Tips to help you become a LinkedIn influencer.


1. Curate and Share Great Content
Gaining influencer status on LinkedIn requires effort. You will have to invest time in creating fresh content and sharing others’ content that is relevant to your industry. Doing this will help you build influence and you won’t necessarily have to “sell” your products or services, because your content will gradually start doing it for you.
Of course, you won’t see a massive spike in followers and connections as soon as you publish your first post – it will require some patience and perseverance. If you are wondering how you can share and publish fresh content consistently, there are various tools you could try.
·        DrumUp: DrumUp is a content curation and scheduling tool that searches the web to find relevant content for your industry, and also lets you share the content to your LinkedIn page. You can schedule the recommended posts, and even create your own, customized posts to make them more personable.
·        Storify: Storify helps you find breaking news stories, and updates on live events and campaigns that are relevant to your industry. You can also create and modify your posts using Storify and share them with your colleagues.
·        Feedly: Feedly is an RSS reader that streams content from different blogs and newsletters based on what you add to your feed. You can easily organize the content depending on the category and also view the popularity of the content.
2. Produce Long Form Content
Apart from sharing curated content you should also create original content with LinkedIn’s native publishing platform. Generally, all original posts on LinkedIn are over 350 words in length. But you should try and publish longer posts (600-1000 words) since it gives you an opportunity to share your expertise in a given topic.
Of course, you can’t become a LinkedIn influencer by publishing long posts alone, but it is definitely a stepping stone. Any posts you create will appear on your LinkedIn profile, so it is vital to have well-written and well-structured posts. You should also be proactive and engage with other users by sharing your comments on posts they’ve published and replying to their comments on your posts.
If you’re publishing original content, take a closer look at your posts and see how they can be improved to reach a wider audience. It goes without saying that you should never post anything that could jeopardize your reputation because your LinkedIn profile is essentially your identity on the network.
3. Earn and Build Your Followers
While you may feel the need to connect with a lot of people, keep in mind that having a targeted group of followers is always better. The LinkedIn publishing platform gives you an opportunity to earn followers and also follow others who publish on the network. This lets you interact with users who are interested in similar topics as you. When you publish informative and engaging content, you are attracting the desired users and not just randomly adding people to your network.
A good rule of thumb is to follow other influencers on LinkedIn. You can observe and learn from the practices they adopt and understand the kind of content they publish to gain more loyal followers.
4. Keep Blogging
Even if you are publishing posts regularly on LinkedIn, it’s important to keep your existing blog intact. Don’t treat your LinkedIn profile as your primary blog because you don’t own your profile. Instead, think of it as an additional channel where you can distribute content. Keep creating new posts on your blog as well because  you most likely have already built a readership that you don’t want to lose.
When you publish a post on LinkedIn, create a personal bio, where you can write a short introduction of yourself, while also mentioning what you do. In the bio, link your other social media channels, your website, and your existing blog.
In case you are looking for more motivation for becoming a LinkedIn influencer, here is something that might interest you: If your posts receive a lot of positive attention on LinkedIn, they might even get featured on LinkedIn Pulse, giving you an edge over other publishers!



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