A Publication’s Strategy for LinkedIn

A Discussion Article

It is always a marvel to see how humans do their best to adapt to everything. Embrace it. Change it. Use it. Ignore it. What strategy works best? How do I get more information? What do the experts think? What do my friends and family say? Should I just do it? Is trial and error the best way? Wow!

With so many questions, it’s a wonder we ever do anything.

Embarking on a new strategy is never an easy task, add to that the often overwhelming availability of information. It’s understandable that we would create shortcuts to action just to get our endeavors going.

Still, as a new publication trying to establish itself as a mainstay across various platforms, it is best every now and then, to proceed with caution. Hence, I invite all of you readers to an open discussion on the best positioning-strategies, for establishing a new publication on LinkedIn.

According to LinkedIn’s own about page, they have 690+ million users across over 200 countries and territories. The initial splash for a new publication, no matter how big it is, might not even cause a ripple. However, most of us know that it isn’t about the initial splash.

It’s about creating a consistent ripple, over a long period of time.

We must take into account the differences in the use of LinkedIn as a social media platform when compared to other platforms like Twitter and Facebook. With the latter two, users are often rewarded for their creativity, entertainment value, and sometimes shock and awe. On LinkedIn, the users are rewarded for their professionalism and their association and close ties with other professionals.

Individuals post their professional resumes listing their professional skills, education and titles on LinkedIn. And everything posted under their legal names in a bid to get recruited to other jobs. Companies on the platform do their own dressing up in a bid to add new professional recruits to their ranks.

I’m not saying that you couldn’t find a new job or gig posting to Twitter and Facebook, because I’m sure it happens. But I want to emphasize the difference by saying, if Twitter and Facebook are an impromptu game of words, with friends, then LinkedIn is a high stakes hostage negotiation — the individuals holding their own skills hostage, the recruiters holding their jobs hostage, and both trading with the words of a negotiator.

You know how this works. You give me something, I give you something.

Your experience on LinkedIn may be different from what I have described, but I wanted to give you the lay of the land as it pertains to a new publication coming on board and trying to stick around. The LinkedIn environment is competitive and the only way a new publication is going to make an impact is by offering something that gives LinkedIn users a competitive advantage.

I’m going to lay down some basic strategies across three areas of focus, and I would like you to utilize the “highlight and respond” feature on this platform to discuss each specific area. Highlight and respond as much as you wish, because this is still the information gathering stage. We will gather the information, analyze it, and then use it to create a viable vision for the future, for the new publication.

Strategy 1: Vision

A. For the publication to become a hub for a wide ranging variety of articles, easily accessed by the professional community on LinkedIn.

B. For the publication to become a hub of very specific business-oriented articles written by a select few, easily accessed by the professional community on LinkedIn.

There could exist personal reasons why some writers would not want 100% of their publication articles posted on LinkedIn. Especially those that are already highly active on the platform covering a specific niche. This is something that must be taken into consideration.

Strategy 2: Adherence

A. All published articles on the publication are automatically uploaded to the publication’s LinkedIn page via the publication’s RSS feed and IFTTT programming. One to two articles containing curated content from the full daily published list are reposted by each team member to their individual networks on a daily basis.

B. Select articles on the publication are uploaded to the publication’s LinkedIn page via manual entry. One to two articles containing curated content from a list of daily articles on specific topics are reposted by each team member to their individual networks on a daily basis.

If there are cases where writers do not wish their articles to be posted on LinkedIn, this could force a shift from an automated process to a manual one.

Strategy 3: Collaboration

This would of course involve a few editors monitoring an automated process and correcting any errors, or maintaining a manual process depending on the desires of the writers.

For communication and relationship-building purposes, writers would write a series of articles, highlighting the benefits and competitive advantage of using the publication’s articles as a resource.

In this particular era of the business world, companies are actively promoting concepts like emotional intelligence and soft skills. This is by no means a new idea, it just so happens that there was a long stretch of time diminishing in the 1980’s, when it was not fashionable in business to be nice to people. Right now, the current position of the pendulum is on diversity, acceptance and relationship-building. A publication with a diverse group of writers covering a wide range of genres and topics, could take advantage of the current business sentiment and position themselves to be exactly what is needed — a hub for articles that can help you improve your people-connection skills, right there on the LinkedIn platform.

As I mentioned earlier, I would like this article to serve as the beginning of an open discussion on best strategies. What should a new publication do to position itself for long term success on the LinkedIn platform? I welcome your comments. Thank you.