Understanding the Compelling Power of the LinkedIn Publishing Platform

Neal Schaffer: 0:01

Welcome to maximize your social actionable advice on how your business can maximize your social media presence. Now, the host of maximize your social, social media author, speaker, consultant, and founder of maximize social business, Neal Schaffer. Hey, this is Neal Schaffer. And welcome to a another episode of maximize your social the podcast hope you've been doing well, wherever you are in the world, you know, the last few podcasts I had recorded in various locations at various times, I sort of built a, you know, sometimes you build a stockpile of blog posts, I'd actually built a stockpile of podcasts, which actually helped me maintain a regular schedule that I wasn't always able to do in 2012. So with that being said, right now, when you hear this next week, we'll be all up to date. And I've been doing an incredible amount of traveling just so many things I'd like to share with all of you that week that I was in Europe, speaking in Copenhagen, and in Helsinki, you vascular Finland, for those of you who are familiar with the Finnish territory, as well as a podcast that recorded in London, after that I spoke in Tucson, Arizona, spoke again at Rutgers and is also speaking in San Diego for the Latino IC Digital Marketing Conference. But today, I want to talk about LinkedIn. And I want to talk about LinkedIn. If you've been following me and following the blog, you'll know that I recently got access, in fact, yesterday got access to the new LinkedIn publishing platform. And it's funny because everybody is going to get access to it. But before you get access to it, we're all sort of wondering how are we going to use it? You know, we have a blog. And maybe we publish on various sites, you know, Google Plus, and LinkedIn and Twitter and Facebook, and how are we going to use this LinkedIn platform? Now, I'm a big believer, and I'm sure you all are as well, even though it's not always possible, of really sending the right message to the right audience. And LinkedIn really is a special audience. It is a special audience in that it is where the decision makers are, it's professional, a high average, you know, demographic, in terms of education, in terms of wealth, and obviously, in terms of decision making power. So and because, you know, I started blogging about LinkedIn, back in 2008. And I believe I have a deep understanding of the platform and the audience, I realized that, you know, the LinkedIn publishing platform is not worthy of a status update. It is worthy of something deeper. And when you look at all the thought leaders that have blogged on LinkedIn before, and I've had so many people asked me, Neil, how do I become a LinkedIn influencer, a thought leader and get access to the platform, you know, if you look at all the thought leaders they are, they're pretty much publishing unique content, they're not publishing on a weekly basis, per se, as I always recommend for blogging, but maybe on a monthly basis, but the content is unique. And it's also geared towards the LinkedIn audience. And I think that's critical. I also understand, you know, LinkedIn owns pulse, which is a, an RSS reader. And you have sort of this merger of LinkedIn today and polls and you have LinkedIn trying to introduce influencers posts in the newsfeed and you have an algorithm, the newsfeed, which is not necessarily something like EdgeRank. But I believe that with sponsored posts and native advertising showing up in our news feeds, there's obviously some tweaking there's an algorithm that's going on there. So it's my belief that if you give your LinkedIn publishing posts, a little bit of TLC, and this goes beyond just you know, publishing content, whether it's unique content, or duplicate content, of giving it a little bit of TLC, and really reserving what you publish on LinkedIn to that platform, and you're not just trying to lead people elsewhere. That's what a status update is for this is sort of like a blog post. But I believe that if you do that, and if your audience is receptive, well, the LinkedIn audience is receptive to what you write, and they send social signals where they like it and they share it, and they comment on it. I do believe that you're going to get some pretty wide exposure for your post case in point. Okay. It has not even been 24 hours since I published my first post on LinkedIn. I published this post like at five or 6pm on a weeknight when I blogged I never published at that time, right. But I just wanted to was the first day I got access to the platform. I just wanted to get something out there. Now even though it's five or 6pm There are people who look at LinkedIn after work hours, believe it or not, I do also have an audience in Asia in Japan and India what have you that I know that it's it's just starting for their work hour or it's in the middle of the day for them and they will be able to see it as it as it pops up. But the amazing thing now I used to have a blog called windmill networking and I split that out between maximize Social Buzz Since we're all the blog content went and maximize your social, which is more of my personal brand and my business site right now, most of my content that had authority with Google went to maximize social business. So maximize your social was really starting from scratch without really any blog content, trying to build up website traffic visitors, and I've only had it, it