Help! Nobody reads my Articles…

Welcome to episode 168, last week’s show seemed to go down a storm……it seems everyone is checking their influence score and comparing them which can only be a good thing in my opinion.

As a followup to that and on a similar track I wanted to focus on article clicks this week, or rather the lack of article clicks many people seem to be battling with!

I’m getting a lot of comments like;

“I think I will move to posting rather than articles as they get better views” Or “Why doesn’t LinkedIn alert my followers when I post a new article”?

So in this episode I’m going to try to fix that…but first

Interesting Stuff I Saw This Week

LinkedIn China president resigns

New LinkedIn Features

Here is the new ‘What people are talking about’ feature. This seems to be based on trending stories but when you click on it LinkedIn encourages you create a new post with a pre-written hashtag on that subject. Could this be LinkedIn trying to get # moving?

Images are fixed! At last LinkedIn have fixed the issue regarding posting images. No longer do we need to worry about turning our phones horizontal to take a picture for LinkedIn we can now add images in portrait!

What To Do If Nobody Is Reading Your Articles

Years ago published posts (now renamed articles) would get thousands and at times tens of thousands of views. It seemed like LinkedIn was the perfect place to produce content…a ready made audience that would be alerted to your content. Many people got in early and started to get amazing results, this attracted more and more new authors and in no time at all over 1 million people had written an article on LinkedIn. This number massively increased the amount of notifications LinkedIn was sending out to people and this became a big problem….countless people objected to ‘spam’ from LinkedIn - too may notifications and too many emails. So LinkedIn changed things and rapidly reduced the amount of notifications. The net result was that article view number plummeted. What would have been 10,000 views 2 years ago became for like 200 views and this is where most people are with articles.

So let’s be clear…….publishing articles on LinkedIn is not what it used to be. The article feature is no longer a distribution network for your content, it is merely a library for your content….just as other blogging platforms are such as Wordpress and Blogger.

That however, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be writing articles. It simply means that you need to use posts to distribute your articles to your audience…and hopefully beyond.

First let me make something clear;

We do need to be careful when comparing posts to articles. They are completely different and the stats are measured in different ways (clicks vs views in the feed).

A posts ‘view in the feed’ is simply a page impression ie it appeared on someones feed - it doesn’t mean they saw it. An Article click does mean they saw it - completely different things

The best way to view them is that they work together. An article is long form content but just that - static content. If it gets into a pulse channel it might get clicks outside of your followers but the best way to achieve clicks is via posts which are short form, viral content - see posts as the 'vehicle' to distribute your articles. Your ability to gain high view numbers on your posts is down to a variety of factors but most important of all is to show the algorithm that you are 'interesting' through regular comments & likes.

So here are the 3 key areas to focus on;

Aim to get it published in a Pulse channel

Make sure it is over 500 words Ensure you have the right keywords in your headline When you publish send a tweet to @LinkedInEditors

2) The Headline is Critical.

Create intrigue that makes some want to click on to see more Test 5-7 headlines with friend or co-workers Try to make it personalised Lighter subjects work best - avoid serious/boring headlines If one headline is clearly not working…change it!

There is a free course on Lynda from LinkedIn editor in chief that includes many great tips from someone that should know more than most! https://www.lynda.com/LinkedIn-tutorials/Paying-attention-headline/433721/443465-4.html

3) Generate your own traffic

• Create engaging posts, ask questions and encourage responses
• Post at the right time of day (commuting and lunch time)
• Extend the shelf life of your post by replying, commenting and liking over several weeks
• @mention relevant individuals asking for their feedback
• Use appropriate hashtags in your posts (and articles)
• Don’t just use LinkedIn to promote your article. Try all relevant channels
• Send a direct message with a link to the post to influential connections asking frothier input
• Consider emailing the article to your email list
• Ensure your post reaches the widest possible audience by improving your ‘Influence score’
  • Engage with others frequently
  • Avoid too many external links on other posts
  • Text only posts work really well, images are good but mix it up.
  • Focus most of your posts on interesting and ‘human’ stories and anecdotes

If you want to tag and download profiles, the best tool out there is LinkedInBack. It is only for notes and tags but the download feature is the killer for me.

I also discovered a new video tool this week. Loom is very similar to Viewedit that I mentioned in episode 162

This weeks question came from Avi and it’s all about that ago old problem of multiple or dual objectives and whether you should create 2 profiles or not. Listen to the episode to hear my thoughts on that.