I recently wrote an article on why B2B companies should be using the LinkedIn publishing platform, and thought it made sense to explore some LinkedIn best practices for businesses that write these kinds of long-form posts.
LinkedIn’s publishing platform is an easy way to gain exposure and drive top-of-the-funnel traffic to your website. New posts will show up in your regular home page news feed; but since these articles are also readily available to users beyond your network, the platform offers a tremendous opportunity to help you develop a following among the wider LinkedIn community.
We recommend that you post original content here… not just re-post something from your own blog. However, you CAN post original content here and re-post it on your company blog later (using the rel=”canonical” tag to avoid getting a duplicate content penalty).
Guidelines for publishing on LinkedIn
What are some tips for producing great content?
- Keep your voice authentic.
- Write about specific areas in which you have experience and/or expertise.
- Keep your writing focused; avoid trying to cover too many topics in the same long-form post.
- Don’t shy away from expressing your opinion. However, keep your long-form posts appropriate for the LinkedIn audience. Don’t post anything obscene, shocking, hateful, intimidating or otherwise unprofessional.
- Check out our editor’s long-form post on The 7 Secrets to Writing Killer Content on LinkedIn.
- Publish whenever you have something valuable to share with LinkedIn members. In general, the more long-form posts you publish, the more credibility you will build, and the stronger your professional profile will become.
- There are no limits on word count, but the long-form posts that are best received are more than three paragraphs in length.
- Upload pictures, videos, presentations, and documents to add to your content. It helps bring your insights to life and is a good way to showcase concrete examples of your experience.
- Use the share box on your homepage to share short-form thoughts, questions, and other media such as articles and images with the LinkedIn community. Learn more about sharing on LinkedIn.
- We encourage you to have family, friends, or colleagues review and edit your long-form posts. We’re unable to provide editors to proofread your writing.
How long-form posts published on LinkedIn are distributed
- They’ll appear in the Posts section on your profile, just beneath the top section that contains your photo and headline.
- Shared with your connections and followers
- Members who aren’t in your network can follow you from your long-form posts when you begin to publish.
- Interactions such as likes, comments, and shares will distribute your content beyond your immediate network.
- Your long-form posts are searchable both on and off LinkedIn. Note: Long-form posts are public and can be seen by anyone, even those without LinkedIn accounts.
- High-quality long-form posts, determined by our algorithm and other variables, may enable your long-form post to be distributed beyond your connections and followers, through channels such as LinkedIn Pulse and emails. However, we can’t guarantee that this will occur.
- LinkedIn may also distribute your long-form posts as part of aggregated LinkedIn content beyond LinkedIn (for example, on trusted partner sites).
Other tips to help increase distribution
- Write long-form posts that resonate with your connections, followers, and target audience.
- Long-form posts that are overly promotional won’t experience broader distribution by the community.
- Follow channels and write content that’s relevant to a channel of your expertise, such as software development, healthcare, or risk management.
- You can share your long-form post:
- Across other social networks such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and more. You can do so by clicking the share buttons on the top and bottom of the post.
- Via email – copy and paste your long-form post’s URL into your email message.
- Through relevant LinkedIn Groups – limit sharing to 1 or 2 groups to prevent your post from being perceived as spam.
Using LinkedIn’s publishing platform, you can build your reputation, thought leadership, and your follower base by publishing frequently and engaging with other members by liking and commenting on other long-form posts. And consider joining the Writing on LinkedIn group for additional guidance.
