3 Implications of LinkedIn-Pulse for Publishers
This morning LinkedIn announced a deeper integration with Pulse, the social news app it acquired in April for $90m. There are two components of the move: First, LinkedIn Today was rebranded LinkedIn Pulse. Second, the Pulse App is now more integrated with LinkedIn. Not only can you login via LinkedIn, but the sharing, liking, and following features now sync across LinkedIn and the Pulse App.
So what does this mean for publishers and content folks? Three things:
1. LinkedIn is a media company. Accept it. #
If you had any remaining doubts about LinkedIn’s media ambitions, today’s news should eliminate them. Note the tweet below from LinkedIn Executive Editor Dan Roth. He articulates their mission as: “Get the right headline to the right professional at massive scale.” Sounds pretty ambitious, right? Roth’s media efforts are core to the company’s strategy to drive up LinkedIn’s daily active user numbers (DAUs), and thus have more “product” to sell to advertisers and premium subscribers.
.@LinkedInToday is now @LinkedInPulse! Same mission: Get the right headline to right professional at massive scale. http://t.co/yidC5YAkPi
— Daniel Roth (@danroth) November 13, 2013
2. LinkedIn Pulse is a walled garden. You’ll want to get listed. #
From day one, there’s been a whiff of exclusivity to LinkedIn’s news efforts. Not just anyone can have an influencer page like Jack Welsh’s. And not just any publisher can have a publisher page like the Harvard Business Review’s. At this point, LinkedIn appears to be taking a highly curated marketplace approach to content, with three types of channels: influencers, topics, and publishers. The updated Pulse App takes this even further with a hierarchy of topics and channels.
As a publisher, you will want to be included in this club. Push for it. Just like when Google News was introduced, LinkedIn Pulse seems threatening at a macro/market level. However, it actually presents an opportunity to build your brand and drive more traffic. In other words, it’s a distribution opportunity.
3. Influencers are your competitors too. Don’t fight them, help them. #
Thanks to social media outlets, influencers and brands can communicate directly with their followers. This is Gutenberg-esque in impact, but isn’t the direct-to-consumer thing kinda bad for publishers?
LinkedIn Pulse will exacerbate this effect for business media. Getting business leaders and thought leaders to publish directly on LinkedIn has been a cornerstone of the company’s media efforts. Five of these influencers already have more than a million followers: Richard Branson, Jack Welsh, Deepak Chopra, Barak Obama, and Arianna Huffington. Guess how many publishers on LinkedIn have more than a million followers? None.
Perhaps publishers should take a cue from LinkedIn’s strategy. Rather than wrapping all of your content 100% in your brand, start to think of yourself as a platform for influencers in your niche.
What Next? #
I would expect to see the following coming down the pike from LinkedIn Pulse:
- deeper, more granular channels
- more powerful personalization and recommendations as user data increases
- a gradual introduction of sponsored content
- eventually, a new channel for brands
I still contend that the best way for publishers to compete with LinkedIn — and benefit from it — is by “going deep” in a niche and fostering a sense of community.
These are my initial thoughts. What are yours?