The Absolute Beginner’s Guide on How to Start a Successful Blog: 6 Tips on How LinkedIn Can Help Bloggers
When you are a professional blogger, motivation must always be high. Self employment and promotion is your duty too, in most cases. Some of us have the luck to answer to higher powers, and editors and community managers are angels sent form above to help us in our job. Well, in most cases. But lets get serious now, for those of you who don’t have any assistance or help with your blog and promotion, here are a few helpful tips and tricks on how to use LinkedIn to your advantage.
1. Build Connections
LinkedIn is a social network, one that primarily encourages you to build business connections. You should expand your network and not limit it only to people that you know in person. Visibility in is very important in the blogosphere, so if you limit your self to people you know, your promotion won’t get too far. Connect with people that you have a good reason to connect with, like similar (business) interests, or niche. As you grow your connection circle, your updates on LinkedIn will become visible to more people and chances that someone else will find you will increase.
2. Be Active, But Don’t Spam
Many bloggers want to be visible and post all kinds of stuff. More is not always better. You should try to be consistently visible, but don’t forget about the quality. Update your profile, post a status update, participate in group discussions, comment on other people’s status updates, answer questions in LinkedIn Answers etc. Commenting is very effective for starting a dialogue or getting exposure with your first, second and third degree connections. Also, don’t be afraid to join some of the many groups.
3. Share Your Links on LinkedIn
Post your articles and relevant posts. That should go without saying, but many people forget about this. Driving traffic to your blog is essential. One of the best times to update is during lunchtime or in the afternoon. People tend to look these things up when hey are on a break. Post your articles in groups and ask question to get feedback. Link your articles in discussions or while answering questions. However, be careful and contribute only information that will add value to the group.
4. Brand Yourself
As a blogger, you are your own brand, so invest some time and idea in your profile. Headline is the first thing that others see when they look you up, so you want to leave a good impression. There you should put what you do, but be precise and concise so that people will know who you are and why they should connect with you. For a photo, I suggest you to use same one across all platforms, so that people that aren’t frequent users of LinkedIn, can find you on other platforms. Don’t forget to fill out the complete profile so that you can showcase your experience, education, skills and interests.
5. Interconnect and Use Apps
There are several ways to connect your LinkedIn profile. If your blog is on WordPress, there is an app wthat lets you show either your latest posts, or posts that have LinkedIn tag. To connect with your Twitter account, don’t use website links, instead, add it via Twitter settings. If you don’t want all of your tweets to go through your LinkedIn account, select an option to only share tweets with hashtag #in. For published authors, there is Amazon application where you can showcase your last two books. Also, don’t be afraid to incorporate LinkedIn Share button into your blog.
6. Recommendations and Work Opportunities
One of the best ways to showcase your value is through recommendations. They are powerful testimonials that can tell a total stranger that you can offer something substantial. How to get them? Quid pro quo. Find people in your network that you have worked with and chance that they will recommend you in return increases. There is also a Recommendations sections in your profile menu where you can, after you find the job you would like to be recommended for, select people in your network and request a recommendation. Even if your blog is your full time job and primary source of income, having a LinkedIn profile is a good way to get new writing related jobs. Every now and then, somebody needs a temporary change of pace and scenery and this is one of the best ways to have that opportunity at the tip of your fingers.
So there are our 6 helpful Linked In tips for bloggers. Are you already using it? If if you are, tell us if you have any other helpful advice on how you can utilize LinkedIn to benefit you blog. Type away!
