LinkedIn content can be published in various different ways to enable creators and thought leaders different options to appeal to their audiences. One of their most powerful is the LinkedIn newsletter. More than 500 million professionals have subscribed to the 146,000+ LinkedIn Newsletters spanning a variety of professional topics, and daily newsletter readership has more than doubled year-over-year. Writing a LinkedIn newsletter gives authors a double benefit: they get to stay in touch with their stakeholders while showing them their value.
LinkedIn newsletters are a powerful marketing tool for all LinkedIn creators; whether they’re entrepreneurs, employees, or CEO’s. It’s important to note that LinkedIn newsletters can be published from personal profiles and also from company pages, so they are a valuable marketing tool for companies too.
What are LinkedIn newsletters?
A LinkedIn newsletter is a set of regularly published articles on LinkedIn. The newsletter is the ‘umbrella’ under which the articles (or episodes) are housed. LinkedIn newsletters are a powerful feature that allow creators to share ideas, insights, and updates with their followers. Because of their potential length – newsletter episodes can be over 100,000 characters – LinkedIn newsletters can provide a space for the writer to showcase a depth of knowledge and begin to establish themselves as a thought leader in their respective industry.
You may have heard of LinkedIn articles, it is still possible to publish these on LinkedIn without housing them in a newsletter, however, using a newsletter to showcase articles potentially opens up the engagement opportunities considerably.
What are the differences between LinkedIn newsletters and articles?
Even though the newsletter has a name, each ‘episode’ or article published within it will be its own separate entity and is a stand-alone piece of content with its own name and supporting image.
The main advantage of articles is that they are public by default, meaning they can be discovered by anyone on LinkedIn, even those who are not connected with the author. This can help in reaching a broader audience beyond their immediate network.
Newsletters on the other hand can be used to target a specific audience. When a newsletter is first created, every single one of the creators’ followers gets a notification to that effect – yes – every single one! This notification appears in LinkedIn and, potentially via email also. That’s powerful.
Newsletters can also elicit engagement from the readers. Users can like, comment and share individual updates fostering a real sense of community and relationship building around the newsletter as well as increasing engagement.
Why set up a LinkedIn newsletter?
- Notifications on first publication
I mentioned above that on the first pubålication every single one of the creators’ followers gets a notification of the newsletter in their notifications tab and, if they’ve subscribed via email also! My tips here are to not publish a newsletter until you have a decent following and also to make the first one really count! If people are making an effort to look at your newsletter for the first time and you want them to subscribe, make sure there is enough value and interest to encourage them to do so.
- High Engagement and potential reach
Newsletters encourage conversation. It is possible to generate comments and conversations at the end of each episode. There is also the option for readers to share other people’s newsletters onto their own feed increasing potential visibility even further. When someone subscribes to a newsletter it ensures they get a notification whenever an episode is published. If they have their email notifications on they will also get an email from LinkedIn with the relevant link. It’s almost too easy not to go and read!
- Establishes authority through thought leadership.
The fact that newsletters can be longer than 100,00 characters gives a huge amount of potential to showcase real depth of knowledge on a subject. Publishing long form, good quality content in this way will establish the author as a credible and trusted source of information. This, in turn, can open up many doors including guest appearances on podcasts, lives, TV and also guest blogs and publications and speaking opportunities – such as @ Social Media Examiner’s social media marketing world!
- Audience demographics
LinkedIn provides users with detailed demographics of newsletter subscribers. Just by looking at the updated newsletter analytics, a publisher can see daily updates of: impressions, engagements and article views. They can also identify subscribers by: Job titles, locations, industries, seniority, company size and which companies they work for! This information could help shape the content of the newsletter as well as the whole marketing strategy for the company or individual!
- Potential audience growth
When someone subscribes to a newsletter, they automatically become a follower of the author or the company page – if they weren’t already. A good quality, value add newsletter will attract new subscribers and, therefore, followers.
- Multi media opportunities
It’s possible to get very creative with LinkedIn newsletters! They don’t simply have to contain text. It’s possible to add 2 different types of heading, bold and italic text, 2 types of list styles, quotes, dividing lines, quotes, images, gifs and it’s also possible to add a piece of code and also to embed links from other social media platforms, Soundcloud, You Tube and many more places into a newsletter.
- Backlinking and SEO
It’s possible to add backlinks in newsletters to other articles and newsletters of other creators on and off LinkedIn. This can help increase SEO.
- It’s free
Like most content on LinkedIn, apart from ads and sponsored posts, publishing a newsletter is FREE! All that’s required is time and knowledge to publish a newsletter. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that there is such a huge potential for marketing on LinkedIn and we don’t have to pay a penny, or a dime, for it!
