Have you heard about LinkedIn’s publishing feature? It’s a great way to gain more exposure for your business articles. You are reaching a targeted audience of professionals, giving you a specialist platform to share content and make your name known in the business world. Becoming a LinkedIn publisher will also boost your Kned and Klout score so your social influence will increase. There are 5 main ways that you can best use LinkedIn to share your content.

Get featured on channels

Channels allow you to view content specifically related to your interests. For example someone may be interested in the business sector you work in and your field of knowledge. Each channel has a slider, which features articles which are displayed in the stream. If you manage to get featured on a channel with hundreds of thousands of followers, or even more, you are widening your audience significantly.

Keep a variety when sharing content, because you can’t choose which channels you are featured on. It is unlikely that you would be featured on the same channel on consecutive days, so maximise your chance of being featured by alternating between different channels. You could actually be featured on multiple channels at any one time if you change your content frequently. Varying the topics that you talk about, for example on different days, will give you greater visibility too.

Be relevant

Due to the vast number of people on LinkedIn, there are many featured articles in the style of practical advice for leadership, management etc. as well as practical industry-specific pieces. Much content revolves around self-improvement with ideas that can be personally implemented and used.

BuzzSumo and similar tools are able to analyse which are the most shared posts on any site, and so which are the most popular. This can give you inspiration of topics to write about, as well as keywords to use within your articles. You can also see who beneficial contacts within your sector could be, and identify trends to use as templates for writing your content or repurposing old content.

Create a great headline

A headline can lead the success or failure of an article. LinkedIn displays articles in a way which emphasizes headlines and images. Take a look at our ’15 ways to generate great blog ideas’. So it’s vital to have a strong headline and accompanying image in order to best utilise LinkedIn. Choosing a headline which is provocative is bound to catch attention, whilst a powerful image has the potential to draw the reader’s eye to the article.

Don’t forget the call to action

End your article with a call to action to allow your reader to follow up on having enjoyed what they’ve read. Whether this is to buy your product/services, subscribe to a newsletter, get in touch for more information… make sure you give them the option to do something to keep them engaged. What do you want them to do? Be clear and just tell them. Leave it up to your readers to follow your instruction if they’ve enjoyed what they’ve read so far.

Don’t overdo it and overwhelm your readers with more than one call to action. A single compelling instruction should be enough without being confusing or seeming demanding. It doesn’t even have to be complicated. If you’re unsure, point your readers towards one landing page.

Post strategically

Posting articles at strategic times can make a huge difference on social media sites, and LinkedIn is no exception. Prime times to post tend to be down time office hours such as before the working day starts, lunchtime, and the end of the working day, when professionals get a chance to quickly flick through what is going on online.

LinkedIn is most used during working hours, and less at weekends. Stick to posting when you are at work (Mon – Fri) to get shares, likes and increased engagement.. Because of the business focus, it is unlikely that most LinkedIn users will use it at weekends and out of hours, so it’s important to bear that in mind so that you’re not posting your content to an absent audience.

Making the most of LinkedIn publishing

When an idea is recognised as having worth, hundreds of people can like and share it, validating it as useful and reliable content. From there, it will continue to be distributed to reach more people.

To find out more about increasing your exposure to a wider audience then get in touch with me on 020 7100 0726.