Recently LinkedIn enabled a new function allowing you to create a newsletter within LinkedIn. You can use the newsletter facility to share your expertise, the same as you would with an email newsletter.
How to create a LinkedIn newsletter
You need to be in "Creator mode" to publish newsletters. You can activate this from your dashboard.
- Click on "Write article" at the top of your Home Screen.
- Click "Create a newsletter".
- Add a title, description and select how often you plan to publish. You can also add an image or logo. Click "done".
- You can now write your first newsletter.
The low down
Anyone can find, read, and share your LinkedIn newsletter. And LinkedIn members can also subscribe to it.
When you publish your first newsletter, your connections and followers will automatically be invited by notification to subscribe to your newsletter. If they subscribe, they’ll receive a notification and an email every time you write a new newsletter.
You can include more than one article in your newsletter (although I recommend keeping it relatively brief) and links.
I was sceptical at first as to the benefit of publishing your newsletter in LinkedIn rather than doing it via an email marketing platform. If you build your own newsletter subscriber database and manage your email marketing, then you're in control of the data. You're not if you do it via LinkedIn. However, I think there's value in doing both or just LinkedIn.
The main advantage of publishing in LinkedIn, especially if you have a large following, is access to a larger subscriber database. Of course, you could ask all of your connections to subscribe to your email newsletter but even those with good intentions might not get round to doing it. Also, those who aren't in your first degree network could potentially see your LinkedIn newsletter but they wouldn't be aware of your email newsletter.
On balance I think the benefits of having a LinkedIn newsletter make it a worthwhile exercise. And of course, there's no reason why you can't publish a newsletter in LinkedIn and also run your email marketing newsletter.