How To Effectively Publish On LinkedIn, Part 3

Sean Jackson on August 25, 2015

In this final episode about publishing to the Pulse Network, you’ll hear directly from our very special guest, Katie Carroll – Social Media Editor at LinkedIn Pulse!

I hope you love this final episode as much as I do! Mica and I talk to Katie about the burning questions from our Missing Link audience.

Why do you want to be on the LinkedIn Pulse Network? How do you build the traffic that you want through the Pulse Network? What about content duplication with your already published articles?

You’ll find all of these answers and more.

In this episode, Mica and I discuss:

  • Why LinkedIn Pulse is where you want to be
  • Understanding content duplication
  • How to build traffic on LinkedIn
  • Best practices for self promotion (you’ll definitely want to hear this again)
  • A cool trick for how to get your articles noticed by the Pulse team

The Show Notes

How To Effectively Publish On LinkedIn, Part 3

Voiceover: This is The Missing Link with your host, the insufferable, but never boring Sean Jackson.

Sean Jackson: Hello everyone, it is your host Sean Jackson. I’m joined as always by the in-motion Mica Gadhia. Mica, how are you?

Mica Gadhia: I am happy today. How are you?

Sean Jackson: I am happy, happy, happy, and I’m going to tell you why.

Mica Gadhia: Tell me why.

Sean Jackson: We have hit a nerve with our audience, Mica. Through this series.

Mica Gadhia: Yes we have. Did you see that?

Sean Jackson: The response to our series on publishing to LinkedIn has been phenomenal. I’m just blown away.

Mica Gadhia: Yeah, they’re participating in the challenge. It’s so good to see all their work out there.

Sean Jackson: I thought our last episode where we talked about a lot of the structural mechanics of how the LinkedIn algorithm works to take those posts and push them up there — I thought that was huge. If you haven’t listened to part 2 of our episode, by all means, hit pause and go back and find that thing.

Mica Gadhia: Definitely. Gericke …

Sean Jackson: That’s a good one there Mica. I wasn’t brave enough to say it.

Mica Gadhia: Thank you, I’ve been practicing.

Sean Jackson: You know what is really amazing, again, has been that response from our audience. They took the challenge that you put in the first episode about publishing something in there. Our group has lit up on fire with people publishing. You’ve got Neil in there who did a great post, Balki who did a great one, Scott. Oh my gosh, Terry. By the way, Terry — great job, keep going, you’ve got it. Everybody who’s been participating in this challenge. Mica, I’ve been blown away.

Mica Gadhia: Yeah, I actually added a promotion from Wessel — thank you Wessel for that — for some of our international writers. That’s very helpful for sentence structure. You can find that when you join us in our promotions area.

Sean Jackson: Yeah. Speaking of international, George, welcome. Sorry it took so long to get in.

Mica Gadhia: Oh, George! He made it finally.

Sean Jackson: He made it finally. Boy, as soon as he got in there he was all over that discussion area.

Mica Gadhia: That was awesome. Welcome George, we’re glad you’re here. We’re glad you worked so hard to get here.

Sean Jackson: Exactly. Appreciate the persistence.

Mica Gadhia: Yeah. Can I tell them how to get on here Sean, so they can join us?

Sean Jackson: Yes. By all means.

Mica Gadhia: Excellent. There’s two ways to do it. If you’re in the continental United States, you’re going to pull out your mobile device, you’re going to text 41411, and you’re going to use the keyboard ‘mylink.’ That’s ‘mylink’ with no space. Again, that texting 41411 — ‘mylink’ is the keyword. If you are outside of the continental United States, we do want you to join us. That will be in an email to MissingLink@Rainmaker.FM. Again, that’s MissingLink@Rainmaker.FM. That’s it.

Sean Jackson: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s easy and there’s a ton of resources. People are sharing. I’m so happy that we have not only hit a nerve with our discussion of Pulse but that our community is adding such great values of resources, etc. in there. Let’s go ahead and talk about this episode though Mica. I know, I was alluding to it, I didn’t want to share who we were going to have on. But a couple of weeks ago I reached out to Katie Carroll, social media editor on the LinkedIn Pulse team, and I asked her to get on the show. Guess what? She said yes.

