LinkedIn, the social networking site with the mission of connecting the world’s professionals, announced a few months ago that it will begin unrolling the ability for its members to publish long-form posts on the site. In essence, it’s like having a blog built right into your LinkedIn profile—with your posts made visible to the 300 million members of LinkedIn.
It’s great news—and a great way for church leaders and staff to expand their influence and message. Unfortunately, not many in church leadership have caught onto the immense value of being active on LinkedIn. It is, after all, seen as a social site only for business people.
Why would church leaders waste their time building on online resume on a business site?
Publishing long-form posts is incredibly beneficial to those in church leadership. Here are just a few reasons why you should publish posts on LinkedIn:
1) Your church members are on LinkedIn.
If you have business professionals in your church, chances are, they are active on LinkedIn. In fact, even non-professionals are on LinkedIn. What better place to publish an encouraging or challenging message than someplace they can see it during the week?
2) LinkedIn posts rank better for SEO and credibility than your church website.
SEO, keywords, Google algorithms. If you aren’t a tech savvy marketer, those terms probably don’t mean much. But LinkedIn posts rank incredibly high in the Google search algorithm, meaning your posts will be found in Google searches and read by more people if published on the LinkedIn platform.
3) It shows your experience.
As a pastor or church leader, chances are your online profiles have been viewed multiple times by those considering visiting your church. What are they finding? Publishing on LinkedIn displays your posts right in your profile, so when visitors Google your name before or after attending your church service, they can see what you’ve written. It gives them a taste of your experience, wisdom, teaching style—and may just be the factor that gets them to come back.
4) It builds credibility in the church world.
Can we be honest for a moment? The credibility of the church hasn’t been the greatest lately. Between moral failures of pastors and protests by so-called Christians, the world as a whole doesn’t find much value for the church. Publishing on LinkedIn can change that—and bring the most powerful message of hope right into the business realm.
5) It builds your ministry portfolio.
Many pastors and church leaders want to have a greater impact on the world than they are having now. Speaking at conferences, moving into greater ministry roles, connecting with ministries around the world—all great desires. What better way to show your skills, knowledge, and leadership techniques than publishing posts that are tied to your professional profile? One post seen by the right person could literally launch your ministry to the next level.
6) You can connect with other ministry leaders.
More and more ministry leaders are getting on LinkedIn. What a great way to connect with leaders from around the world than publishing posts that may attract their attention.
7) You could be a trendsetter.
Not that you’re all about setting trends. You’re too holy for that, I know. But, not many church leaders are publishing on LinkedIn. You could be one of the first—and set the pace for others to follow.
Publishing long-form posts on LinkedIn is a must for pastors and church leaders. It has the potential to give you greater connectivity to those in your church and can launch your ministry to a new level.
Give it a try!
Log into your LinkedIn profile, or create one, and give it a try! You may already have access to publish long-form posts—just look for the pencil icon in your status update bar. If you haven’t been granted publishing rights yet, get ready—it’s coming your way. View what other people have posted, start typing up drafts you could publish later, pretty up your LinkedIn profile. It’s only a matter of time until your posts could reach people both on and off LinkedIn.
Want to see LinkedIn long-form posts in action? Check out what I’ve written!
Do you have a LinkedIn account? If so, have you published any long-form posts yet?
[Image via Sheila Scarborough cc]
Eric Dye says
Compelling!