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Courtesy of LinkedIn Corporation

LinkedIn publishing is a great resource for increasing your professional audience. Publishing articles on this network requires knowing how to use its channels, headlines, and images effectively.

LinkedIn channels show up on members’ streams, so getting your published articles featured on channels with large audiences will greatly extend your visibility. Since it is unlikely that you’ll be featured more than once a day, publishing one new article every day throughout the week is a solid strategy. Although you don’t get to choose the channels you’re featured on, posting daily on different topics is a good plan to help increase your chances of being featured on various channels.

Knowing when to post your articles is important, too. Weekdays are typically better for publishing articles, since LinkedIn is a professional networking site.  However, keep in mind that the competition on the weekend may be low, so you might want to experiment with different times of the week.

Try publishing your articles during normal workday hours, especially during hours when people usually have downtime. Try, for example, before 9am, during early afternoon lunch breaks, and around 4 or 5pm before people start leaving work.

The content of your articles is essential to getting them featured on channels. Researching previously popular article topics and knowing your desired LinkedIn audience is key. As a professional site, LinkedIn readers are generally partial to articles that have empirical data and offer advice on career development, management, customer service, and marketing.

linkedin2Publishing articles that target specific industries, like finance, will also help increase your chances of being featured on a channel. Aside from using search engines or browsing on LinkedIn, BuzzSumo is a great research tool. It can tell you which articles are most popular on LinkedIn by analyzing the frequency of shared posts. This will help you stay abreast of trends.

While the content of your posts are important, using memorable headlines and images are also ways to help you get featured. LinkedIn’s layout puts emphasis on headlines and images heavily. So even if your article is well researched and written, it’s still vital to have a catchy headline and image in order to attract readers and compel them to click on your post when they see it.

Images, title, content, and timing are all important aspects to getting your articles featured on a LinkedIn channel. But don’t forget that an integral part of a post is the concluding call to action (CTA). Regardless of where your posts are published or featured, you have to optimize your publicity with a strong CTA.

Make sure you have a desired effect in mind and that you have a direct action you want your readers to take after they’ve finished reading. Try to end your article on a persuasive or engaging note, perhaps with a link to a specific page you want them to land on.

LinkedIn publishing gives your articles the potential to be widely read and circulated, helping you promote your ideas and business. If you need more advice on how to utilize this great feature, please contact us for assistance.