Mica Gadhia: I know.

Sean Jackson: I’m so excited to have Katie on our show today Mica!

Mica Gadhia: So exciting, I know!

Sean Jackson: It is amazing to me. She is someone who is actually working with the editorial teams approving content that gets into those different channels and assigning them the ones that they think that they should go there. She is actively involved in the content that is being published through the Pulse network. And we have her on the show.

Mica Gadhia: That’s awesome.

Sean Jackson: When we come back from the break we’re going to interview Katie and get the behind-the-scenes information that you won’t find any place else but here on The Missing Link.

Are we at break finally Mica? Are we off the air now? Good.

Mica Gadhia: I think we are, yeah.

Sean Jackson: Okay, good. While we’re in the break point, let me tell you about my friend Dan. Dan reached out to me. He is working on a new site. He was asking me, “Hey, should I build this on WordPress? What should I do? It’s such a pain.” Blah blah blah. I said to him, “Dan, what you need to do, is you need to go to RainmakerPlatform.com and just sign up and get a free rainmaker site for 14 days.” Isn’t that easy? He did that. You know what happened? He built this awesome site with tons of features in two hours. Done. It wasn’t even — with the design, with the landing pages already there with the email integration to his MailChimp thing — it was that easy Mica.

Mica Gadhia: Good for him, that’s awesome. I’m glad.

Sean Jackson: I wish more people would hear that story, because quite frankly, I think they would probably go ahead and do it.

Mica Gadhia: I think they would. I know I did.

Sean Jackson: Yeah. Where do you go to do that, Mica?

Mica Gadhia: RainmakerPlatform.com, and you get free 14 days just to try it out. See if you like it.

Sean Jackson: Let’s not share that too loud, because God forbid all of our audience run over there and do it real quick. Oh, wait a minute —

Mica Gadhia: It’s like our super-secret group.

Sean Jackson: Are we still recording? Damn it!

Mica Gadhia: Oh, Sean. We might as well share it now.

Sean Jackson: I know.

Folks, I’m dead serious. I hope you give RainmakerPlatform.com a try, because it is a powerful platform to get it out there. Just like my friend Dan who really did call me up and really did put a site together in two hours and really was blown away with all the powerful features. Please go ahead and take a moment to go to RainmakerPlatform.com, try that 14-day trial out. Get your content marketing turbo charged with easy-to-use tools, powerful features, and never having to worry about the hassle of getting that online marketing presence up and running. Sound like a plan Mica?

Mica Gadhia: I love it, yes. RainmakerPlatform.com.

Sean Jackson: Welcome back from the break everyone, this is Sean Jackson. As promised we have a very special guest. Katie Carroll is the Social Media Editor for LinkedIn Pulse. Katie, welcome to the show.

Katie Carroll: Hi, great to be here.

Sean Jackson: We are so excited! Inform our audience a little bit about exactly what you do over there at LinkedIn Pulse.

Katie Carroll: I’m a member of the editorial team. We basically are in charge of making sure that we surface amazing content for our members. On top of that, I oversee the LinkedIn Pulse social media channels and have my hand in a bunch of different projects.

Sean Jackson: Holy cow, so you’re the lady that we need to talk to. Because you’re a writer, which is — most of our audience are writers, content marketers, and doing social media things. I think you are perfect for us to talk to. All right, Katie, why LinkedIn Pulse for content marketing? Why should I even be doing anything over there as a marketer in the Pulse network?

Why LinkedIn Pulse Is Where You Want to Be

Katie Carroll: I think the best thing about LinkedIn, or one of the best things about it certainly, is just that it’s a place where people already are. One of the biggest struggles for any writer is finding an audience for your content. The wonderful thing about LinkedIn is that the audience is already there and they’re really hungry for this content. To me, you are exposing your writing new audiences, to very engaged audiences, and to professionals who really want to learn more.

Sean Jackson: Do you have any of the stats on Pulse right now? Because I’ve heard it’s something like 100,000 new posts a week, or something like that, on the Pulse network.

Katie Carroll: 130,000 posts a week.

