By now, you probably figured out how powerful and effective LinkedIn is for business and how much it can help you to bring your business to the next level. However, you may not know that you can increase your business's exposure much more using LinkedIn Publisher.
Using LinkedIn Publisher
LinkedIn Publisher is a relatively new tool, and many business people are either unaware of its existence or underutilizing it. You can do a lot with that tool to increase your exposure and reputation. The fact is that you are generating content and publishing (and hopefully syndicating) it. The question is how are you getting out there for other people to read. There are several different ways that you can get your content out there but the fact is that you may not have been taking advantage of this particular tool for many possible reasons.
Why use that particular tool?
You may be asking that question. Well, if you use LinkedIn Publisher, you will be allowing your expertise to be highlighted and offered to your online connections all over the place. In fact, it is a very smart idea to incorporate LinkedIn Publisher as part of your overall content marketing strategy. One of the apparent reasons to use that particular tool is because of its search capabilities. Another advantage is that your online connections and your friends and followers can all see everything that you publish. Additionally, if your content is viewed widely enough, the tool will notice and it will be incorporated into LinkedIn's newsreader automatically. If that happens, your exposure will increase exponentially.
What are the necessary parts of an effective post?
There are some parts that are necessary for a post to be effective. They are:
- An enticing title
- Effective images (when applicable)
- Well-written, compelling content
- Good-quality keywords and key phrases
- An intelligent strategy
Some of the parts that were mentioned above are common sense but it certainly doesn't hurt to mention them anyway. When it comes to the title of your article, you should bear in mind that you have no more than 3 seconds to capture the attention of your reader. If you can't do it in that amount of time, the reader will move on to someone else's content. Let's face it, 3 seconds is not a lot of time!
Coming up with a topic
Before you can actually embark on the writing process, you need to come up with an effective topic that is a perfect fit for your target audience. When you first start to use LinkedIn Publisher, you will have to start to build your community from the ground up. It is a perfect opportunity to write about influencers, on LinkedIn as well as in other social communities with which you may be involved. You should try to post as much original, unique content as you can but there will also be opportunities for you to recycle what you have already written, as long as it isn't time-sensitive.
Deciding on how often you publish
When you first start to use LinkedIn Publisher, you will have to decide how often you want to publish articles. Your frequency is less important than your consistency of posting the articles. As you are building the foundation of your relationships with your online connections, your content will be the main tool (or main avenue) that enables you to build those relationships. People will start to count on seeing your articles appear at a certain time and a certain number of times a week. Of course, it goes without saying that each and every article that you post must be of the highest quality. After all, your reputation depends on it! Also, don't forget how important it is to share your story in each and every post in some way.
Conclusion
You will probably see a dramatic increase in the number of people who read your posts and the number of comments that you get on those articles. However, it is important to remember that you may not necessarily have the same level of attention on every article. For those articles that don't get as many comments, you may find it helpful to analyze and try to identify what you did differently in those cases. If you can accomplish that, it may be invaluable to you going forward. Using LinkedIn Publisher will help you to build up your communities and to become an influencer yourself in your field of expertise. Of course, the stronger and more valuable your content is, the more it will mean to your various online connections and the more other people will turn to you as their resident expert.
About The Author:
Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies. Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company's Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. He also reduced company travel and travel costs by introducing and implementing various collaboration technologies.
His expertise includes business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping, and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.
Mr. Cohn earned a Master's degree in project management from George Washington University in Washington, DC; and a Master's degree in computer science and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ.
Mr. Cohn is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
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