4 LinkedIn Mistakes You Can't Make

With a high user density around the World, big chance you have a Linkedin profile. Are you an active user or do you only log in once in a while to update your account?

Despite the fact that LinkedIn is the biggest professional network, it isn’t it used effectively by a lot of people. When you know how to use LinkedIn in your advantage you can present yourself to potential employers and clients.

Nowadays people base their decision, whether they want to do business with you, for a great part on your LinkedIn profile. That’s why it’s important to have an updated profile.

Yet, on a daily basis I see things on LinkedIn that don’t belong there or are published in the wrong place. In this blog post I talk about the difference between an update and an article, the right place for you to post your message and how you can prevent mistakes.

Update versus article

On social networks like Facebook and Twitter an article is the same as an update. LinkedIn makes a distinction. An update in LinkedIn is an activity that’s shown in your timeline. This message disappears after a while and it won’t be visible for your audience anymore.

But when you write an article your post will appear prominently on your profile, just below your photo.

It’s one of the first things people see when they visit your profile. Your last three articles are visible on your profile and remain in the blog section.

What’s LinkedIn Pulse?

Since february 2015 it’s possible for you to write an article, or in other words to blog on LinkedIn.

The fact that 130.000 articles are published on Pulse each week, proofs that a lot of people have discovered this tool. Especially when you want to blog for the first time it’s smart to start with LinkedIn Pulse. You already have an audience (your LinkedIn connections) you can reach. It’s much difficult to reach an audience on other platforms, like your own blog website, because you have to build an audience first.

When you post an article on Pulse, approximately 20% of your LinkedIn network will see your post, but when you share and promote your blog post really well this percentage will increase. When you promote your article about 20 times a month you can reach 60% of your LinkedIn connections.

Download HERE the ‘Ultimate Guide to Master LinkedIn Pulse for free’

Everyone can read your articles, whether they’re a LinkedIn user or not and despite if you’re connected with them. That’s why it’s so important to think about what you want to publish on LinkedIn Pulse and what not.

Mistake #1: Confusing an update with an article

Because LinkedIn distinguishes an update and a post (article) it’s not always completely clear for every user where to post messages. That’s why messages are somewhat placed in the ‘wrong’ place.

You can use an update when you want to share short news. You can:

• share an interesting link, photo or quote;
• announce a new collaboration;
• announce an upcoming event;
• share a link to a vacancy.

A good example is posting interesting links. For instance, a blog post you’ve read that would also be interesting for your network.

You can use an article when you:

1. Want to create long form content (more than 500 words);
2. Want to teach people something;
3. Want to share your opinion about a specific topic;
4. Want to share your knowledge on a specific area of expertise.

The purpose of LinkedIn Pulse is to share your (own) blog posts that contains professional and valuable information. Yet, I see a lot of articles that don’t belong in the Pulse section. Below you can read what these are.

Mistake #2: Sharing vacancies through the blogging platform Pulse

Vacancies are often shared as an article through the blogging platform Pulse. I don’t think they belong there.

LinkedIn offers a lot of different options in which you can share vacancies. For this, LinkedIn distinguishes two options.

• Via a link to the website on which the vacancy is placed, through an update;
• Via LinkedIn Jobs;

This last option you can find in the menu button ‘Jobs’.  When you click on it you can search for vacancies by function, keyword or company name. You can also post vacancies yourself by clicking on ‘post a job’.

Mistake #3: Spamming commercial content

Sharing advertisements or advertorials for products or services in the Pulse section. The purpose of Linked Pulse is sharing knowledge, not ads.

When you want to share your products or services on LinkedIn, you can use the Showcase page. On this page you can add and display your products and services. A Showcase page is part of the LinkedIn Business page.

 Mistake #4: Publishing company content as an article on your personal account

Sharing copy paste blog posts in LinkedIn Pulse from the company by someone who’s working there.  Company content belongs on a Business page. As an employee you can, if you want to, share this post with your network through an update.

It’s not recommended to share company content via an article on your personal LinkedIn profile. What if you change jobs? These messages are then still prominently visible on your profile.

If you want to know more about successful blogging on LinkedIn Pulse, you can download a free guide HERE.

Drawing the ‘red card’

For everyone who feels bothered by certain content because you think it doesn’t belong on LinkedIn, there’s good news. LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to report an update or article when you think that it doesn’t belong on LinkedIn. This is called ‘flagging’.

When you want to report an update, you first search for this specific update. Then you click on the arrow in the right –hand corner,  next to the person’s name. Click on ‘Report this update’. LinkedIn receives the message and will investigate whether the message is in conflict with their users agreement. If so, the content will be deleted.

You can also ‘flag’ an article. For this you search for the specific blog article. Then you scroll down and click ‘Report this’. LinkedIn researches the article based on their users agreement.  If necessary, this content will be removed.

When you are bothered by certain messages that aren’t in conflict with the users agreement of LinkedIn, you can decide to hide or unfollow someone by clicking on the arrow in the right- hand corner, next to the person’s name. You won’t see their messages any longer, but the person is still part of your network.

It’s not a good idea to respond to messages that bother you, because in that way the message will only spread itself further.

Which updates/articles have you seen on LinkedIn of which you doubt they belong on LinkedIn. I’m curious for your story!

