A Guide to Blogging on LinkedIn as a Freelancer
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Did you know that you can start blogging on LinkedIn? As a freelance writer, blogging is a great way to gain exposure and meet potential clients, and LinkedIn makes starting this process easy – anyone can post articles to their profile using the content publishing platform, LinkedIn Pulse. In this post, we will:
- Explain what LinkedIn Pulse is
- Look at the pros and cons of blogging on LinkedIn
- Explain how to get started
- Offer a great training opportunity
What Is LinkedIn Pulse?
LinkedIn is one of the world’s largest social networking sites for professionals.
In 2012, LinkedIn started its own content publishing platform called LinkedIn Pulse. Its original purpose was to allow industry professionals to share their expertise with like-minded individuals. Regular users could view this content and learn from it.
Luckily, Pulse has evolved over the years, and it is now a feature known as LinkedIn articles available to all users on their regular feed. Anyone can post articles on their own profile page. You can post to drive more people to your personal blog, but it’s also easy to use LinkedIn as your main blogging platform.
What Are the Pros of Blogging on LinkedIn?
There are benefits to blogging on LinkedIn. First and foremost, it’s incredibly easy. LinkedIn takes care of almost everything.
When you write an article on the site, LinkedIn will automatically share it with your connections and followers. From there, people can share it with their followers if they like what you wrote. As a result, the number of people who read your post can increase exponentially.
Other benefits include:
- It’s a well-established and popular platform
- It’s free – no domain names, ads, or paying to boost your exposure
- It’s simple to connect with other bloggers in your niche
- You have instant access to the millions of active LinkedIn users
- Other users are always looking on the site for more information related to their industry
- You can build strong relationships by providing valuable information to your connections
- When someone leaves a comment on your post, their connections will see your article in their news feeds
- The URL slug is simple, making it easy to share and promote your posts
- It’s easy to see how many views your post has received and where the readers live
What Are the Cons of Blogging on LinkedIn?
Like anything in this world, there are downsides to blogging on LinkedIn. One of the biggest ones is your ability to gain exposure outside of LinkedIn.
The site is very much designed to keep people browsing within LinkedIn. People may read your post, but they may not be motivated to go much further beyond that.
There is no reason you can’t place a link to your own website or blog in your post, but LinkedIn won’t do anything to help you establish a connection outside their social network.
Other downsides are:
- Lots of competition – if you post about a popular topic, it can be difficult to stand out among similar posts
- LinkedIn isn’t as detailed as Google Analytics when it comes to cumulative statistics for all your posts. You need to look at each one individually
- You can’t approve, reject, or mark comments as spam
- You don’t have access to your readers’ email addresses for following up on conversations or engagement
- LinkedIn’s algorithms determine what posts show up at the top of others’ news feeds
- LinkedIn owns the rights to all your content
How to Blog on LinkedIn
It’s easy to get started creating your first post using LinkedIn Pulse:
- From your home feed, select “Write article” to open the publishing tool.
- Upload an image.
- Devise a creative title.
- Write your article.
- Add any appropriate hashtags.
- Click “Next.”
- Choose your post settings (e.g. who you want to post to).
- Write a brief summary of your post (you can add hashtags here if you didn’t in the main article).
- Click “Publish” or choose to schedule your post to be published later.
It’s important to note that a LinkedIn post is different from an article. A post is a short update (often limited to a few sentences or a short paragraph), designed to be timely and concise. By contrast, an article is longer-form and more in depth, and comes with additional formatting options. So, if you’re looking to create a quality blog post, you should use the “Write article” function.
A useful tip is to write your article in a separate word processor, and then copy and paste it into LinkedIn. This is a good rule of thumb when using any online publishing tool.
Before you start sharing blog posts on LinkedIn, you should have a plan about how you’re going to reach out to potential clients so they can see your writing. Additionally, if you want your blog to be valued, viewed, and shared, it is important to have a strong profile before you create your first post.
LinkedIn blogging is a great way for freelancers to promote themselves. It can help you:
- Showcase your expertise and establish yourself as an authority in your industry
- Build credibility and trust (increasing the chance that you’ll be considered for opportunities when they come up)
- Connect with a wider network of people who might be interested in your services
- Build and boost your personal brand
There are lots of different types of content you could share. For example, as a freelance writer, you could share writing tips and advice, your views on industry trends, success stories from your freelance projects, or reviews of writing tools and resources.
Becoming A Freelancer
If you are a freelance writer or want to become one, there’s no better way to be successful than to have your writing seen by as many people as possible. Blogging on LinkedIn is a great way to do this.
Developing your writing skills is an excellent way to grow your freelance writing business too, and one of the best ways to do this is to sign up for our Becoming A Freelance Writer course. It’ll teach you everything you need to know about getting started as a freelance writer.
Start your free trial today and see for yourself!
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