With Twitter’s future uncertain and Meta pulling back from any commitment to publisher content on Facebook, LinkedIn is getting more attention than ever. Boasting more than 800 million members in more than 200 countries, publishers are looking to the professional networking platform as a potential channel for extending their audience reach.
The Reuters Institute’s ‘Journalism, media, and technology trends and predictions’ report for 2023 highlights LinkedIn as the most popular alternative to Twitter in the face of its potential implosion. More than 50% of survey respondents said the potential loss of Twitter would be bad for journalism; 42% said LinkedIn has emerged as the most popular alternative.
Against that backdrop, a recent article from Bohuslav Romanenko on the The Fix looks at the approaches publishers are taking on LinkedIn and the tools they are using to achieve their audience engagement objectives.
Publishing on LinkedIn
The most straightforward way for publishers to get their content on LinkedIn is to publish directly to their LinkedIn page. Placing content directly on the platform delivers distribution but also encourages engagement through native commenting and sharing features.
Both The Wall Street Journal and Forbes publish content from their newsletters directly on to LinkedIn, with users getting one-click access from their pages.
Multimedia content
It’s not just words and pictures that work on LinkedIn – videos, infographics, and other interactive content can also help to engage readers on the platform. Romanenko highlights Insider Business sharing short videos to introduce their journalism and provide users with a quick glimpse into the stories they are covering.
Live video
More common on Instagram, live video is making an appearance on LinkedIn with publishers hosting real-time virtual events. The New York Times has made use of this functionality to run regular live Q&A sessions with their reporters and editors.
Groups
LinkedIn Groups allow publishers to reach niche audiences on the platform. With groups for every industry imaginable, plus alumni and special interest groups, publishers can participate in discussions, share expertise and promote their content.
Publishers can also form their own groups. Forbes, for example, uses its position as a thought leader in the business and technology industries to share articles and insights with its target audiences.
Carousels
Original content is the secret sauce for publishers on LinkedIn, whether that is article posts covering industry trends or advising on best practice or videos delivering the same information. However, content can be repurposed into carousels, creating interactive features for users to click through without the investment of original content creation.
LinkedIn also lets users run polls that publishers can use to follow up with audiences on carousel content.
Advertising
In 2021, Microsoft Owned LinkedIn earned more than $10 billion, with its advertising business delivering more than $1 billion. Publishers are making use of sponsorship opportunities to promote their content to wider audiences.
Sponsored content in particular allows publishers to pay to have their articles and updates displayed to a targeted audience. Sponsored content appears in the audience’s LinkedIn feed, regardless of whether they’re scrolling on mobile or their desktop.
A host of other ad formats are available from carousel ads to messaging.
