General Consultant Discussion

Prospects increasingly research everything online before making that first contact with you. Here's an interesting way that you can expand your LinkedIn profile to showcase your professional skills. This program - Influencers - has been around for a couple years - but only about 300 influencers were admitted. Starting today LinkedIn will open this to all users (at first only 25,000 will see the feature). What's different? Presently when you post a status update to LInkedIN you get 700 characters. Under the new publishing system it appears you've have virtually unlimited space to go on and on about the beauty of Sage 100. Presently only those LinkedIn members with whom are connected to you will see status updates. Under the new program LinkedIn members can follow you and therefore read your published articles. It's hard to say what real impact this will have. I suspect it will be a good tool for those who are often selling themselves as a consultant in smaller firms. Here's more http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/19/linkedin-opens-its-publishing-platform-to-all-members/

Is it really different than posting a short synopsis with a link to a blog? My guess is they want to keep people on the site longer and thus push them more ads

Yes it is for a couple reasons. First it's unknown what SEO it may offer but I suspect it may become a way for prospects to quickly check up on you prior to or after meeting. Presently LInkedIn does not offer a way to format updates. Even if you enter in line breaks you'll find the update gets all lumped into one paragraphy. There's only one image allowed presently and your update cannot exceed 700 characters. LinkedIn is a pretty important tool for B2B since most businesses don't place restrictions on whether their employees can visit or participate in groups. These longer posts will also be of benefit for anyone actively participating in group discussions since presumably other members can click and view your profile --- and now they'll also see what you've written for content. It's not going to replace the blog but I think it will add some stickiness to LinkedIn and increase the time people spend there.

Doesn't look like updates are expanded (yet). Any idea what you have to do to post a richer article?

The announcement today said only 25,000 accounts would be enabled. That's a tiny tiny sliver of the user base so I'm thinking it could be a while until everyone is enabled. Once enabled I believe a button labeled ""edit"" shows next to your status update box. When you click that button it brings you to a full page editor. The Techcrunch article linked above has a screen shot right at the top of their post.