5 Darn Good Reasons to Start Blogging with LinkedIn Pulse
As a rule of thumb, having more content in more places is a very good thing for marketers. At the very least, it gets your content in front of more eyes. At the same time, we all recognize that there are only so many hours in a day, and so many great ideas to pursue. That makes choosing the right channels for your articles incredibly important.
With that in mind, you might be wondering whether Pulse – a blogging tool for publishing articles on LinkedIn, the leading business networking site – is worth your time and energy.
Based on my own experiences with Pulse, I would say that it isn’t just worth trying, but might quickly become one of your favourite places to share your thoughts. Here are my five biggest reasons why:
1. LinkedIn Pulse gives you access to the right audience.
One of the major appeals of LinkedIn as a social platform is that it’s built and arranged with the sole purpose of growing business relationships (something we can’t really say about most of the other major social media sites). In terms of distributing content, that means your audience isn’t just “anyone,” but professionals, and possibly decision-makers, at every level of business.
2. It’s an incredibly targeted way to share your knowledge.
Rather than throwing all articles together in a continuous stream, LinkedIn Pulse sorts articles and ideas by topic and theme. While that might seem like it’s decreasing your readership, it’s also ensuring that the viewers you do get have self-identified themselves as being interested in your topic. Besides, due to the sheer number of users, your Pulse content is likely to get more views (and shares, if it’s good), even in a relatively unpopular category, than it would on a typical company blog.
3. There are real social and SEO benefits.
As with any piece of content posted to the Internet, a Pulse article could help you build your credibility as a knowledgeable individual, increase your search engine visibility through back-links, and steer readers towards your other social accounts, or even your other posts, which are displayed under your photo at the top of your profile. Additionally, Pulse content could be valuable for the very same reasons that LinkedIn profiles are: the site enjoys a high search quality rating, so it’s a safe bet that Google will index the content quickly and include it in search results.
4. It could lead to being invited to other outlets for your ideas.
Given that the very idea behind LinkedIn is networking, it shouldn’t be surprising that the articles you post to Pulse could lead to new introductions, or even invitations to contribute elsewhere. The entire platform is arranged to help you make connections, and it only takes a mouse click for someone else to decide to follow you, add your content to their feed, or add you to their list of contacts.
5. You might get more mileage from a good idea.
While you don’t want to simply recycle old articles on LinkedIn Pulse, you can certainly use it as a channel for ideas that have proven to be a hit in the past. In other words, if you had a very successful blog post, white paper, or other piece of content, you can easily turn it into a Pulse article that reaches more colleagues and a much wider audience, as well. It’s never a bad idea to get more mileage from your best ideas, and posting articles to LinkedIn could be a great way to do it. Just remember to customize to your readership. (On a side note, repurposing content is a communication strategy, not an SEO strategy. If that’s your plan, just stop it. Stop it now.)
Since there aren’t many downsides to adding content to Pulse, what do you have to lose by giving it a try? Simply jot down some key ideas in a format that’s appropriate to your audience, and then see if you can win attention from prospects or others in your industry.
Getting started with LinkedIn Pulse is incredibly simple, and you may find exactly what I have – that it’s one of the best ways to grow your network and your credibility at the same time.
Before you go, please feel free to check out: Learning LinkedIn from the Experts, a free download.
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