differ enormously. That’s a pity, because in these modern times you can learn a lot about your (potential) customers online and use it in your advantage. Like the needs they have. It’s a pity when you won’t benefit from it.

Whatever you write, thoroughly think about what you’re going to write by asking yourself the following questions:

• What’s the purpose of your blog?
• Who do you write it for?
• Where are you going to publish it?
• What’s the result your aiming for and how are you going to measure it?

DIY: Creating a great blog post

It takes time when you really want to create great content. Regardless of whether it’s video, audio or a blog. It’s the same process for all your content, but in this blog post I only explain the process for writing a blog post.

The first thing you start with when writing a blog post is the structure. You roughly set out what you are going to say. This is your framework. To determine the structure, it’s important to think about the purpose of your blog post.

Next, you start your research. This means you are searching on the internet for similar blogs about the topic you choose for your blog. When you do this you’ll ask yourself the next questions:

• What’s already written about this topic?
• What resources can support your own blog?
• How do you decide the trustworthiness and usability of these resources?
• How can you create value with your blog in addition to what’s already out there? (this depends on what you’ve found)
• What will be your header?
• What’s the tone of voice of your blog? (funny, informal, formal etc.)

When you write a blog it’s also essential to think about the way you want to ‘speak’ to your audience.

Measuring = knowing

Besides the writing it’s also important to check the data of your blog after publication. Look at the statistics. How many people have read your blog post, how many shared, liked or commented on it. You can use this data to attract your audience even better. Because the numbers are visible you can align your blog post with your audience.

The above process takes time. When you want to write a good blog, it’s important to take the time for it. When you’re an online marketer in an organization, or when you create content as a freelancer, the adjacent picture can be interesting. Maybe you know it as the ‘project management triangle’. It’s used in project management, but is also useful for when you create content. This triangle shows that the three factors (fast, cheap and good) together aren’t a great match. Each combination of these factors creates a different tension.

1. Fast and good = expensive (not cheap)

1. Good and cheap= slow (not fast)

1. Fast and cheap = inferior (not good).

The next time someone asks you to combine the aspects from the ‘project management triangle’ in a blog you can identify these factors, intervene and act on it.

In short, it depends on the strategy and planning you choose, if blogging can add value for your audience. As long as you have a clear vision on what you want to achieve with the blog post you create. But do it consistently and analyze the results afterwards.

What about you? I’m curious for your thoughts about the difference between blogging and copywriting. What experiences do you have?

How to Generate Blog Traffic with Buzzsumo and Buzzstream

Millions of blogs, video’s and infographics are published on the internet every day. So if you want to create your own content, it has to stand out. How do you make sure your stuff gets noticed when there is so much buzz?

Your content has to be valuable to be a credible and trustworthy source in your niche. This type of content generates more shares, likes and traffic. In this blog I’ll share two great tools that can help you to do just that; Buzzsumo and Buzzstream. These are useful tools on their own but they provide even more value when you combine them.

Brian Dean, founder of Backlinko, knows how to generate the traffic you want. He shares the following 3 steps to get quality links and targeted traffic:

• Find link worthy content in your niche;
• Improve existing content;
• Reach out to the right people.

1. How to find link worthy content in your niche

Once you’ve decided on the topic you want to write about, the next step is to do some research to find link worthy content.  If you want to find valuable data to back your idea, first find out what is already created about this topic.  That’s where Buzzsumo comes in, what I call ‘Google for content marketing’.

Then click on the Content Research button. Type the keywords, for example ‘content’, ‘marketing’ and ‘trends’ in the search bar. To narrow your search results filter by date, content type and/or domain. Buzzsumo will show you a list of your search results including social media shares and the total shares.

 Tip 1: I selected a shorter period (6 months) for my search because there’s a lot of content available for my topic ‘content marketing trends’. You can select a longer search period for topics when less content is available.

 You can also select a specific social media platform. If you, for example, want to know if the content you want to create will be successful on Pinterest, you can search in Buzzsumo for ‘Pinterest shares’. Buzzsumo shows you a list of content that’s been shared (the most) on Pinterest.

When you look for top-content it’s important to look for the amount of shares and links. The higher the number of shares and links the better, because it’s valuable and interesting content that you can use in your own blog post, infographic etc.

Tip 2: When you are hesitant about choosing a blog post type, look at the headlines. What scores best and do the headlines have something in common?

Trending feature

Your blog generates more traffic when it links to current topics. For this, Buzzsumo has a great trending feature. This feature can help you to find top-content in your niche.

As you can see provides Buzzsumo the latest trending topics. You can choose an overall overview or you can select a topic. When you want to write a blog post about marketing, click ‘marketing’. Buzzsumo shows you the trending topics in the marketing branch from the last 24 hours. It’s also possible to select a different timeframe, such as 2, 4, 8 or 12 hours.

When you click on ‘most shared’ you’ll see what trending topics are most shared between the last 2 and 24 hours.

I personally love this feature because Buzzsumo provides me engaging content for my audience. It helps to join the conversation that’s going on, because if you know what content and stories matter to your audience, you can create more engaging content and gain more credibility.

1. Identify top-content

In the webinar ‘3 content formats to lift your traffic’ Steve Rayson, director of Buzzsumo, mentions, besides the focus on the amount of shares and likes, a couple other things you can look for in identifying top-content. He says it’s important to look for:

• The type of post;

There are different kinds of blog post you can use. Data from Buzzsumo shows that ‘How to’ posts, (Picture) List Posts and Quizzes score best, because they get the most shares and likes. You can also choose a ‘Why’ post, but this kind of blog post scores (a bit) less.

