09 May LinkedIn Joins the Content Game

Recent news from LinkedIn has created a lot of buzz among its users as well as among social media enthusiasts. The news pertains to last month’s announcement. “LinkedIn is opening up our publishing platform to our members, giving them a powerful new way to build their professional brand.” While there are many reasons to be excited about this, one of the biggest ones is that when you publish your content, it will not only go to your network connections but to all of LinkedIn users.  Talk about exposure to your business! LinkedIn allowing its users (and not everyone gets to participate, but more on that later), to share relevant content about their business or service is a great break through. 
We already know that sharing knowledge about your brand or service via relevant and interesting content is an excellent way of building your professional brand.  While they offered this content sharing well over a year ago to a choice few, LinkedIn saw the value of opening up the forum to more users.  Interestingly enough, even though they made a formal announcement about LinkedIn Publisher, they are only “taking applications.” I of course filled out one of their applications and right on the form they ask what your LinkedIn public URL is (naturally) but then they ask you to provide the url where you have already posted relevant and interesting content.  My guess is, if you are just now starting a blog on your site, chances are LinkedIn may not grant you access to this Publisher offering.  I could be wrong, but my thought is that they’re looking for businesses who are well established and at minimum have shown they are prolific when it comes to posting content.
So, is it profitable and worth publishing content on LinkedIn today? According to the LinkedIn article, the answer is definitely “yes.”  Here are a few reasons why.
1. LinkedIn is one of the largest and well respected social media platforms, targeting B2B customers, so what better place to add more value to your business or brand then sharing content on this platform.
2. Google search. Have you ever noticed when you Google someone’s name, one of the first listings that appears is LinkedIn?  LinkedIn is such a powerful factor in search results due to its trustworthiness that adding a great piece of content on LinkedIn increases your chances for people doing general searches to stumble across it.
3. Credibility. No one will ever challenge your wit or expertise, not on LinkedIn, the favorite corner for professionals worldwide. This means that your credibility will be enhanced just because your content is proudly represented on LinkedIn. Furthermore, credibility is automatically backed by authority. So, the more you add valuable content on LinkedIn, the more authority you will achieve.
So if you have not begun the content game within your business, now is the time to get started.  If you don’t know where to begin, you can always contact me for assistance.  I love to write and have a great team in place to conquer almost any subject (and yes I said almost).