If you’re like me, you probably have a love-hate relationship with LinkedIn.

There’s a lot of noise. And the more LinkedIn sent me emails about faux work anniversaries and job changes that are typically just overdue profile updates, the more I tuned everything out. Until recently, pretty much the only content-focused action I took regularly on LinkedIn was to post a daily update — either my content or a curated article.

I mostly use the platform to identify prospective clients. But that’s me doing all the work (okay, it’s important to do since my business requires clients to survive) versus me having a system that draws people to me. We know that people are researching you before they ever talk to you. We also know that LinkedIn is populated with many of the people my business (and likely yours too) wants to meet. And LinkedIn can be a useful platform for content marketing.

You can have a LinkedIn content marketing strategy.

There are three major strategies to consider:

• LinkedIn Publisher
• native video
• long-form content

In my quest to get serious about LinkedIn content marketing in 2018, I’ve started to experiment with LinkedIn Publisher. Since I have so much content already (hello, blog!), it’s pretty ridiculous that I haven’t repurposed content more deliberately in the past. If you have relevant blog content, repurpose that. Or think about video or podcast content that you can transcribe and tweak. It’s all about showcasing your expertise (as of now, you can only publish on a profile page and not a company page). And don’t forget to share your content with your network via an update, with targeted connections using the “@” option, or via LinkedIn Messenger.

LinkedIn likes videos.

There are lots of reasons to use video, and you can always share tips, conduct an interview, or teach your audience something new. What makes LinkedIn video a little different is that you’re uploading the video directly — you don’t have to first post it on YouTube and then embed the link. According to Viveka von Rosen, who recently did a MarketingProfs webinar on LinkedIn content, video content is currently getting priority on LinkedIn. In other words, the algorithms like video so video will show up more.

Long-form updates are in vogue.

I saw something recently about how longer updates with no images were doing better right now on LinkedIn than shorter updates with images. Okay, this made no sense — but now I think I (sorta) get it.

Because I have primarily scheduled posts via Buffer, my strategy has been to find content and make sure there’s a visual attached to the update. But it sounds like LinkedIn might be trying to finally undue some of its Facebook-ish approach because LinkedIn now lets you share an update of up to 1,300 characters (~250-300 words). This enables you to tell a short story with a call to action to generate engagement (versus primarily posting links). Von Rosen advised adding any hyperlinks into the comments and not directly into the post. As I said, maybe LinkedIn’s figured out that Twitter’s got the news firehouse covered and Facebook’s posts are (ideally) all about friends.

I’m slowly trying to get more intentional about LinkedIn. And it’s definitely a work in progress. Meanwhile, if you need help developing a LinkedIn content marketing strategy, please let me know. You can always do as I say and not as I’m not yet entirely doing for myself.

Punch by Johnson Wang (Unsplash).