LinkedIn blogging is a great way to build your reputation, expand your professional network, generate leads, and establish your credibility. It is simple to get started with LinkedIn blogging. You only need a LinkedIn account to start blogging on this professional network site.
Register for a LinkedIn account
To begin blogging on LinkedIn, you will need to create a LinkedIn account . You only need the basic plan to get started with LinkedIn blogging. You may also be interested in other business activities, such as blogging. If this is the case, you can look into one of LinkedIn’s premium plans, which range from $29.99 to $119.95 per month. These plans include career, sales, hiring, and business.
LinkedIn offers both a basic free plan as well as four premium membership plans that focus on different business needs. (Source: LinkedIn.com)
After you have created your account and completed your profile, it’s time to get started blogging on LinkedIn.
Select the type of blog post you want to create
LinkedIn allows you to create two types of blog content. By selecting the “start post” option in your LinkedIn dashboard, you can create a post up to 1,300 characters. These short posts are sometimes called microblogs. These LinkedIn posts can be attached with a document, photo, or video.
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Write microblog posts using LinkedIn’s “Start a Post” option.
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LinkedIn allows you to write full blog posts (which LinkedIn refers to as articles) by using the “write an article” option in your LinkedIn dashboard. The article option allows you to write detailed blog posts with embedded links, photos, videos, multiple headlines and text formatting. LinkedIn articles can only contain 125,000 characters.
Write longer, feature-rich blog posts using LinkedIn’s “Write Article” option.
Simply add text to create a LinkedIn post. If you wish, you can attach a picture, video or document, and hit the enter key. Bloggers often promote content from their sites in LinkedIn posts.
In just four steps, you can create a longer blog post for LinkedIn.
Four Simple Steps to Blog on LinkedIn
Click on “Write Article” on your LinkedIn homepage to create detailed, feature-rich blog articles. Then you can start blogging. These are the four steps you need to follow to create your LinkedIn blog article.
Four simple steps to creating a blog post on LinkedIn
- Write a headline to your article.
- You can embed images, videos and links in your blog posts. LinkedIn’s formatting toolbar can be used to format text or create sub-headers.
- Your blog post should have a header image. LinkedIn recommends that images not exceed 744×400 pixels.
- Once you are ready to publish your article, click the publish button in upper right corner. LinkedIn will ask you to (see below) indicate who you would like to see your post (A), to write a short description (B), and to add hashtags (C), which contain keywords that are relevant to your post in order to increase its visibility. Once you have added all the information, click the publish button at the bottom right. Your article will be published on LinkedIn.
Example of the final screen you’ll see on LinkedIn before you publish your article.
The quality of your LinkedIn article will depend on how hard you work to create it. Keep your ideal reader in mind when writing. Your readers will be more inclined to share your content with their networks and reach out to your site if you are able to serve them well.
These are some of the best ways to create great blog posts for LinkedIn.
- Create captivating blog titles that will encourage people to read the entire article.
- In your posts, include interesting statistics and lesser-known facts.
- Include links to relevant websites, especially your own, as well as links that point to information that you and your ideal audience are interested in.
- Blog posts should be easy to read. This can be achieved by using lots of images, bullets, lists, and short paragraphs.
View Blog Post Drafts and Published Articles
LinkedIn lets you see how your article will appear by showing you your draft. You can access your drafts from the LinkedIn “write article” dashboard by clicking the Publishing menu at the upper left corner. You can view drafts of other articles, as well as published articles.
Navigate to LinkedIn’s publishing menu to review drafts and articles and share drafts with others.
To get feedback from others, you can also share your drafts before publishing an article. LinkedIn will give you a live link to share your draft article (example here).
Editing published articles
LinkedIn allows you to easily modify published articles. Click the “Me” icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage’s navigation bar to get started.
Menu for accessing posts to edit as well as view post activity stats
Click “Manage” and then “Posts & Activity”. A list of articles and posts will appear, along with an edit option. Once you are done editing, click the publish button to upload your edited post to the LinkedIn platform. After you make edits, you can’t go back to the original article. You can make a backup of the original document and save it on the LinkedIn platform if you have to keep it.
