How to Use LinkedIn Publisher to Build Your Professional Brand and Become a Thought Leader

Many of you have great ideas for articles but maybe you’re not sure where to publish them, or you kind of want a blog but you don’t want the time commitment of having to regularly publish content to it. Or maybe you work for a company that wants its existing content to reach a wider audience and you’ve done everything you’re supposed to do but you’re not seeing ROI or the results you’ve gotten are lackluster and you’re willing to try something new.

If you fall into these categories, LinkedIn Publisher may be just what you’re looking for.

LinkedIn offers every member the option to post blog-length content right on its platform, which is a great way to help you build your brand and authority as a subject-matter expert.

The Benefits of LinkedIn Publisher

With more than 700+ million professional users around the globe, leveraging LinkedIn’s powerful network for publishing business-related content is something that business professionals as well as companies should strongly consider incorporating into their content marketing strategy.

In addition, LinkedIn Publisher posts are also indexed by Google and show up in organic search results. To me, this is one of its best features because LinkedIn search results often appear at the top of Google’s search results, which will give you and your article great visibility.

One of the biggest benefits to using LinkedIn Publisher is the fact that when you publish an article directly on LinkedIn, your article will be shared with your connections and anyone who follows you (of course this doesn’t necesarily mean that they will actually see it but there is a good likliehood that a good number of them will). In addiiton, as soon as your 1st degree connections begin to like, comment and share your content, it will be seen beyond your immediate network.

Plus, using hashtags on LinkedIn will help your content reach a wider audience.

Another benefit to using LinkedIn Publisher is that you are not only the writer but also the editor and you have total control in real time of making any edits to your article. So if you see a typo or you want to add or delete something in it, you can easily do that yourself.  My one big complaint though is that you cannot edit (or write) a LinkedIn Publisher post from your mobile phone, which is a huge inconvenience for those who write and edit on the platform a lot. I do hope that LinkedIn will offer its users the ability to do this soon.

A Word to the LinkedIn Publisher Wise

It is important to keep in mind that any content you publish on LinkedIn will be linked to your profile and visible to your network under the “Articles” section.

You’ll want to make sure that what you publish reflects your values and always professsional. Never discuss political issues or anything controversial. You should also obtain permission from your current employer in advance and check your HR manual to ensure that you aren’t breaking any rules by publicly publishing your views.

Remember, your LinkedIn profile is your professional online brand. Don’t publish anything that could jeopardize or harm it.

Think Personal, Practical and Professional

One of the most helpful Content Marketing Institute articles that I’ve ever read highlighted that the most successful LinkedIn posts are:

• Personal
• Professional
• Practical
• Portray a path for change
• Point toward peak experiences

The article went on to say that the LinkedIn Publisher posts with the most shares had the folllowing actionable words in their headlines:

• “how to”
• “ways to”
• “the best”
• “at work”
• “you should”
• “your career”
• “the most”
• “the world”

In fact, articles with the words “how to” dominated the headlines by a very strong margin (6 to 1). They focused on practical advice and many addressed work- and job-related issues.

While law firm content tends to shy away from using personal pronouns for obvious professional reasons, there are ways for lawyers and their law firms to incorporate personal elements into their content that can resonate with clients and potential clients, and help them stand out from the pack.

The effective headlines revealed a sense of collegiality in the heavily shared content. The personal elements helped the articles read more like advice from a mentor than a textbook.

In addition to advice topics, the most-shared posts were often explicitly about the world of work. Frequently used headline words included “success” and “business,” “career” and “job,” “boss” and “employee.”

The most-shared articles also emphasize change and growth. They also rely heavily on superlative terms such as “most,” “big,” “every,” “must,” “all,” and “never.”

Lists, especially short lists, perform well on LinkedIn. The 500 most-shared articles for the last few years included posts listing five or 10 items. Lists of longer than 20 items were less frequent.

I recommend that you use the five Ps of publishing on LinkedIn. Write posts that are:

• Practical
• Professional
• Personal
• Portray a path for change
• Point toward peak experiences

One way lawyers can do this is by linking to an article or client alert from their firm’s web site on LinkedIn and offering their commentary, or viewpoints on an op-ed or article written by a news source they value. This is called “newsjacking.”

Simply put, newsjacking is when you inject your ideas and input into a news story and generate media coverage and interest for yourself. It can be highly effective in building your personal brand. (Of course, lawyers should always make sure they have the approval of their firm and alert their marketing team when considering pursuing this tactic.)

Also, I encourage marketing professionals who are reading this post to think about using LinkedIn as a personal branding tool themselves to write articles on topics that resonate with them, just like I am.

Use What You’ve Got