What You Need To Know About LinkedIn Publisher

Do you want to get more visibility on LinkedIn?

Recruiters, potential business partners, and possible leads are searching LinkedIn for people like you – is your profile being found? LinkedIn isn’t just a static site to post your resume or search for jobs, and it’s not just a virtual Rolodex. It’s become a social network where professionals can go to share information, have conversations, and interact in specialized groups.

LinkedIn’s publishing feature gives members a chance to put their own thoughts and ideas out in the wild. It’s a way for people to share their experiences and the kind of professional work they’re capable of – with a potentially vast audience.

The Law & Government channel, for example, has 1,284,944 followers as of today. You can dive deeper into your specific industry with topics like Accounting (681,857 followers), Healthcare (2,163,977 followers), Social Impact (1,244,523 followers), and more.

Is LinkedIn Publishing for you?

At this point it’s only a tool for individuals, not companies, to post content. If you’re considering posting, remember that it’s more about building your own brand, rather than advancing that of the organization you work for. Of course, posting things in your industry will raise the profile of your organization, but the end goal should be your personal brand.

Your LinkedIn profile should already be a showcase of your experience and skills, but LinkedIn Publisher has the potential to widen your exposure dramatically. Along with displaying on your profile, the posts are searchable. That means they’re a great way to link yourself with certain skill sets and topics of expertise that recruiters may be looking for.

LinkedIn Publishing isn’t a silver bullet to building your online influence, but it’s a great tool to have. Is your interest piqued? Read on.

How to post

Near the top of your LinkedIn homepage you should see three action buttons: Share an update, Upload a photo, and Publish a post. Clicking on Publish a post will take you to a lovely minimalist editor where you can either compose your post or paste in a pre-written one.

(As a paranoid writer, I always draft and polish my work in a separate word processor.)

Because we’re visual creatures, it helps to add a strong cover photo to make your post stand out. For a great selection of free stock photography, I like Pixabay.

In the editor, you can add simple formatting to your text, and embed photos or videos if you like. Add a few relevant tags to help LinkedIn categorize and distribute your post, then either save or hit publish. Your post will be shared with your followers and connections, and appear in a Posts section on your LinkedIn profile. It may also be published in one of LinkedIn’s Pulse channels if tagged correctly and it meets the standard.

To make the Posts section appear on your profile, go to Edit Profile and click on the “Add a section to your profile” link.

What content works best?

Don’t just publish something for the sake of seeing your name in print – instead, think carefully about what message you want to send. Will people find your topic inspiring? Useful? Interesting? When someone comes across this post, what will they think?

Although people can (and do) copy and paste articles from personal blogs, it’s more helpful to write something fresh. Try repurposing something you’ve already written, or pulling a single important point out of a longer article, which you can then link to.

The best content on LinkedIn Publisher:

• Considers its audience, and stays on target. What industry are you trying to reach? What level of individual are you speaking to? (Recruiter, CEO, etc.) What are experience and skills are you trying to convey?
• Digs deep! What can only you deliver? If another person could have written the post, don’t bother. The world doesn’t need more top ten lists – it needs more unique thought.
• Gives us something to think about. People love to share posts that made them think. If you really want to reach people, write a post that challenges the way they look at the world.
• Is concise, and is valuable. Remember that this is a showcase of your thoughts, your expertise, and your writing style – so don’t bore your audience to tears! If you’re writing about a complex topic and need to use 2,000 words, make sure you’re continuing to deliver value.

Have you used LinkedIn Publisher? Why, or why not? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments.