In February last year, LinkedIn opened its publishing platform: LinkedIn Pulse to the public. It’s now rolled out access to the masses and you can publish your own posts via the LinkedIn platform.
Some clients have been self-posting their delicious content via Pulse for a few months now. While they happily post away, we’ve noticed some experiencing declining views, comments and engagement. So has the shine rubbed off LinkedIn Pulse or is there more we can be doing to increase engagement?
The dust settler
While the shine hasn’t rubbed off on Pulse per se, the dust has settled. If you’re new to content marketing, chances are you’re LinkedIn audience hasn’t heard from you before.
Like any new relationship, things start off all consuming. Your first Pulse gets the numbers; everyone wants to read what you’ve got to say. Then slowly numbers dwindle. Thou who never spoke, has spoken. And now you’re speaking all the time, adding to the noise.
How to drive engagement and stir up the dust
Pick a topic that interests your audience
The most popular topics on LinkedIn are careers, business and self-improvement. If your blog is about these topics, then LinkedIn’s audience is great for your content. But not everyone blogs about careers, business and/or self-improvement. And that’s cool.
If your focus is elsewhere, check out LinkedIn’s content channels (middle of the page). Then write about topics that align with a channel.
Obviously everyone wants to be featured on a channel so LinkedIn has a handy algorithm that matches your content with those of the channel. The algorithm evaluates the content itself, rather than your profile information. You can however, help the process by tagging your posts to inform the algorithm. Check out LinkedIn’s guide for tagging here.
Write awe-inspiring, attention-grabbing headlines
Spend time thinking about your headline. When writing on LinkedIn (or anywhere for that matter), the headline is critical, especially if you’re following is small.
If people click on your post to read it, LinkedIn’s algorithm will display your post to more people. Furthermore, if other people like, share or comment on your post, this activity will show up on their LinkedIn feed and be visible to all their connections.
K.I.S.S Tip: Write at least 3-4 different headlines and pick the best one for your article.
Leave the sales at the door
Pulse is for content marketing, NOT sales material. Your posts should be informative and offer value to your audience, not sell your product or service. Check out our tips on blogging here.
Promote your posts
Once your article is on Pulse, increase engagement and exposure by promoting it to your email list and social media followers. Your connections get a notification every time your Pulse is published, but don’t be afraid to re post it as a status update or in some of your groups a few days later to get even more views.
Tweet the team
Send a tweet to the Pulse team if you think you wrote something ah-mazing. But be warned: that dust will settle pretty quickly if you overdo it. Tweet your post to the LinkedIn editorial team at @LinkedInPulse to make them aware of it.
Final thought
Everything in marketing (and life) is good in moderation. Finding the balance between too often and not often enough is key to building a successful LinkedIn following.
IS YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA DELIVERING RETURNS FOR YOUR BUSINESS? LEARN HOW TO MAKE SURE IT DOES.
See you next week
Darnelle
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