Sean Jackson: Holy cow. You surpassed Twitter as far as number of members. You’re about 380 million members, I believe, with the LinkedIn network?

Katie Carroll: Last I heard it was about 360, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s higher now.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, you guys keep on growing. Let me get this straight. You’ve got an audience that is there. You’ve got people that are publishing aggressively. And you’ve got people that are spending time on it. Is that pretty much the rationale for being on Pulse?

Katie Carroll: Yes.

Sean Jackson: Okay, good. Otherwise the past several episodes would really not have gone as well. All right, let’s go through this. I take the time to write — in our past couple of episodes we’ve been talking about some structural mechanical things about writing. Strong images, strong headlines, and using tags. Making sure that it is readable for the audience, that it is engaging. We’ve got the structural things down.

Here’s something that I know a lot of our audience wants to know about. If they go in and they start publishing into the Pulse network, how do they get traffic to those posts they’re doing? At the end of the day, it’s great that it’s easy to write towards, but hey, we want people to look at this stuff too, right Katie?

How to Build Traffic on LinkedIn

Katie Carroll: Definitely. I think, truthfully, it all boils down to the content. Really, the key to success is writing things that will start conversations and that will encourage engagements. The logistics of it — as soon as you publish a post it goes out to your network. You’ll get notified. They’ll see it in their news feed that you published this post. Then, if you’re writing content that encourages conversation, anytime someone comments, likes, or shares the post, their network will see it. And on and on. You end up getting this really great viral effect on your content.

That, I think, is your basic fundamental way to get more traction to your posts. Just making sure that it’s something that people really would want to share on the site. The second thing is, if you have external social channels, definitely share it there as well. People who are following you on other channels certainly want to read what you’re writing. It’s always good, I think, to spread this stuff as far and wide as you can.

Then third, within the site’s mechanics you can be picked up and put into a channel based on topic. For leadership and management, for example, or technology — all these different channels. If your post ends up in one of those, then the people who are following those channels will get to see your content as well. There are a couple ways that that can happen. One — essentially we have an algorithm that is scouring content. Trying to see what’s resonating on the site. And then from there the editorial team can go ahead and put it in a channel. Those are your options in terms of getting traction on your posts.

Sean Jackson: It sounds like there’s an algorithmic aspect to getting into a channel and also an editorial aspect to getting into a channel.

Cool Trick for How to Get Your Articles Noticed by the Pulse Team

Katie Carroll: Yes. We’re combination algorithm and editor. One way — and this is a tip that’s definitely worth mentioning — the one way to get your posts in front of the editorial team is if you tweet it to us. If you include the link and a short phrase about your post — tip @LinkedInPulse. That can make sure to get our attention.

Sean Jackson: Tip @LinkedInPulse, got you. Now I feel good. Okay. Interview over — just kidding!

Mica Gadhia: Most of our listeners have other sites. What would you recommend for content duplication and putting the articles that I’ve already published and that are doing well on their main sites and putting them onto LinkedIn?

Understanding Content Duplication

Katie Carroll: We see a lot of that, and it works great. I think that the real key is that you’re going to have different audiences on both sites. LinkedIn can be a really great discovery tool for people who maybe didn’t see it on your first site, but would absolutely be the right audience for that content. I think cross-posting it is completely fine.

The one thing that we do like to say though, is make sure to post the full post. People feel duped sometimes when you post a stump post and have it linkback. They want something that they feel like they can click on it — that they’re going to get value right there. Also, posting the full post encourages people to share and engage with that content. That’s my only caveat. But I would definitely — if you have stuff that makes sense on LinkedIn that was written somewhere else, go ahead and use it.

Sean Jackson: I am following your advice. I’m putting my content — either original content, or I’m putting something from my current blog site let’s say — putting it out there. I’m engaging, I alert the editors via Twitter, “Hey, I got something that I think you guys may be interested in this channel.” I did all of this. How much self-promotion am I allowed on LinkedIn?

