Planning on publishing your blog posts on Linkedin? Don’t.
With Linkedin opening up its publishing platform almost everyone is quickly rushing to publish their posts on Linkedin. But overall it’s a terrible strategy to follow. Every day I see people putting their heart and souls into publishing heartfelt posts hoping that they’ll be the next Tim Ferris with thousands of followers, but it’s a bad idea for these 5 reasons.
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You’re handing over your content to a 3rd party.
If you’re going through all of the trouble of creating your content, why would you put it on someone else’s site? This isn’t guest blogging, this is a private, for-profit, company with no links back to your website.
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You’re losing points from an SEO point of view.
Creating good content is the key to good Google rankings. As a rule, if you build good content you’re going to get links to it, which will lead to more contacts and more links to your site. With Linkedin you don’t get this benefit.
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You want your tribe to be on your site.
You want your readers to come to your site, read your content and get your message. If you’re lucky they’ll even subscribe to your email list which will create your own captive audience. With Linkedin…
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It’s already crowded, and it’s only going to get worse.
Anyone can publish on Linkedin, and you’re competing for the attention of a lot less eyeballs (Linkedin users) vs. publishing it on your own site(the entire world)
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Remember Facebook
A lot of publishers were caught flat footed when Facebook changed their algorithms to display content based on followers and reach…or if you paid them a pile of money for likes. When people start abusing the Linkedin platform, and they will, Linkedin will do the same thing. All of the sudden this entire body of work you’ve produced is going to be useless.
I use Linkedin every day and while I love the platform from a professional networking point of view, it’s a dud as a publishing platform. In short, it’s not the place you should publish. This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t publicize your body of work on Linkedin; however, using a tool like Buffer or Hootsuite to publish links to your content is a much better smarter way of marketing your posts.
What are your thoughts on Linkedin as a publishing platform?
I agree with all of your points, but you can turn it to your advantage by
a) not making it your main publishing platform, and
b) finding ways in what you write to entice people to want to read more on your site. (For example, linking to a post where you elaborate on the idea.)