LinkedIn Publishing Platform

On February 19^th 2014 the professional social media platform LinkedIn announced, via a blog from their site, that they would be making their LinkedIn Publishing Platform available to all their users. The blog can still be viewed by clicking here. With the opening of this new LinkedIn Publishing Platform feature many feared it would result in the influx of terrible content to LinkedIn. However this largely has not occurred. This can be attributed to the level of foresight LinkedIn have put into their new feature. Collected beneath are the positives and negatives of the new LinkedIn Publishing Platform.

The positives of LinkedIn’s open publishing platform

The positives of an open online publishing platform are numerous. A platform set up in this manner presents benefits to a wide selection of contributors, whilst also providing further and deeper avenues for people to increase their knowledge around a specific subject.

• LinkedIn Publishing Platform offers fantastic recruitment options

A large percentage of LinkedIn’s total revenues come from providing globally leading companies with HR and recruitment solutions for top talent in a specific field or industry. One way of ensuring that a potential employee is suited to the position is by gathering data about them.

Prior to the opening of the publishing platform, LinkedIn held the monopoly on this data. The opening of a publishing platform provides employers with the opportunity to showcase their interests, expertise and passions in their writing. This is in order to provide potential employees with an insight into their respective company’s culture. However this process works both ways. Employers are also able to view content which potential employees have written.

• LinkedIn Publishing Platform provides a platform where anyone and everyone can contribute

Providing the ability to publish content in such an open format to such a large audience enables for the surrounding conversation to develop and is beneficial for all involved.

• LinkedIn Members can showcase their skill set on the LinkedIn Publishing Platform
  

For a company it can be extremely difficult to identify the most effective outlets in order to best engage with their target audience. LinkedIn’s new open publishing platform provides users with a means of ensuring that their content will reach its associated network. In addition, content posted on the new publishing platform can also then be published via other distribution channels which is extremely valuable.

• On the LinkedIn Publishing Platform authors are provided with access to demographic analytics
  

With the publishing platform authors are provided with insightful demographic analytics about their followers. This information is broken down into a number of categories including, Region, Industry and Seniority. Users are able to directly view the audience with which they are communicating, providing motivation to continue.

• It provides members with the ability to post quality content directly to their network

Previously individuals, businesses and companies had to rely on media outlets to help them distribute their content and ensure it reached their target audience. This process is declining. Due to the number of contributor models which are opening up and the fact that people are now gathering information about a specific topic or event from a variety of sources, people can no longer rely on just one article to make a huge difference. Increasingly individuals and companies are finding that they need to build and develop their own platform. This is in order to provide both the quality and consistency required to build both their audience and influence.

The potential drawbacks of LinkedIn’s new open publisher platform

Even though the new feature provides a number of highly advantageous aspects and features, there are still a number of potential drawbacks to consider.

• Members may not realise the value of the LinkedIn Publishing Platform feature

The potential initial reaction of members to this feature is to compare it to sharing a post with only their connections. This was customary in the past. However there is a gulf of difference in terms of quality between an actual article and a friendly post. LinkedIn is creating a number of specific channels where targeted content, which is related to a specific industry, can be distributed. As a company or business builds their network, these specific channels will be a key means of proving themselves as industry leaders.

• There is potential for bad content to appear on the site through the LinkedIn Publishing Platform
  

Quality is one of the factors which LinkedIn have announced they will be taking into consideration when it comes to determining the algorithm of content distribution. Due to this, publishing poor quality content will do more harm than good.