At the end of the day, I’m getting my content out there. I’m contributing to your network. But I’m going to take a little bit of time myself and sit out there and promote these posts on my updates, let’s say, and really work the network, if you will, to get people to read this. Is there any penalty if I’m a little bit too obnoxious? Talk to me a little bit about self-promotion on LinkedIn. I want to build up my authority, if you will, but is LinkedIn going to throw me out if I’m seeming a little too self-promoting?

Best Practices for Self-Promotion (You’ll Definitely Want to Hear This Again)

Katie Carroll: No one’s going to throw you out, so that’s the good thing. I definitely would be mindful of the experience of the people who are following you and who are connected with you. One of the things that we tell people is to focus on building up a following. Now members can follow you because they’re reading your content and they want to see more.

That is a really strong indication that basically you’re saying something that people want to hear more of. If you focus on growing that following, that basically means that anyone who is following you will see the posts you write. The bigger your following, the more people who are going to see those posts right from the get go.

If you are too promotional. If you are bombarding people with too many updates, things like that. That’s not the best experience for your followers. I think people end up starting to tune you out. I would really just think about what’s going to be providing value to the people who are following you. What do they want to learn more of? What’s my unique expertise, unique angle that’s going to make them better professionals? Which is, ultimately, the goal of content on LinkedIn in general.

Sean Jackson: We talk a lot about that: add value to the network by adding value to your followers. It does bring up another question, because there are two sides of coins since you bring up your connection count. In my case, I’m fairly selective about who I connect with. I have fairly strong connections with people that I consider very important, yet I know friends of mine who have 6000 plus connections.

It was occurring to me today as I was thinking about this. I said, “If you’re going to be active in LinkedIn and you’re really going to start publishing into the Pulse network, doesn’t it make sense to really be fairly aggressive in both the connections you accept and the connections that you go and find? Or should you be a little bit more like me, a little bit less promiscuous with your connection building?” What do you think Katie?

Katie Carroll: Everyone does have a different philosophy on that. I think it does depend to some extent what you are using LinkedIn for. The beauty of it is with long-form publishing, now you can follow somebody. You don’t really have to worry as much anymore about accepting every single connection request that you get. Somebody who’s reading your post can just hit ‘follow,’ and that’s a one directional action. You don’t have to connect. It’s great because then they’ll see your content the same way a connection will. That includes short-form updates and any other activity you do on the site.

Sean Jackson: Let me parrot that back, because that’s an important point you made. Because of that follow feature in the LinkedIn Pulse network, I can follow a person without necessarily having to connect with that person. As a writer, the more followers to my post that I get, the more that they’re going to see the new things that I am publishing. Is that correct?

Katie Carroll: Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Sean Jackson: Wow. That really does change that conversation. Because before, I could see it easily, “Hey, I got to get all these connections.” Now, with this follower feature, it’s a great way of building that relationship — building that community — without having to connect with everybody at the same time. Love it.

Katie Carroll: Yeah, exactly. I think it’s a crucial element to being successful with content. It really does change the dynamics of what you want to do with the site and how you’re going to get your content out there.

Mica Gadhia: Talking about a lot of followers or whatnot. What is an Influencer on LinkedIn? And then, how would we become an Influencer on LinkedIn?

Katie Carroll: Influencers is an invite-only network right now. It’s basically a compilation of some of the top leaders in business and various industries. It is something that we have a panel internally where we will vet — go through potential candidates for this. Right now we’re pretty closed. It’s tough to get into. Really it’s about trying to find the best mix of professionals and industries for our members. We’re trying to ensure that the content that they’re creating and the group of people that we have in the Influencer program is a good reflection of our member base.

Sean Jackson: Katie, we’re coming to the end of this, but a couple of more questions if you don’t mind. First off, one of the things I really like about the posting feature is the analytics that you guys provide. I think it’s very simple — comprehensive enough. What are some of the things that you as a writer really look for in your analytics through what LinkedIn provides?

Katie Carroll: That’s a great question. I’m sure you’ve taken a look at the new tool that came out not too long ago that gives you more information on analytics in terms of who’s actually engaging with your posts. To me, that’s really important. You can see the industries of people engaging with you, the region seniority level, things like that.

