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LinkedIn Pulse is a great way for B2B marketers to reach and engage customers through content. Here’s a guide to get the best results.
LinkedIn Pulse hand-selects content written and generated by LinkedIn users, creating a newsfeed that’s relevant and valuable to the user. It has become integral to the way users of the professional networking site publish, view and engage with content. It’s also become integral to marketers, as featured content on Pulse can drive noticeable brand-lift and traffic referrals. Yet, with 130,000+ posts published on LinkedIn each week, and millions of users jostling to be established as experts, having your content featured on Pulse is no easy feat. These tips will help you stand out from the crowd:
Firstly, LinkedIn Pulse only publishes content of the highest quality. You’ll be rewarded for publishing pieces that are engaging, informative, free of factual and grammatical errors, and that actively answers the questions your audience are asking. Posts must also be original works.
The advantage of LinkedIn and other forms of social media is that you can view the activity and feedback from your existing and potential audience, competitors, and industry leaders, simply by following their posts and associated commentary. This can help you identify what’s important to your audience, and where you can add to the conversation.
A handy tool to gain further insight into queries on a particular topic is Answer The Public. By spending some time analysing the data from tools such as these you can generate content that’s valuable and relevant to your audience. This will help with content visibility – both in general, and with Pulse.
In the past, LinkedIn has thrown content publishers a bone by providing a yearly editorial calendar, highlighting themes that would be favoured by Pulse each month. Writing on these topics and including the relevant keywords and hashtags would significantly increase the chances of your article being picked up by Pulse. Unfortunately, LinkedIn doesn’t appear to have released one for 2017, but it’s something to keep in mind for the future.
Even without the calendar, ensuring that you’re using the right keywords and tags for your topic will increase users’ ability to find your content.
When you’ve published your piece, it’s highly recommended that you tip off Pulse’s editors via Twitter (tagging the handle @LinkedInEditors). It’s also advisable to add a headline and short blurb to the Tweet to drive further awareness and interest for your post among the social media sphere.
1. Make use of your headline
Your headline is your first impression, and with a smorgasbord of options at the users’ fingertips, you can’t afford for yours to be bland or irrelevant. According to Copyblogger, 80% of people will read just your headline before moving on – that means only 20% will continue through to the piece.
Tools such as CoSchedule’s headline analyser can help users create a headline that will attract readers and convince them to read on.
2. Give your post the personal touch
People find it easier to engage with something if it tells a story or they can relate to it. A personal anecdote can also help illustrate your point and reinforce the relevance of your content to the reader.
3. Long-form content is in
Posts that are above 900 words (preferably between 1200–2000 words) are more likely to be favoured. Make sure, however, that each word is valuable. Waffling will only reduce the post’s quality, quickly disengage your readers and lead to the content being pushed lower down the priority list.
Lists and how to-style posts are particularly liked as they generally stay on-topic, provide direct answers and are easy to scan through.
The best performing headlines:
Are approximately 40–49 characters long
Are how to-style
Do not contain questions
The most successful posts:
Contain how to components or are lists
Are between 900–2000 words long
Include keywords and tags relevant to the topic
Use a neutral tone and are objective in their writing
Are easy to read, with a readability score of 80–89 (there are several online tools available to help you check the readability of your text, such as the Readability Test Tool)
Are divided into around 5 subsections via the use of subheadings
Contain at least one image. Although posts with 8 images have been associated with greater numbers of user engagement.
The featured image at the top of the article should be W: 700 x H: 400 pixels
Ensuring that your images are proportional to these specs will help prevent distortion, blurring or pixilation once uploaded
Don’t contain videos or other embedded multimedia
Include a call to action to encourage further engagement after the user has finished reading the post
Are shared across multiple social media profiles and channels, including Twitter (tagging the handle @LinkedInEditors) to drive awareness for your article
To learn more about the latest innovations that can help you drive customer loyalty, join us at the Salesforce Basecamp 2017 event in Melbourne on Wednesday, 27 September.
