Move over WordPress; LinkedIn is the blogging platform that deserves the spotlight! Why? It’s cool, easy to use, and it exposes the users to a relevant audience. Plus, through these blog posts, LinkedIn users can build connections that lead to career progress.
The only problem is: many LinkedIn post remain hidden behind all that activity on the platform. They may be well-written and insightful, but how does an author get people to read the content? It’s clear that when you publish a piece, you want people to react to it. It’s not about ego; it’s about getting what you deserve. You want those shares and comments, and that’s completely okay. Without engagement, there would be no purpose in LinkedIn blogging.
Let’s start from the beginning. In the continuation, you’ll find actionable tips that will help you spark social activity with LinkedIn blog posts.
Be the Expert
On WordPress, everyone can have a blog and make it popular even with brief posts that make no sense. You can get an idea, conduct a brief online research, and wrap up your thoughts in less than an hour. You might end up with a decent post that will attract enough attention, especially if your blog is already popular among the audience.
LinkedIn is all about knowledge, influence, and expertise. In other words, you need to write about what you know best when you use this professional network. Is it employee psychology, salary negotiation, job hunting, or recruiting? Always focus on topics relevant to the areas of interest you’ve listed on your profile.
Through the blog posts, Once you pick your blogging niche, start researching and learning. Only when you have enough knowledge that makes you confident to give advice to other professionals, you can start blogging on LinkedIn.
Pay Attention to the Visual Element
The current look of the platform is heavy on the visual element. When you open the Popular Posts section, you’ll immediately realize that images are important. Let’s take a look at one of the posts on the list of populars: 5 Surprising Cities Rapidly Attracting Millennial Job Seekers. The author chose cool images for each of the cities she wrote about. The images are coherent and you can tell they belong in the same post.
When you’re thinking about finding images for a WordPress blog post, you immediately know the answer: Creative Commons. There are plenty of images with smiley people and scenes you can fit into your post. Those are not suitable for LinkedIn. You have to choose professionally-looking images that give out a sleek impression. If you have to pay for the rights, make that investment. Remember: the purpose of blogging on this platform is career progress. That’s a goal worth investing in.
If you are a skilled photographer, don’t hold back and include your own photographs. You’ll not only showcase your writing skills and expertise but your artistic talent as well. Double win!
Show Your Passion
It’s a golden rule in blogging, regardless whether you’re using LinkedIn or another platform: you gotta show your passion and interest for the topics you cover. Go through this blogging platform and you’ll notice something funny: some of the posts are too dry, rigid, and lifeless. That’s because they don’t have any passion in them. The authors try too hard to seem professional, so they lose their personal voice throughout the process.
If you look for the most popular LinkedIn blog posts, however, you’ll notice they don’t follow that pattern. The authors who share their perspective and inspire the readers to take action – those are the ones who spark social activity.
Be Active!
LinkedIn is cool because the audience is already there. If you pick a topic they want to read about, your very first post can achieve great popularity. That doesn’t mean you can stop there, though. You have to continue writing because that’s the only way to become noticeable as a blogger and expert that someone would like to connect with.
Use your Google Calendar to plan a posting schedule, just like you would do for a WordPress blog. You don’t have to publish new content every single day, but it’s important to maintain your activity high. So, think of few topics and put them on your calendar. Plan your time to fit LinkedIn blogging into your schedule, and you’ll soon become a member the users recognize. That popularity will be accompanied with more connections.
If you don’t have enough time on your hands for blogging, you can “automate” that activity by relying on experts. AssignmentMasters connects you with great writers and editors, who can help you to boost your activity on this blogging platform.
Think of an Engaging Title and Keep It Short!
Let’s go back to the popular posts on the platform again. You’ll notice that the titles are awesome, and they fit well into the box. You don’t want your title to get cut somewhere in the middle. It’s important for LinkedIn users to understand your point through a short, clean headline.
Before you finalize and publish the post, it’s important to think of few alternatives for the title. This is the most important part of the publication, since it tells the potential readers what value they are going to get out of your post. It has to be very attention-grabbing. CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer can help you pick the most effective headline on your list of ideas.
Regarding the length, keep it under 70 characters and you’ll do just fine.
Pick the Right Time to Post
Neil Patel from QuickSprout recommends sharing LinkedIn posts in the morning, Monday through Friday. This makes sense. It’s a professional networking platform we are talking about, so it’s only logical that most people use it during working hours. When you publish the post on the morning of a work day, you get the best chances for engagement.
Imagine a scenario: someone arrives at work, gets the morning coffee, and starts the daily routine: professional networking. That’s exactly when you want your post to be seen. Needless to say, LinkedIn is a global community that functions in all time zones, so you can’t serve the post during everyone’s morning routine. There’s a simple solution for that: focus on your target audience and adjust the posting time according to their time zone.
Choose Trending Topics
Evergreen topics are a huge trend in the blogosphere. They may work well on LinkedIn, too, but trending topics are a much better choice. Here is the idea behind that statement: the platform is already suffocated with the usual topics on how to get a job, what skills to enhance, how to write resumes, how to recruit the best candidates… you get the picture.
You will notice that the most popular posts have an important element in their themes: uniqueness. Here are three good examples:
- Millennials are Thriving in the Workplace, According to LinkedIn Data
- How Inviting Your Employees’ Parents into the Office Can Improve Engagement.
- Most Popular Cities and Jobs for Americans Working Abroad
These cool, unexpected ideas are the ones that take off and spark great social engagement. People are interested to read them, and they naturally react to them.
LinkedIn Blogging Can Be a Great Career Boost
First of all, there are several benefits you’ll gain from your activity as a LinkedIn blogger, in addition to the professional connections that we already mentioned. Most of all, you’ll gain more knowledge and writing skills. For each idea you get and you’ll need to conduct a thorough research, create a concept, and craft a unique post that will get people’s attention. With time you’ll get better and better in this skill, and you’ll gain authority in the professional community.
Are you ready for it? It’s time to start working on your next LinkedIn post!
