Like millions of other LinkedIn users, I was recently invited to publish on LinkedIn Pulse. The invitation went directly to my Marketing folder via an automatic inbox rule. In truth, it could have been a week or two before I circled back and saw the message.
I’m a LinkedIn fan with posts like 10 Tips for LinkedIn Ranking, but my inbox is for customers. The myriad interrupting noise of offers, newsletters, white papers, event notices, and ad nauseam are reviewed later – at a time of my choosing in less than 5 minutes. If there’s been more than a couple of weeks and the volume of messages seems like a high number, all the messages are simply deleted. The world always continues to spin and there’s never been any negative repercussions. All of you die hard e-mail marketers can take a break and have a good cry or whatever.
My gut reaction was a phishing scam with classic ego message of you’re special and deserve to be recognized. The subject read: “Congrats Kevin! You’re invited to publish on LinkedIn”. The white status bar at the top made it sound simple – Write. Share. Get recognized. The image of the smiling and creative people with the open text editor beckons you to start sharing your knowledge and improving your reputation.
About a year ago, the LinkedIn Today Influencer program was closed to new applicants prompting posts like Conan LinkedIn Influencer Overlord. Today, if you choose to compete with posts on Pulse, Influencers will always be listed first in status updates. Daniel Roth, LinkedIn Executive Editor, does a good job with The 7 Secrets to Writing Killer Content on LinkedIn.
There are three critical things to add:
- Right motivation. Give valuable knowledge for your target customers without mentioning your leading organization or fantastic product or service. Have a different message from your industry competition AND the thousands of other LinkedIn posts.
- Rigorous determination. The implied posting schedule is weekly. Follow Roth’s prescribed tips, especially including an image or video like the Critical LinkedIn Profile Tip of 2013. Definitely, Google that headline to make sure it is unique. Content marketing is a strategy and Pulse may be one of many tactical things you try.
- Routine evaluation. Don’t just share and feel good about your latest post. How many followers do you have? What posts received the most interest? Are your customers moving down the sales cycle and eventually buying?
Whether we want to admit it, digital advertising is the game today because cold-calling, e-mail, direct mail, and traditional commercials are ignored. With weekly posts to two different blogs that hit both my profile status and LinkedIn company page, I’m not sure I currently have the bandwidth to do justice to Pulse.
Pulse does seem to rank well with Google. However, there seems to be numerous low quality posts on Pulse. The average user should be cautioned from posting just to create content which could possibly lower their reputation. Maybe someday we’ll all master selling like Gatorade with some background product placement in a YouTube video that is published by most of the major media. Perhaps Pulse will be that type of marketing vehicle for you in the future.