hasn't even been six months since I've launched it. But I will tell you, okay, in less than 24 hours, I already have the number of views that I have on this one post, which I published on LinkedIn, which you'll have to check out called, how will you use the LinkedIn publishing platform, if you go to my LinkedIn profile linkedin.com/n/neal Schaffer, n al Sch. Ff er, you will see, I don't know if you get to see the number of views but just in less than 24 hours basically, have gotten enough views that it would take about three weeks for me to get on maximize your social.com. And this is the first time I'm announcing it publicly. So obviously, my podcast listeners get first dibs on the good advice. But when you see that you realize, okay, now maximize your social, like any other website gets a lot of traffic from Google, Google is not sending me this amount of traffic, LinkedIn is, and that's where the lights should go on. The light went on in my head, and the lights you go on in your head, that LinkedIn is its own ecosystem, its own ecosystem that can drive a lot of traffic. It's not going to your blog or your website, it's going to your LinkedIn profile, it's going to your content. But I will tell you, I always say, treat your homepage on LinkedIn as if it was your website. It's almost like your second website for personal branding for professionals that don't have their own website, it is their website. And therefore, if you don't have a website, it's going to be even easier for you to use LinkedIn as your blogging platform. But that is how powerful it is. I'm still waiting to see what the long term ROI is going to be beyond that, I believe it's going to be significant. Looking at the experiences of thought leaders and influencers that are already blogging on LinkedIn. I think that Dave kirpan from likable, he has an excellent book that's only available on Kindle, where he shares his experience. And I think he says he's closed over a million dollars a business, that he already directly correlates to blogging on LinkedIn. That's how powerful it is. So if you're thinking about just diddling with the LinkedIn blogging platform, and just posting links there and republishing your old content there, I really think you should think twice, and really give the LinkedIn platform, some tender loving care, really craft each post for that audience. You know, LinkedIn is not a matter of quantity, it's amount of quality. And I bet you, those people that try to publish every day that don't get any engagement, I do not believe they're going to get the same exposure in the LinkedIn newsfeed in what is left of LinkedIn today in pulse that those who blog less, but get more engagement per post. So I hope that this advice serves you well, some of you are already asking me well, how do I get access to it and LinkedIn will notify you when you get access, but they already publicly announced that everybody is going to get access, you will get a message from LinkedIn. And after you get the message, when you go to your status update bar on your profile, you will see that there is now this little pencil, and when you press on the pencil, you then get access to it's almost like if you're on WordPress, you see that kitchen sink of different icons that are lighter, but bold and add a link and add an image. And that's where you will see that functionality. So I hope that you'll follow me on LinkedIn, obviously, I'd be honored by your follow. And I'd be also honored if you engage with my content there and told me Hey, Neil, this is what I want to see a blog about, I am going to start a journey of blogging on LinkedIn. And this will be content that I won't be blogging to maximize your social and maximize social business. And it's really going to be topics that I think are most pertinent to the LinkedIn demographic. So you know, just like, by listening to my podcast, you get access to the best information. First on, I'm really going to reserve a lot of LinkedIn specific information, as well as related topics like social selling and employee advocacy to that platform. So you'll want to make sure you follow me there. And I'll be looking forward to reporting back to you on how everything goes blogging on LinkedIn. That's it for today, everybody. I really appreciate all the subscriptions and all the likes and comments on iTunes and Stitcher and SoundCloud. And obviously you should already know that if you go to maximize your social.com you'll see the more than 50 podcasts that I've already published hours and hours of me speaking, which hopefully not only entertains you but you know, provide you some meaningful education. So I do hope that you will access those and maximize your social.com as well. And that's it for today. I'm actually off to North Carolina next week where I look forward to recording some podcasts for the future as I meet some pretty famous people on social media. I do a book signing at Barnes and Noble and I'll be visiting two different you universities that are already using maximize your social as a textbook. But wherever you are in the world, I wish you a great week ahead as well. And wherever you are, make it a great day. Bye bye, everybody. Thanks for listening to maximize your social. We appreciate your iTunes subscriptions ratings and comments. If you would like to appear on the show or recommend content, please contact Neal Schaffer at Neal at maximize your social.com Thanks for listening and have a great day.