How to Get Started on LinkedIn Publishing

Have you ever noticed the flood of content published on LinkedIn? In 2014 LinkedIn developed LinkedIn Publishing, a tool where its users can draft, create, and publish long-form content within LinkedIn.

Why Publishing is Important

LinkedIn Publishing has the potential to widen your exposure as a personal brand. The content published on LinkedIn not only appears on your profile but, if optimized correctly, could also appear on LinkedIn Pulse, an aggregation of top LinkedIn posts. This improves your overall LinkedIn profile visibility and increases the chances of you interacting with professionals in your field.

All in all, publishing on LinkedIn offers a great way to connect yourself with certain skill sets and topics of expertise that recruiters, hiring managers, and important public sector decision makers may be looking for.

How to Publish

If you are ready to use LinkedIn Publishing, follow these steps:

1. Define a post topic. Where does your expertise lie and what do you want to be known (and searched) for? Select a topic that showcases your expertise in a professional area.
2. Navigate to your LinkedIn profile page.
3. Click “Publish a Post.” This is located below your picture on the top of your homepage. This will take you to the publishing tool.
4. Write the post. Make sure to follow some best practices in writing web content.
5. Add three relevant keyword tags to help LinkedIn categorize and distribute your post.
6. Once you are ready for LinkedIn users to see your post, click the Publish button in the top right, next to Save.
7. Confirm that you want to publish your post. Click “Yes, Publish It.”
8. You can share the post from the reading view once it’s published. Click on the share icon in the author byline column or at the bottom of the post to share it on other social networks. This is important for improving the overall reach of your post.

You can always view your published post on your LinkedIn profile. It typically appears under your headline and image, above your professional summary.

What to Publish

Because access to Publishing is open to all users, there are a lot of posts that are low in quality. Consider these things when publishing.

• Write about something you have an advanced knowledge in.
• Write about something you are passionate about.
• Tell a story. When we are being told a story, things in your brain change dramatically. Not only are the language processing parts in our brain activated, our recall and attention improves.
• Use tools like Google Trends and MOZ Content to discover what’s already being talked about.

More Best Practices

More than just knowing what to write about, you want to make sure you craft content that is technically sound, readable, and web-friendly.

• Have hyperlinks.
• Be scannable on a mobile or desktop screen.
• Written within 500 to 800 words.
• Use visuals like images and video.
• Use formatting like bullets, lists, bolded text, and quotes. (All of these features are available within the Publishing interface.)
• Drive to a specific call to action.

LinkedIn Publishing allows you to enlighten, inform, and inspire the LinkedIn community and showcase you as an expert in your field. As the workforce becomes more and more competitive, it is so important to leverage the tools that set you apart.

For more information, learn more about your rights and responsibilities for posts on LinkedIn’s publishing platform. And for content inspiration, check out influencer content on LinkedIn Pulse.

Have you tried LinkedIn Publishing? If so, can you offer some best practices for publishing or promoting your content?