LinkedIn won’t inform your connections that an article was updated. If you make significant changes to your content and feel it merits special attention, LinkedIn will not inform your connections. Instead, you need to direct your connections via a separate LinkedIn posting.
How to view Analytics for Blog Posts and Articles
For 60 days, post analytics will be available. LinkedIn article analytics will be available for two years. You can see the number of views, comments and reactions to your articles and posts by going to:
- From your LinkedIn homepage, click on the “Me” tab.
- Click on “Posts & Activity” under “Manage.”
You can choose to view all activity or only article or post activity once you are on the “Posts & Activity” screen. You will see statistics for total views, comments and reactions below your articles and blog posts. These statistics are not available to the public.
LinkedIn provides basic analytics statistics for your posts and articles.
LinkedIn: Why you should blog
LinkedIn is the most used social network for business professionals in America, with more than 65,000,000 professionals. These are just some of the many reasons why you might want LinkedIn to be your blog:
- Increase your professional network.
- You can attract new clients to your business by using LinkedIn as a tool for lead generation.
- Showcase your expertise and knowledge to help you find a job.
- You can better serve your clients and business contacts who use LinkedIn.
- Showcase your company’s excellence to attract better quality candidates.
Top reasons people use LinkedIn
What are the Pros and Cons of blogging on LinkedIn?
There are both advantages and disadvantages to blogging on LinkedIn. Let’s take a look at some of the best pros and cons to blogging on LinkedIn.
Top Pros and Cons of Blogging on LinkedIn
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| It’s easy and free. | LinkedIn does not allow you to schedule blog posts. |
| LinkedIn is home to the largest online network of business professionals. | Because of the limited options for blog formatting, you have very little control over your blog design. |
| LinkedIn allows readers to easily share articles and blog posts they have written. | Your audience and you cannot share your posts automatically on other social media networks. |
| A CRM can be used to integrate LinkedIn. | LinkedIn can control who sees your posts. |
| LinkedIn provides basic post analytics capabilities. | Advanced analytics capabilities are not possible. |
| This is a great way to show your expertise and build professional credibility. | Emails cannot be collected directly via the channel, but you can do so on your website. |
| LinkedIn feeds are crowded with competitors for your attention. | |
| Low SEO capabilities mean that your posts will not be seen on search engines. | |
| No comment moderation capabilities. |
LinkedIn is the Best Alternative to Blogging
Although it is super easy to blog directly through LinkedIn, creating your own website will help you achieve your blogging goals faster and more effectively.
There are many benefits to building a website. LinkedIn is a platform that allows you to be just one of millions of people. However, your website will place you and your company at the center of attention.
Your website allows you to control how your content looks and who sees it. It also gives you more control over how you generate business leads. Your website will also increase your chances of your blog posts ranking on Google. LinkedIn does not offer the same search engine optimization capabilities and features as your website.
You have full control over your blog’s design, branding and email capture. Setting up your own blog is a great way to make more from blogging.
Create a WordPress blog that you can manage yourself
If you want to get the best return on your blogging efforts, I recommend creating a self-hosted WordPress site with Bluehost as your host provider. WordPress is the most widely used blogging platform. Bluehost provides reliable and secure hosting solutions starting at $2.95 per month. This is a low investment for those who are focused on growing their business online or establishing a professional presence.
Promote your self-hosted blog content on LinkedIn
The most successful bloggers don’t use LinkedIn to be their only blogging platform. Instead, they use it as a social media channel to promote content on their blogs. This gives bloggers the best both of them: the blogger can tap into the enormous LinkedIn business user base and retain complete control over their online presence via their blogs.
Leadership expert Michael Hyatt uses LinkedIn to promote blog posts from his website
Bottom line
LinkedIn is the most popular social network for business professionals. If your goal is to monetize your blogs, it’s easy and inexpensive to do so. You might also consider setting up a WordPress self-hosted website that you can promote via LinkedIn.