Recently, LinkedIn officially announced LinkedIn Publisher and is eventually making the possibility of becoming an “influencer” (of sorts) available to all members with an itch to blog, share their stories, inspire others, and, well, become content curators for their topic(s) of choice. Mine, for example, are networking as part of your marketing strategy, maximizing LinkedIn and professional/personal branding in today’s social world.
Do you have it in you to (eventually) become an influencer on LinkedIn?
Today, LinkedIn’s Influencer Program already has 500+ participants, and about 25K beta testers in their Publisher Program (like me). However, with the introduction and rollout of LinkedIn Publisher, every single member of LinkedIn will soon have the potential to become an “influencer” on the platform too.
Some background
Blog publishing platforms, such as BlogHer, Tumblr, WordPress, Project Eve, Technorati, and others, are already in the content-sharing/blog-hosting business and have been around for years making most of their money from advertising on their platforms.
And now that LinkedIn is making their LinkedIn Publisher program available to everyone, each member will be able to publish their own content and demonstrate their thought leadership on this highly-trafficked social networking platform.
More background
Up until this point, most people would embed media into their profiles (PDFs, SlideShares, etc), or used their own blogs and then shared (hopefully) relevant content to establish themselves as content curators and experts in their chosen topic areas. And when it came to their blogs, people had them hosted elsewhere and readers had to leave the LinkedIn site to go read the posts they shared, but now with Publisher, readers can stay within in the LinkedIn environment and authors can get the analytics needed to track their progress around boosting their personal/professional brand and establishing their expertise with a wider audience.
I got lucky
So, I applied for early access to Publisher and couldn’t believe my luck when I found this email when I went to my inbox:
And here’s what was on my Home page when I opened up LinkedIn on my laptop this morning:
You can get lucky too!
You, like everyone else, will soon get access to Publisher. Just watch for the box above to appear on your home page, and if I were you, I’d start working on that ideal first post now. That way, you’ll be ready to post when you get the “You’re invited to publish…” box.
That being said, I’m excited to share my first official post as an “influencer” on LinkedIn! Here’s what it looks like over there:
Then, here’s how it will show up on your LinkedIn Profile page (and now we know why they disabled our posts from appearing in the main feed for awhile!):
Are you going to participate when the time comes? What will your topic(s) be? Please share in the Comments section below. Want my help getting started? Check out this PAGE to learn more!
To receive my posts as they’re published on LinkedIn, just Follow me via the link below and click the yellow 
button when you get there. Thanks and please let me know if you have any questions!
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140306190715-397562-my-10-favorite-quotes-about-networking