feat(linkedin-studio): honest newsletter distribution + profile-SEO + outreach pipeline

Step 17 (Wave 4 S4) of the audit remediation. Applies research/03 §D5 + the
two S2 residual fixes folded in. No new commands/agents (counts stay 27/19).

Newsletter (commands/newsletter.md): new "Distribution channel" section after
Step 10 teaching the HONEST native-newsletter mechanics — bypasses organic feed
ranking via ONE deduplicated notification per subscriber per edition (NOT a
three-touchpoint blast); the mass invite fires once → ~1-2K follower floor
(wait until you can spend it); realistic cold-start 0-100 subs months 1-3;
discloses non-export / no-canonical / no-read-analytics / per-subscriber decay;
explicit below-vs-above-floor decision rule. Sourced to research/03 D5.

Profile (commands/profile.md): new "Profile SEO" section — headline as the
highest-weight search field + a per-section keyword-target table
(headline/about/experience/skills/featured), consistency-over-stuffing rule.

Outreach (commands/outreach.md): Step 8c persists the pipeline board to tracked
state via the new recordOutreachContact mutation (mirrors Step 16's
recordFirstHourPlan): additive last_outreach_date/outreach_active scalars + a
non-R-initial ## Outreach Pipeline section in state-updater.mjs +
config/state-file.template.md + --record-outreach CLI branch. +7 tests
(state-updater 26→33, full hook suite 83→90).

Residual 1 (growth-playbook:216): 9:16 "distribution boost" → 4:5/1:1 guidance
(9:16 mobile-only opt-in; "immersive distribution" = uncorroborated heuristic).
Residual 2 (video-strategy-guide:300): "3-second test determines 70% retention"
→ "front-load value for muted autoplay" (three-second hook is folklore, not a
LinkedIn signal).

Verify: grep checks 1-5 pass; test-runner.sh exit 0 (stat-consistency green);
state-updater 33/33. [skip-docs] — tre-doc + version bump deferred to Step 21.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

plugins/linkedin-studio/commands/newsletter.md

@@ -1495,6 +1495,71 @@ Edition complete. Visible in /linkedin:calendar; mark live via /linkedin:calenda
 
 ---
 
+## Distribution channel — native LinkedIn Newsletter vs a long-form post (honest mechanics)
+
+A long edition can ship two ways: as a **regular long-form post** (what Steps 8–10
+deliver — pasted into the feed, ranked organically), or published through
+LinkedIn's **native Newsletter feature** (subscribe-able, with its own notification
+channel). They are not the same distribution, and the native newsletter is **not a
+strict upgrade** — it earns its place only above a follower floor. This section is
+the honest decision surface; it sells nothing.
+
+**What the native newsletter actually does (and doesn't):**
+
+- **It bypasses organic feed ranking** for the subscriber notification — that is the
+  real, defensible benefit. When you publish an edition, each subscriber gets **one
+  notification** routed to their preferred channel (in-app / push / email). The
+  channels are **deduplicated** — LinkedIn's own FAQ states that if you get an in-app
+  or push notification you should **not** also expect an email for the same event. So
+  it is **one deduplicated notification per subscriber per edition — not three
+  guaranteed touchpoints.** Treat any "3× notification" / "hits everyone on every
+  channel" framing as oversold. (The edition is still **also** posted to your feed and
+  can resurface via engagement and interest sections.)
+- **The mass invite fires once.** On your **first** edition LinkedIn auto-invites all
+  your current connections/followers to subscribe (and invites each new follower once,
+  thereafter). That one-time "invite all followers" blast **spends at the size you
+  launch at** — launch with a small base and you permanently burn the blast on a tiny
+  audience. This is why there is a **~1–2K follower floor**: below it, **wait** — you
+  are not yet able to spend the launch blast well. (The floor aligns with the existing
+  ~1K `/linkedin:monetize` and `/linkedin:outreach` unlocks.)
+- **Cold-start is slow — don't inflate it.** A genuine zero-audience start is roughly
+  **0–100 subscribers in months 1–3.** The viral "0→9K in 7 days" / "0→10K" newsletter
+  case studies were **not** cold starts — they leveraged existing audiences or long
+  grinds. Plan for the slow floor, not the screenshot. Cadence: **weekly** is common
+  among top performers; **biweekly** is a safe default for original analysis.
+
+**Honest downsides to disclose before you commit:**
+
+- **Subscribers are non-exportable** — pure platform lock-in. If LinkedIn ever sunsets
+  the feature, you lose the whole list with no portability.
+- **No canonical control** — LinkedIn outranks your **own site** for the same article.
+  Harmful if you are trying to build an owned property (your domain/email list).
+- **No read/open/unsubscribe analytics** — you cannot see opens, click detail, or who
+  left. (Consistent with the boundary the plugin states elsewhere: there is no
+  self-serve post-analytics API for a personal profile.)
+- **Per-subscriber reach decays** as the list grows — a bigger list does not mean every
+  edition reaches everyone; notification delivery is not guaranteed.
+
+**Decision rule:**
+
+- **Below ~1–2K followers** → ship the edition as a normal long-form post (Steps 8–10)
+  and **keep building the base** with short-form / documents. Do **not** spend the
+  one-time launch blast yet.
+- **At/above ~1–2K followers, posting regularly** → the native newsletter is worth it:
+  publish the **first** edition deliberately (that is when the blast fires), then hold a
+  steady weekly/biweekly cadence. Frame it as bypass-the-feed reach **with** the
+  lock-in / no-canonical / no-analytics / decay caveats above understood — not as a
+  guaranteed multi-touch megaphone.
+
+> **Sourcing.** Mechanics (5-newsletter max, 2-week cooldown, auto-invite, feed
+> resurfacing, notification dedup) are from LinkedIn's own help docs; the follower
+> floor and cold-start ranges are practitioner-sourced (medium confidence) — see
+> `docs/remediation/research/03-coverage-gap-specs.md` §D5. Date every figure when you
+> repeat it; the email-delivery behavior (dedup vs "always emailed") is genuinely
+> contested and a one-edition live test would resolve it.
+
+---
+
 ## Reference Files
 
