Follow Microsoft’s Lead by Investing in the new look LinkedIn Blogging Platform
Nearly three million LinkedIn members have published long-form articles on LinkedIn Pulse and now at long last, LinkedIn have rolled out a new publishing experience which they state will make it even easier for us to reach out and engage with our audience on LinkedIn. One of their company goals when they purchased the Pulse newsreader app in 2013 was to boost its digital publishing and become the “definitive professional publishing platform”.
I personally LOVE the LinkedIn #blogging platform and really enjoy reading my professional connections blogs in which they share their experiences, opinions and perspectives. I have learnt so much about them and their businesses and helps me in my role as a “LinkedIn Connector” to easily recommend the right people for the right job/services.
Also when I was a Solicitor, I used LinkedIn to publish my #legal blogs. This gave myself and my legal firm the opportunity FOR FREE to build up the KNOW, LIKE AND TRUST FACTOR amongst my connections. When my connections engaged with my posts through liking, sharing and commenting that helped me to spread our message even further and resulted in new and profitable connections in the form of new clients.
So, what has changed?
1. A New Interface
The editor is now a full-width experience and includes more font options (three) and more text formatting. Banners and screens are now displayed full width. I have to admit I did enjoy writing this blog more on this interface as it was distraction free. Will this rollout to the rest of LinkedIn such as the home page which now seems in dire need of a facelift?
2. Multi-Media
They have made it easier to add, move and resize multimedia with in-line images, videos, slides, podcasts and more via dragging and dropping. The interactivity of your posts should ensure your content is more engaging. Just click on the Add Multimedia icon ( a small plus button sits at the beginning of the paragraph you are writing in) and follow the simple instructions. The only downside is there is no support for image resizing which can be frustrating.
3. Reading Experience
It has also removed a lot of “junk” from the page to give the reader a better reading view.
LinkedIn has adopted and customised Quill as an editor. Quill uses a Document object Management Abstraction layer instead of interacting directly with the document object. This makes the publishing process cleaner, faster and more reliable. LinkedIn plan to build on this and introduce collaborative editing and custom rich media types.
Finally, the tagging system which used to be at the end of your LinkedIn blogs has now disappeared as the system has been updated to support hashtags, which writers can add to articles to increase discoverability. I am not a fan of this as the hashtag reminds me too much of Twitter and I feel that they are two different platforms with two different languages.
Testimonial as to the power of LinkedIn Publisher;
I recently had amazing feedback from one of my clients, a senior partner in a law firm in that following their first post on LinkedIn they had over 100 new followers, and their profile views were up 40% through regularly blogging on LinkedIn Pulse every fortnight!
Therefore, for business-based bloggers, can you really afford not to dip your toe into this publishing platform?
I would welcome hearing from you on your success stories or frustrations linked with LinkedIn Blogging and your thoughts on these changes.
I work with a wide variety of clients throughout the Thames Valley and beyond to help them create thought leadership through LinkedIn Blogging in my one to one LinkedIn #Training Sessions and my monthly Stage Two Training Courses which are run in Reading, Berkshire.
For monthly LinkedIn tips and my Top Ten Tips for professional Success on LinkedIn, visit my website and fill out the contact form or alternatively connect with me on LinkedIn and/or follow me on Facebook or Twitter
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Rachel Tombs is a LinkedIn Specialist, LinkedIn Profile Writer and LinkedIn Trainer.
I work with a wide variety of professionals to help them to create and maintain profitable business relationships. We buy from people that we KNOW, LIKE AND TRUST.
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These changes are definitely welcome – previously the ability to do no more than write words and put in a headline picture seemed very behind the times. This is one move of many that could be made to bring LinkedIn up to speed with the gazillions of users who use LinkedIn as a work approved and ready social media platform. And its great news for online marketing too! With these improvements it’s going to be a tough choice as to whether law firms persist with little viewed blogging platforms on their firm websites, or simply ditch that and use LinkedIn instead.