Flaws in LinkedIn publishing platform apt to limit benefits for professionals
The Washington Post’s Sarah Halzak (@sarahhalzack) reports that with its launch of a new feature that allows LinkedIn members to publish blog-post-style content, LinkedIn is hoping to become the virtual town square for professionals to publish, read, and network.
I don’t disagree with Ryan Roslansky (@ryos), LinkedIn’s head of content products, who told Halzak:
That’s one of the big reasons we’ve invested heavily in our content efforts. We believe that every professional reads some sort of content on a daily basis about their company or their competitors or their industry, just general professional knowledge.
I question though where professionals are going to publish for purposes of reputation enhancement, knowledge, and networking.
Can we expect lawyers, accountants, doctors, engineers, and consultants to look to LinkedIn as their primary publishing house? What’s the guaranty their content is protected?
How is the content shared on other social media, ie, Twitter and Facebook, let alone social media and social networks to come. If a professional’s content is not shared, cited, and liked on the open web their influence will be severely stunted.
Going all the way back to AOL’s message boards, contributing in a closed community posed a problem for professionals. How could everyone see us answering questions? The questions and answers did not display on our own sites nor on what was then becoming the open web.
WordPress is democratizing publishing – and we’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Wait until we see the majority of lawyers, scientists, doctors, accountants publishing in an open environment, as opposed to today’s closed subscription based publications.
A better LinkedIn approach to garner professionals’ publishing, and the benefits which flow from it, would be to empower publishing in satellite environments with LinkedIn as a hub.
Empower blog publishing by professionals and organizations employing professionals. That way they know their content and brand is protected.
Pull that content into your network in a curated fashion with LinkedIn being that true town square for reading and networking. No question content is the currency of online networking, and you’ll have that currency in spades.
With a closed environment where some professionals only publish a fraction of their content LinkedIn will have a parsley populated town square with limited learning and networking. The open net will prevail.