3 Steps to reach employers with LinkedIn articles

If you’re reading this, you’ve likely clicked through a LinkedIn post. LinkedIn articles are a strange beast in LinkedIn; few people create them & it feels like few people read them. So what’s the value for a job hunter in a LinkedIn article and how do we maximize it? Let me share my opinion…

What is an article?

A LinkedIn article is a “long form” LinkedIn post. It comes from providing the ability for a LinkedIn member to write more content than you’d typically see in a LinkedIn post. However, I’ve recently seen people writing some huge posts & I’m curious how much of the text readers consume.

Articles are more like a blog than a post. It provides the author with the ability to share their thoughts & personality with their community. The community we are targeting when looking for a new role is the prospective employer, recruiter, interviewer, hiring manager. They want to understand who you are, what you are passionate about and how your passion can be aligned to the role and so the value you can create. They can’t see that unless you write! So our first step is

Step 1: Write an article

A side note. If you normally post from the LinkedIn mobile app. Articles do not appear as a content type you can write. You need to write from the LinkedIn webpage.

Who reads the article?

When you create an article LinkedIn gives you an option to create a post to share the article. If you’ve written an article before you may be disillusioned by the number of people who read your post vs. reading your article. The difference can be huge. An article which is current & relevant to your community will have more readers than an article which is a little more esoteric for your community. For example an article about food may not be read as much as an article about Digital Transformation here on LinkedIn, but maybe writing about food uncovers a niche within your community so don’t discount it.

So posting about your article to your LinkedIn feed announces your article to your community, and it will appear in your recent profile activity - so job hunters - pin your article into your featured content. You want people who are interviewing you to click on the content and see who you are. We are exploiting LinkedIn for a “Passive” activity where people come to find you and see who you are. This works! I recently had an interview and the interviewer talked about a recent article I’d written. It lead into a great conversation and a great interview.

Step 2: Post your article & pin to your profile

How do I get more people to read my article?

So this is the tricky part. If you’ve put the effort into writing an article. You’ve had lots of people looking at the post, but the number of people clicking through to read the article feels low. I think 1 person reading the article for 20 people reading the post to be an awesome ratio. Reading an article is a more significant investment for people to make than reading a post.

You only need one employer to read your post, reach out and connect to get that next role. This sounds great, but it’s a numbers game. The more people who read your posts and articles, the better the chance an employer with a role that aligns with your passion will read the article.

So how do I get more people to read?

For an article to be read it needs to be interesting and relevant, and not too long. But what we want is for the LinkedIn algorithm to pick up on the post & article and push it into peoples feed. I’m not going to go deep into the LinkedIn algorithm, but basically you want readers to like your post, comment or share. In other words, to engage.

Here’s an added bonus for a LinkedIn article. It gives people the option to comment and share the article after they’ve read it. Something I’ve realized I’ve missed in my writing is the “Call to Action”. I have been very self deprecating in not asking someone to do something for me on LinkedIn. A coach recently said to me - if they’ve read your content, you’ve earned the right to ask them to do something for you. It’s hard, and it’s probably the hardest thing for me to do on a LinkedIn article and it leads me to my third step

Step 3: Call to action

Summary

The three steps to use a LinkedIn article to be seen by an employer are:

1. Be brave. Break out & write an article
2. Be proud. Post your article and pin it to your profile
3. Be humble. Ask for help in getting your article to be seen by many people

Call to Action

If you’ve read to this point please:

?? Like this article

?? Comment on your thoughts on this article, or comment and add how you’ve been using articles

?? Share the article & help your own LinkedIn community

Bonus ask: If you share the article, include your thoughts on how you are going to use this information

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