Should corporate bloggers use LinkedIn Pulse?
LinkedIn Pulse is a good way to extend your content’s reach, amplify your message and gain a new audience.
The Content Marketing Institute has reported that 94 per cent of B2B marketers regularly use LinkedIn to distribute content. It is the most potent lead generator and has a visitor-to-lead ratio three times higher than its competitors. Other research estimates that 80 per cent of B2B social media leads come from LinkedIn. So if you are a blogger looking for sales leads, LinkedIn makes a great deal of sense.
What is LinkedIn Pulse?
The LinkedIn Pulse self-publishing tool began life as a pretty exclusive members club that over time became the site’s ‘Influencers’ initiative and eventually evolved into ‘Pulse’. It is now a platform that gives content creators access to all 250 million or so English-speaking LinkedIn users.
This ‘built-in’ audience is one big reason LinkedIn makes sense as an additional content amplification mechanism. All your LinkedIn followers receive an instant notification of a new article to read and they can then help you extend your reach by sharing your article.
Both a blog and a social network
Here is where I think LinkedIn Pulse earns its stripes. The LinkedIn Pulse self-publishing platform is basically a cross between a blog and a social network, and combines the benefits of both. As a blog platform it gives you a place to post up your latest thoughts, but the social network element helps you target the readers you want to reach from a business strategy perspective. And in today’s time and attention-pressured world, getting the right content to the right people as quickly and effectively as possible has become vital.
You get to amplify the reach of your message and grow your audience. If you are an executive who wants to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry, increasing your profile via LinkedIn Pulse also helps you open doors to new speaker engagements, interviews and event presentation opportunities.
The numbers also back up why as a blogger you should also be using LinkedIn Pulse. More than 2 new members per second are signing up to LinkedIn, 40 per cent of users check LinkedIn daily and 77 per cent of B2B marketers have stated their intent to increase use of LinkedIn in future. If you want people to read your blog – and want your blog to deliver business benefits and tangible results down the line – self-publishing articles on LinkedIn Pulse as well is a great
Achieving tangible results
At Futurity we have worked with our clients’ C-level executives to help them expand their reach and increase their profile through high quality blog articles. LinkedIn Pulse provides a great mechanism for reaching a larger audience, but if your articles are not well-written then you can’t necessarily expect your target audience to read them.
We work with senior spokespeople to gather their thoughts and opinions on a range of complex issues, craft them into interesting, newsworthy articles that represent their viewpoints and then promote them via LinkedIn Pulse. The results have been great, with reach and profile improved and a significant number of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ achieved.
We can help your executives to increase their profiles too through blogging and an integrated LinkedIn Pulse strategy. If you would like to know more, please contact us. Watch out for our next blog on LinkedIn Pulse best practices.