I think everyone who’s writing has a different goal for what they’re trying to accomplish by writing. For a lot of folks, that’s trying to make sure that they’re hitting people in a particular industry. Or if they’re writing on — if they’re a tech writer for example, they want to make sure that the people who are reading their posts are also in technology and also interested in those fields.

To me, being able to look at that information is really important. I think one thing that I like to tell people all the time because I think it’s really true, the page view count or some of those metrics are much less important than who’s reading it and who’s engaging. Looking at whether people are commenting on your posts, whether they’re sharing your post, and looking to see really who is actually the one taking those actions, I think ultimately gives you a much richer story about how your content is doing.

Sean Jackson: What is the question I didn’t ask you that you would really want to talk about? Again, we thank you so much for your time, but I really want to make sure that we cover the things that you think are important for our audience. Our content markers out there, across many different industries are all wanting to market aggressively on LinkedIn. What is something that you would want to share with them that we haven’t already discussed?

Katie Carroll’s Advice for Content Marketers

Katie Carroll: That is a really good question. I think the main thing I want to get across is — other than really focus on creating engaging compelling content, which is always number one. I would say: write to your industry. We see a lot of phenomenal career advice on LinkedIn that’s meant for the general professional who is at various stages in their career. The tough thing about that is that it’s very hard to stand out when you’re writing that kind of content just because there’s so much of it.

I think where you can really get value on LinkedIn is by writing to a particular industry. We are able to put that content in front of those people who are going to get the most value out of it. I think, ultimately, the responses you’re going to get, the qualitative responses, are going to be really valuable to you. I would say, share that unique expertise that you have about your industry, your field, your profession. Focus on that. Because I think that’s going to be a way to get really meaningful success.

Sean Jackson: Katie, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to be with us today. I loved what you had to share. We are so excited to talk about the LinkedIn Pulse network. Great job you guys are doing over there, by the way. I know that our audience will be very interested in this. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see a small little spike in that 130,000 postings a week.

Mica Gadhia: This is excellent, Katie.

Katie Carroll: That’s perfect. Thanks for having me.

Sean Jackson: Thank you. Mica, can you believe that?

Mica Gadhia: Oh my goodness.

Sean Jackson: I told you.

Mica Gadhia: That was excellent, yeah.

Sean Jackson: It was fun. The tips that she came out there with about what does it take to get into those channels. That alone. I was like, “Holy cow!” Go do your homework, find the editorial team members and tweet to them. They’re just like any other human beings. They want good content. That was a huge tip out of it. I really liked about how she focused on quality writing. At Copyblogger we talk about that all the time: about quality writing, adding value to the network. This is the thing I get from this, Mica — there’s really not a secret magic pill that you can take.

Mica Gadhia: Exactly. It’s great writing and producing great content on their site.

Sean Jackson: It’s hard work. It’s just work is what it comes down to.

Mica Gadhia: It is, and it’s consistent work too.

Sean Jackson: Yes, consistent work, I would agree with that. Again, I was very happy with it. Mica, we’re coming to the end of our three-part series on publishing on LinkedIn. I think this has been a phenomenal series based on the discussions that we’ve had over in that fantastic super-secret group that we have. I think the next episode I am going to get one of our experts about how to build traffic to your LinkedIn post. What do you think Mica?

Mica Gadhia: I am excited about that.

Sean Jackson: Yeah. I think we’re going to have — you know what, Sonia Simone.

Mica Gadhia: I love Sonia Simone!

Sean Jackson: The pink haired lady herself will be on our next episode to specifically talk about how to drive traffic to all those quality posts that you’ve been putting into the LinkedIn network.

Mica Gadhia: Perfect. She knows. You know what I’m saying?

Sean Jackson: Yeah. She’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know about it. Yeah, I got it.

Mica Gadhia: Right. She knows her stuff, man.

Sean Jackson: That’s right. Stay tuned for the next episode where we talk about all of the ways to build traffic to the LinkedIn Pulse network that you’ve been publishing towards. Everyone, I hope you’ve enjoyed our series and that you have a great week. We will catch you next time on next episode of The Missing Link.

Mica Gadhia: Thank you all.

Voiceover: You have just experienced The Missing Link, exclusively on Rainmaker.FM.