 - `${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/config/edition-state.template.json` — edition-state schema (16 phases including v2.1 skeleton + spine-prose gates, v2.3 visual-assets, v2.4 editorial-review, and v3.1 headless-review + per-article `personas` + `pivots`)

plugins/linkedin-studio/commands/outreach.md

@@ -1072,6 +1072,37 @@ Day 30:
 - Update speaker bio with new event
 ```
 
+### Step 8c: Persist the pipeline to tracked state
+
+The boards above are the working view; the **tracked record** lives in plugin
+state so the pipeline survives across sessions (and shows the same partner the
+next time you run `/linkedin:outreach`). After you add or advance a row, persist
+it with the additive `recordOutreachContact` mutation — the same state pattern
+`/linkedin:firsthour` uses (`recordFirstHourPlan`). It writes a newest-first row
+to a `## Outreach Pipeline` section in `~/.claude/linkedin-studio.local.md` and
+sets `last_outreach_date` / `outreach_active`, **without touching any existing
+field** (a missing field is inserted, never required up front):
+
+```bash
+node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/hooks/scripts/state-updater.mjs" --record-outreach \
+  --date "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM" \
+  --track collab \
+  --partner "@name" \
+  --stage pitched \
+  --next "follow up if no reply" \
+  --due YYYY-MM-DD
+```
+
+- `--track` — `collab` or `speaking` (the row is tagged so one board carries both).
+- `--stage` — `warming` / `pitched` / `in-production` / `delivered` / `follow-up`.
+- `--next` + `--due` — the next action and when it falls due (drives the
+  follow-up surfacing in `/linkedin:calendar` and the Step 10 dashboard).
+
+Re-running with the same partner appends a fresh dated row, so the section is a
+running history of where each contact stands — not a single mutable cell. Read
+the section back at Step 0 of the next outreach session to reconstruct the
+board.
+
 ## Step 9: Network & Progression
 
 ### Step 9a: Collab — Inner Circle Model

plugins/linkedin-studio/commands/profile.md

@@ -38,6 +38,40 @@ LinkedIn's 150B parameter foundation model evaluates five criteria:
 | **Network** | Connected to professionals in this space? | MEDIUM - social proof |
 | **Engagement Patterns** | Do you comment on posts about your topics? | MEDIUM - active participation |
 
+## Profile SEO — your profile is also a search surface
+
+Topic-relevance ranking (above) governs **content distribution**. Separately,
+your profile is **indexed by LinkedIn search** — when someone searches a topic, a
+role, or a skill, LinkedIn keyword-matches profile fields to decide who surfaces.
+The two reinforce each other: the same keywords that tell the relevance model
+what you're expert in are the ones that make you findable. Optimize for both.
+
+**The headline is your highest-weight search field.** It is keyword-matched, shown
+in every search result and connection suggestion, and renders under your name
+across the site — so it does the most SEO work per character. Lead with the plain
+words people actually search (the role, the domain, the audience), not a clever
+tagline. "AI Advisor · public-sector AI governance · Microsoft Copilot" is more
+findable than "Turning chaos into clarity ✨".
+
+**Per-section keyword targets** (place the terms a searcher would type, in the
+words they'd type them — not synonyms only you use):
+
+| Section | Keyword target | Why it ranks |
+|---------|----------------|--------------|
+| **Headline** | 3–4 primary topic terms + audience + role | Highest-weight search field; always visible |
+| **About** | Same primary terms, front-loaded in the first 2–3 lines, then 5–8 supporting terms naturally across the body | Indexed for search; first lines double as the relevance model's expertise signal |
+| **Experience (titles + body)** | The searchable job title (not an internal-only label) + 2–3 domain terms per role | Job titles are weighted in search; an internal title nobody searches is invisible |
+| **Skills** | Your top 3 skills = your 3 core content topics, exact-match to common search terms | Matched directly against recruiter/search skill filters |
+| **Featured** | Posts whose titles carry your topic terms | Reinforces the topic association for both search and relevance |
+
+**Rule of thumb:** pick your 3–5 core topics once, then make the *same* terms
+appear — in the searcher's own words — in the headline, the About opener, the
+skills, and your recent post topics. Keyword **consistency across sections**
+beats keyword **stuffing in any one section**: LinkedIn rewards a coherent
+expertise signal, and a profile crammed with unrelated terms reads as noise to
+both the search index and the relevance model. Avoid buzzwords nobody searches
+("thought leader", "guru", "ninja") — they cost a keyword slot and return nothing.
+
 ## Profile Audit Walkthrough
 
 Guide the user through each section using AskUserQuestion for interactive feedback.