- Republishing on a different platform
Because of the way a LinkedIn newsletter is structured, it’s possible to publish the same newsletter elsewhere; for example a blog site or website. It’s easy to do this without having to re-write any of the content or even resize the images in many cases. There is, apparently, nothing harmful about doing this with regards to SEO implications. Publishers may worry that someone will see the same blog more than once in different places. Is this a problem? No – if someone sees both, well they can choose to only read one and also we shouldn’t forget the power of the repeated message on helping embed it into our minds.
Should I post my newsletter on my company page or my personal profile?
Newsletters were originally only able to be published from personal profiles but now it is possible to publish newsletters from company pages also as long as the page has at least 150 followers. Because the first newsletter published is brought to the attention of all page followers, I advise waiting until the page has at least 500 followers before publishing a newsletter on it for the first time.
I will be covering newsletters on company pages in more detail in a separate newsletter so look out for that if it’s something you’re interested in.
How to create a LinkedIn newsletter from a personal profile
Before we can discuss LinkedIn newsletter best practices, let’s go through the steps to create a newsletter. Fortunately, it is relatively easy to get started. The following steps only apply if you haven’t yet set up a newsletter. Once it’s set up using this process, it’s even more simple to publish.
- Turn on Creator Mode. Creator mode is the account setting that lets you create more advanced content on LinkedIn. To do this, navigate to your profile homepage. Then, you will see a section that has account tools. Creator mode will be one of those options.
- Click ‘Write an article’ at the top of the homepage. Once you’ve turned on creator mode, your homepage will offer more options than before. One of those is the chance to write an article. Select this option to create a LinkedIn newsletter or a blog post.
- In the content editing area, click the ‘Create a newsletter’ option.
- Think of a name for your newsletter- up to 30 characters
- Add your image – it needs to be square – 300 x 300 pixels
- Next, you’ll need a description what it’s about – up to 120 characters
- Then tell people how often you plan to publish your newsletter
- You will then be able to write and edit your newsletter. You may find it easier to write the text in a word doc, then copy and paste it into the newsletter..
- When you’re done writing, follow the prompts to finish publishing.
For future newsletters, this part is already set up for you. The process will be much more simple.
- Click ‘write an article’
- A different screen will appear:
What should my newsletter be about?
Always keep mindful of your own goals when writing any content. Newsletters are the ideal place for showcasing your thought leadership so this should always be the primary goal. Making a newsletter ‘salesy’ will put readers off so avoid this at all costs. Avoid ‘fluffy’ or non-consequential content. Think about the psychology of someone who invests their time clicking through to read a newsletter; they’re expecting something different from the posts they see scrolling through their feed. Disappoint them and you could lose them – not only for this newsletter but for all future newsletters and potentially all your future content.
How to get maximum reach for your LinkedIn Newsletter
When the first issue of your newsletter was published, it was automatically sent to all your connections and followers. But this only happens once. After that, persuading people to subscribe is up to you. And the more you promote it, the more subscribers you will attract.
Pin it to the ‘Featured’ section of your profile
When people visit your profile and they see a snippet of your newsletter in the featured section, it’s really easy for them to click through to read it.
Make it the live link in your profile intro
You can also add a live link to the Introduction section of your profile to invite people to read or subscribe to your newsletter.
Share the URL of your newsletter page
Wherever you share links to your resources, add your newsletter URL. This could be in your email signature, on your website, in your marketing emails, at the end of your articles or blogs and any other places you market yourself. I’ve added mine to my Linktree with my other resources which most people find through my Instagram feed.
Send it to new connections
Instead of sending a plain ‘thank you for connecting’ message when you gain a new connection, send them something useful that isn’t sales-focused. What could be better than a link to read your value-packed newsletter?
Examples of great newsletters
Piers Linney ‘Business As Usual’
Ex dragon publishes a monthly newsletter offering business and personal guidance.
What’s good? Powerful titles, interesting and educational content, accessible layout.
VentureBeat – The AI Beat
Sofware development company who publish a tech driven newsletter from their company page.
Whats good? String headline, lots of backlinks.
Anthony Day – This week in Web 3
Another tech-related newsletter from a personal profile.
What’s good? Particularly good for visual learners – lots of colour, images and lists. Content is high quality and well spread out.
Ed Forteau
Email marketing expert publishes bi-weekly newsletters.
What’s good? Innovative content, easy to access and funny.
In summary
LinkedIn newsletters provide an incredible opportunity to share insights and thought leadership to a wide and also a targeted audience. Whether they’re published via a personal profile or a company page, newsletters encourage conversation, and subscribers get a notification whenever they’re published. They stay on LinkedIn as long as you leave them there, they get found in google searches and can be republished in other places too. Yes, they take time to compose, to design and even to publish but in my view that is time very well spent for the potential ROI.
Do you publish a newsletter regularly? If not, what is stopping you?
I would love your comments below and if you enjoyed this newsletter, please hit ‘subscribe’ at the top right of the page so you’ll see next month’s too. (see what I did there?!).
Sarah ????
Keeping #LinkedInSimplifed for you ????
