Why Facebook restrict your post reach

Friday 3 July 2015

Should you have your finger on the LinkedIn 'Pulse' ?


As you know I publish my blog using blogger - big reveal huh ;)  Recently though I have been increasingly impressed with LinkedIn's ability to deliver appropriate news and blog posts via their 'Pulse' hosting platform.

Finger on the LinkedIn Pulse






The more complete your profile and the more active you are on LinkedIn, the more LinkedIn can learn about you, things you do, things you like, groups and people you engage with.  LinkedIn have always been pretty good at analysing profiles (See how I resisted the temptation to say 'profiling profiles' - I have Ninja levels of self control), remember LinkedIn's roots were in recruitment - and they are still very good at matching profiles with vacancies.  Some of that $9Bn IPO seems to have been invested in very smart algorithms for really understanding ... us.

So, at least for me, LinkedIn was delivering good material that I was interested in... Now, that's really attractive for someone like me, into the whole Inbound, Social Media, Organic Content led marketing.  Not being the bluntest tool in the box, I figured I ought to check this out.  If I could bank on LinkedIn delivering my blogs to interested readers, connections outside my network, what's not to like about that?

A quick review of the history and what Pulse is and is not...

LinkedIn Pulse Post
LinkedIn presenting 'on topic' articles
Pulse was an iOS news feed app, a business in its own right, in 2013 LinkedIn acquired the business for $90m initially integrating with the LinkedIn platform and allowing an elite few 'influencers' to host blogs on the platform.  In early 2014 access was rolled out to all English speaking users.

A blog hosting platform, a social platform and a news feed in one, should be epic, shouldn't it? Simply and easily you can publish your blog and LinkedIn will notify your network THEN LinkedIn distributes you work wider afield to appropriately interested parties outside your network, simply extending your reach for you.  If Carlesburg hosted blogs... !!


Layout and formatting is limited, but intuitive, its like one big text box.  And your blog can include pictures, video and hyper links back too... wherever you wish.  And here we come across the first downside of Pulse as a blogging solution - these hyperlinks back to your web site don't bring any 'Google Link Juice', or Page Rank benefits.  LinkedIn label these so the search engine bots ignore them (if you want to get techy - read up on 'no follow links').


Moreover, there's no scope for peripheral messages, up sells, links, calls to action, branding etc etc that you can have on your own blog page.  LinkedIn own that real estate, and like Youtube, your post will be followed immediately by someone elses, and you have no control over that either.

So why host on LinkedIn Pulse, there's limited branding and marketing, up sell or cross selling opportunities, no link juice benefits?  Is it enough to drive traffic where you wish to send it, and the extended reach LinkedIn offers by delivering your post to interested recipients?  It all depends on what you are looking to achieve, peripheral marketing and link juice may not matter to you - if you are looking to raise your profile with an extended network for instance.

This extended reach really resonated with me - I sensed LinkedIn would be good and able to 'aim' well on my behalf, after all I liked the material Pulse delivered to me, and I wasn't following those authors!  Question was then - would my posting on Pulse result in more engagement?

Mick's LinkedIn Pulse Posts


I had to know, so I started using Pulse... I'll let you know how it went in part two of this blog... I have always wanted to end on this line ...

To be Continued...

(Bucket list -=1)

Mick