• The number of images that are used in a blog post;

Images are important, because people tend to visualize things. Using images in your blog post is preferred because it increases a higher readability. It’s best to use 1 image for every 75 to 100 words. That’s why infographics are also popular.

• Practical information in a post.

This means that the content you create is shareable and helpful to others. People are willing to share content when they are emotional touched by it, or when they want to inform other people, because they think its valuable information.

 2. Improve existing content

Now you’ve done your research, you can start evaluating the content you’ve selected. It’s important that you improve the content you’ve found. Why should people otherwise read your blog when they can read the original blog post from someone else instead? So, you have to add value to the existing content. There are a couple of ways you can do this.

• Make it longer

Because then it is easier to add more items/links and you can create something valuable that you can add to the conversation that’s out there.

• Update it

Take a blog that’s written some time ago. Chances are that you find ‘outdated’ information. Spice it up by writing a (similar) post but with new information and insights.

• Be thorough

When you write a blog post, it’s important that you write an in- depth article, because in that way you add more value to your content. Thus, before you start writing, use Buzzsumo for a thorough topic search.

3. Reach out to the right people

Once you’re done writing you want to share it with your audience, so they will read the blog you put all your effort and time in.  You can use your own social media channels to promote your content. But if you want to reach a bigger audience, you can connect with influencers in your niche.  Most of the time, these are people who:

1. Run a website in your niche.
2. Are interested in your topic.
3. Have already linked to an article on that topic.

A great tool that can help you find and connect with influencers is Buzzstream. I use it to spread and promote my content online for efficient outreach. ‘It’s my personal content marketing database and it makes the outreach process fast and easy.

You can use Buzzstream for:

• Digital PR;
• Link building;
• Content Promotion.

I use it for content promotion.  After logging in you can collect relevant website data, data about people and data about your activities.

First, make sure to install Buzzmarker for Buzzstream, because it bookmarks important links, blogs, news, tweets and influencers.

Before you can use the Buzzmarker, you must log in to Buzzstream and Buzzsumo, at the same time. If you only log in to Buzzstream the ‘you have to be logged in’ message shows up and the Buzzmarker won’t work.

Tip 3: Make sure you install Buzzmarker in Chrome or Mozilla for the best results. Internet Explorer does not work with the Buzzmarker.

 After installation, you’ll see the above icon in the right corner of your internet browser toolbar.

Click on the Buzzmarker,  the Buzzmarker widget opens and reviews the website for interesting data, such as articles, authors and contact info.

But there’s more!

With the Buzzmarker you can also add(prospective) Media Outlets.

 When you click ‘Save to Buzzstream’ it adds the page to the website list in Buzzstream.

One way to promote content is to reach out to influencers in your niche that shared similar content in the past. If you want them to share your content you can start by sharing their content in your own blog post by using links and/or mentions. You may ask yourself: ‘Who are the influencers in my niche and how do I find them?’

If you need help with your influencer outreach you can use Buzzsumo’s influencers search option, by clicking the influencer button.

For example, search for ‘marketing’.  Now Buzzsumo provides a list of all the influencers in your niche.

To select ‘top influencers’ Buzzsumo’s Steve Rayson explains that it’s important to look at the ‘retweet ratio’and the ‘reply ratio’. When both have a high ratio, it indicates that people are talking a lot about this content by retweeting/sharing it and commenting/talking about it.

Tip 4: A retweet ratio from 4% or higher means someone is a valuable influencer. Also look for an engaged audience at the reply ratio. The higher the reply ratio, the more engaged the audience is.

Based on that information I can select influencers in content marketing. But there is more you can look for. Such as:

• Do they create content themselves? If yes, what kind of content do they create?
• Where/how often do they publish?
• Where does their content get shared?

The ‘View Links Shared’ button provides all the above info.

All this data can help to decide whether this person is a valuable and interesting influencer, because when you know what kind of content he/she creates or is interested in, it makes it easier for you to create similar content or you can use their Twitter name or URL in your blog post etc.

Once you have found influencers, you want to save their data somewhere, so that you can reach out to them after you finished your content creation process. That’s where Buzzstream comes in. In Buzzstream you can add the influencer name, e-mail, social media et cetera in the ‘People section’, through Add people.

When it’s time to promote your content you use the influencer outreach function in Buzzstream. With this option you’re able to create e-mail templates that you can send out to all the Influencers you’ve found through Buzzsumo and saved to Buzzstream. A great advantage of the influencer outreach in Buzzstream is that you can save and edit e-mail templates at any time you want. So you don’t have to write them from scratch, over and over again.

The fact that you can save influencers and e-mail templates to Buzzstream saves you a lot of time!

In this blog I shared two great tools to create and spread valuable content.

How Buzzsumo can help you in the preparation and orientation process and Buzzstream in the outreach process.

I think these are valuable tools because it has helped me a lot in the whole content creation and distribution process and I hope it will help you too! I’ve noticed that the combination of the two, in the content creation and distribution process works best for me. What do you think? Are you already familiar with these tools? What’s your experience? I’m curious for your thoughts!

How to Increase Your Visibility with LinkedIn Pulse

‘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!