Technical challenges - LinkedIn Tutorial

- Like any platform, you may come across some technical issues that get in your way when you're trying to post a newsletter. Here are a few that I've come across that I want to share with you as you get your newsletter underway. Challenge number one, your newsletter says it's been published but the email hasn't been sent out and there's no notification on LinkedIn. This has happened to me once, and I've heard from others that have experienced the same thing. My best advice here is to make sure that you're subscribed to your own newsletter so you'll see when the email is sent. You'll also see a notice in your notifications on LinkedIn. If this doesn't happen within five minutes of posting, there could be a problem. I would leave it around 30 minutes and if you have time to get this sorted, you can contact technical support via the give feedback tab at the bottom of the article page. In my case, I deleted the newsletter and reposted it later that day, and that version was sent out. This is why it's so important that you have a copy of your newsletter text saved somewhere else. Challenge two, images not formatting well in the email version. I've experienced this a lot and you probably will, too if you create images. If you check out my newsletter, Mindset Matters, you'll see that I use images for things like a free coaching course, or interview videos, and coaching tips on Instagram. Sometimes these images look great on the screen but when the email goes out, they haven't formatted so well, so they look huge or too small. There really isn't a way around this, all you can do is learn what looks good in the email version as time goes on. There isn't really much point changing the image in the desktop version as the email's already gone out, so you can't change that. Just make a note of what hasn't worked and try a different image next time. Challenge number three, videos not showing in the email version of the newsletter. This is a bit of an irritation of mine with newsletters. If you add a video link straight into the desktop version, it looks great on screen. Subscribers can see immediately that there's a video to play. When this goes out via email, however, that image is replaced with text along the lines of view media in original source. I can't remember the exact wording as I don't use this approach anymore. And let's be honest, who's going to click on a link like that from an email? So instead, I create an image of the video with a play button over it for the desktop version. And yes, this is a pain. I then manually add the link to the online video such as a YouTube video. Then, when that email goes out, there's an image for people to click on. Don't underestimate the amount of time it can take you to create images if you're adding call to action images like videos, programs people can join, links to other social media content, et cetera. Challenge number four, restrictive text options in the newsletter. There's no other way to say it, the formatting and text options available when publishing a LinkedIn newsletter are basic to say the least, you don't have any font options, only headings, subheadings, and normal options, so it's all about size rather than font. The only way you can highlight text is by using bold or italic options. And you'll notice when the email goes out, italic text looks bigger than normal font. There's nothing you can do about this. You've just got to work with what's there. You may come across more challenges and it's part of the process of using an application that's been developed by another source. The engagement you can generate via a LinkedIn newsletter is worth it though. So it's definitely worth working through that pain. My advice is to give yourself some time when you're setting up your newsletter, create a draft version where you're not rushing to get the newsletter out, and always save your text somewhere other than LinkedIn. Good luck getting started. I look forward to seeing what you create.