Blogging vs Publishing on LinkedIn

We all know that we should be publishing content in order to position ourselves for our expertise. But on which platform do we host it? And what if we don’t have a blog? In this post I explain the pros and cons of Blogging vs Publishing on LinkedIn

Blogging vs Publishing on LinkedIn

Like any other Social Media Platform, LinkedIn’s basic account is free. Not only do you get to create a free profile and build a network, you now even receive access to LinkedIn Publisher (or some people call it Pulse) where you can create and publish full length articles with features like images, embeddable videos, powerpoint presentations etc and share those with your network.

But, even if you don’t pay for this hosting, it comes with a price. And the price is control. Yes, you give up control over your content as by publishing it on LinkedIn it’s no longer yours, but it belongs to LinkedIn.

So in an ideal situation I always recommend to my clients to blog on their own website because you have control over it.

But that being said, not everyone wants to deal with the management of a website, so let’s dig a bit deeper into each option.

Pros of Blogging

  • you purchased your own domain, so you get to control it
  • you get to build your email list by offering free opt-in offers
  • once people are done reading your blog post, they might read an other article on your site or browse around in your services pages – or even contact you via the contact form

Cons of Blogging

  • you might have zero traffic to your site at the beginning and therefore no audience that reads your content
  • you have to manage your site and know how to publish content in your WordPress site

Pros of Publishing on LinkedIn

  • if you have a network on LinkedIn you have an audience for your content (all your connections get notified when you publish a new article)
  • your content may even go beyond your network and reach a new audience if it gets featured in the LinkedIn Pulse library
  • LinkedIn ranks highly in search engines, making it more likely your posts will show up in Google search results
  • you don’t have to deal with creating and managing a website

Cons of Publishing on LinkedIn

  • you give ownership of your content to LinkedIn
  • people just read your content, they don’t see your website, your branding
  • you don’t get to collect emails from your readers

So there you have it, these are the pros and cons.

Blogging vs Publishing on LinkedIn > The Conclusion

As I said in the intro, ideally you have a website where you can publish your content and drive people to. If you do, start there. But then, if you have analyzed your target audience and came to the conlusion that they are present on LinkedIn, why not increase your reach by republishing your content also on LinkedIn. When LinkedIn Pulse first launched there was a big discussion among SEO experts concerning duplicate content. But in the end they all agreed that republishing content on LinkedIn, even if the content was mostly duplicate, would still get you better results than not taking advantage of the LinkedIn Pulse feature.

Republishing on LinkedIn – a few tips

  • change some of the text, maybe the intro
  • always mention that this article was first published on your website and give the link
  • don’t publish the same content on your blog and on LinkedIn on the same day or even the same week (I like to republish content from a few months before, making sure of course that the content is still up to date)
  • always add an author bio at the end, with another link back to your website

Need help?

If you’d like to discuss how to use LinkedIn more efficiently to get clients for your established business, why not book a Courtesy Clarity Call with me.

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6 thoughts on “Blogging vs Publishing on LinkedIn”

  1. Great info! I had no idea that publishing on LinkedIn gave them that much control. Does noting that it first appeared on your website give you back ownership?

    1. Thanks Ciara. No, it doesn’t give you back the ownership. But it helps Google understand that it was first published on your site. At least that’s how I understood it from the SEO experts.

  2. To clarify (for myself), they may get ownership but i remain the author, correct? In other words they can’t take your article and not give you credit . What does ownership allow them to do with your work? Thanks for article, l knew nothing about this!

  3. That’s a very nice article. I think when we think about building social profiles, all that comes to our minds is Facebook or Twitter. LinkedIn often goes ignored and I think you have made a good point here that LinkedIn profiles can help you build a good authority within the community.

    1. Hi. I only got to see tne article now. And it’s 2020 :). Not sure whether some of these stuff are still applicable or not?
      Thanks for a great article. I am rather new on LinkedIn and have noticed the distinction between creating a post or an article. I was wondering about the use of the 2.
      Is what you mention above still applicable now in 2020 LinkedIn?

      Thanks. Appreciate your insight here.

      Kind regards
      Christina Steyn (Life Mind Guide)

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