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What is LinkedIn Pulse? Definition & How It Works

Quick definition

LinkedIn Pulse was LinkedIn’s content and publishing platform for long-form articles and professional news, later merged into the core LinkedIn experience.

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LinkedIn Pulse, explained

Part of the SocialKit social media glossary — browse every term.

What LinkedIn Pulse is

Pulse began as a separate news-reading app that LinkedIn acquired in 2013 and developed into its content-distribution and long-form publishing platform. At its height, Pulse aggregated professional news and surfaced member-written long-form articles, and having a piece featured in Pulse could give it significant reach across the LinkedIn audience. Over time, LinkedIn folded Pulse’s functionality into the main platform: the standalone branding was retired and long-form publishing became the native LinkedIn Articles feature. As a result, people today often use "LinkedIn Pulse" as a legacy name for LinkedIn’s article-publishing and content-discovery capabilities rather than a distinct product.

How it shows up on LinkedIn

In its dedicated era, Pulse operated like a curated professional publication — editorially highlighted articles and news channels organised by topic that members could follow. That curation and distribution layer has since been absorbed into LinkedIn’s feed, notifications, and Articles system, where content is surfaced algorithmically and through your network rather than a separate Pulse destination. You may still encounter the Pulse name in older URLs, third-party references, or industry writing, but functionally it now points to the long-form and content-discovery experience built into LinkedIn itself.

What it means for professionals and brands

The practical takeaway is that the value Pulse represented — publishing substantive, professional long-form content and having it distributed to a business audience — still exists through LinkedIn Articles and the platform’s content ecosystem. Professionals building thought leadership should focus on that current native publishing path rather than the retired Pulse branding. If you see advice referencing "publishing on Pulse," read it as publishing long-form Articles on LinkedIn today. Confirming the current feature names in-app avoids confusion caused by older, outdated terminology.

Where SocialKit fits

SocialKit schedules the LinkedIn posts that promote your long-form Articles and cross-posts them to your other networks, keeping your professional content consistent across all 11 supported platforms.

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FAQ

LinkedIn Pulse: common questions

Quick answers to the questions people ask most about this term.

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