How to Increase Your Visibility with LinkedIn Pulse

‘Great piece! You should publish that on LinkedIn Pulse!’, is what I told one of my valued contacts last week. The look on his face told me he had no idea what I was talking about. There are still so much people in my network who have no idea about the existance of LinkedIn Pulse. Let alone what it can bring. In Holland, the most popular blogs for marketing and entrepreuneurship have published little about this topic so far. Just a little bit about the use of LinkedIn Pulse as a news app. While I think that’s the least interesting application of Linkedin Pulse…

The value of LinkedIn Pulse

Not many people know you can publish your own articles at LinkedIn Pulse as from Febuary this year. Sharing valuable information (called content) is a great way to position yourself as the go-to expert in your branche. And the good thing is, when you publish relevant information, this automatically appears in the timeline of your LinkedIn connections.

Also, your connections will receive an update about it in their inbox. So you don’t have to send a seperate direct mailing to them! Whoever has installed the LinkedIn Pulse app on their smartphone will see a notification on their screen when one of their connections has published a new Pulse blog.

“I would like to emphasize that publishing on LinkedIn Pulse is not the same as sharing a LinkedIn update on your timeline. At your LinkedIn homepage you’ll find three buttons: share an update, upload a photo, publish a post. If you want to create a post for LinkedIn Pulse, you should click on the last option.”

In the last few months, I posted 3 blogs on Linkedin Pulse. I received a few nice comments from a few influencers in my niche because I mentioned them in my blog. Also, the number of profile views increased significantly. Most of the viewers I didn’t know yet but they where active in my niche. At the moment I think I have almost 600 LinkedIn followers. That’s easier and faster than building an email list!

Repurpose existing content for LinkedIn Pulse

For all of you who think blogging on LinkedIn Pulse is a time consuming job, think again. You don’t have to start creating content from scratch. Be smart about it and use what you already have! You don’t need to have your own blog (yet). We all create content on a daily basis. We write emails, columns, tutorials, create slide shares, video’s and give interviews for the local newspapar or an industry publication. That’s al very suitable for repurposing. A few tweeks here and there might just be enough to create an interesting pulse for LinkedIn Pulse.

If you already are a seasoned blogger the trick is even easier. Post the blogs that are on you website (or somewhere else) also on LInkedin Pulse. We always think people will go to our website to check out our news. But what do you visit more often, company websites or Linkedin? Just copy paste your content, Pulse even copies the links. Images should be inserted seperately.

Learn to engage the your target audience

Being a PR pro, I’m very interested in finding out whether my blog ended up being red by my target audience. Because that’s the only way you can learn to publish true valuable content for your target audience. LinkedIn Pulse keeps track of this with analytics for every individual blog. Not just the views but also who saw it (top industry, job title, location, traffic source). My second blog post ‘How to Frustrate Journalists With Your Pitch’ was mostly viewed by journalists (42%). The rest of the viewers where entrepreneurs, PR and marketing specialists. This post was targeted at these last three, not so much for journalists. Analytics showed me journalists where the main readers of this blog. It turned out this happened because I explicitly mentioned ‘journalists’ in the headline. A wise lession for my next blog.

Critics state content on LinkedIn Pulse has lost most of its core value now that over 1 million people post about 130.000 posts every week. There’s some truth in that but I don’t think it is a legid reason to ignore what’s happening here. About 45% of the readers are managers, VP’s and CEO’s, they are the decision makers!

Follow influencers on LinkedIn Pulse

First lession in communication, it’s sending and receiving. So, just like on Twitter, Linkedin Pulse made it possible to follow other professionals and comment on their publications. In 2013, LinkedIn invited the first 150 so called LinkedIn Influencers to start publishing on Linkedin Pulse. These influencers can be recognized easily because they have an ‘in’ icon behind their name. This was such a great succes Linkedin invited another 500 influences to join. I started following a few influencers in my own niche to keep updated on the latest industry trends and news. I follow Alex Pirouz, LinkedIn Expert and Jeff Weiner, CEO of  Linkedin for example. But also Hillary Clinton to learn how she uses LinkedIn for her presidential campaign. These people are not my LinkedIn connections (unfortunately) but I can track what they publish on LinkedIn and comment on it.  I once asked Alex a question in a comment on his blog and he responded a few hours later. How cool is that?!

Do you want to find interesting companies or people to follow? Navigate to the top menu of Linkedin and choose ‘Interests’. In the sub menu choose ‘Pulse’. There you see a button on the left side, again with the name ‘Pulse’. Click on this and another menu reveals itself. Use ‘discover’ to look for interesting sourses that match your interests and area of expertise. Do you see something you like? Click on ‘follow’ to receive all updates of this source in you timeline from now on.

How to publish on Linkedin Pulse?

Publishing on Linkedin Pulse is so, so easy. Click on the button ‘Publish a post’ at the top of your timeline. You can immediately start writing!

If you want to know more about:

• how to find great blog ideas;
• how to write a great headline;
• how to design an image header for your LinkedIn Pulse post in a flash;
• how to choose the right ‘tags’ for your blog etc.

Then read my previous blog ‘12 Awesome Blog Tools To Create More Valuable Blogs’. This is packed with tips and tools you can apply immediately.

I’m curious for other people’s experiences with Linkedin Pulse. Are you a reader or a contributor? What to you think? Do you consider it to be a valuable source of information? I’d like to invite you to share your thoughts.

Want to learn more? Download ‘The Ultimate Guide To Master LinkedIn Pulse‘ for FREE down below!