LinkedIn is the top platform for professionals. Whether you’re looking for B2B leads or simply expanding your network, it’s one of the most effective social media spaces for organic marketing. That’s why it’s important to learn how to write content for LinkedIn. With the right execution, LinkedIn content can be a powerful tool for off-page promotion and link building.
In this article, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about writing LinkedIn content.
Why write content for LinkedIn?
If you’re not hiring or seeking a job, LinkedIn might not be on your radar. But it should be! LinkedIn offers much more than job postings. Launched in 2003, it’s one of the oldest social media platforms that’s still active.
Some recent statistics about LinkedIn demonstrate why it’s such a vital marketing channel:
- LinkedIn has over 1 billion users from 200 countries
- 16.2% of LinkedIn users are active daily
- 48.5% of LinkedIn users are active monthly
- Over 67 million companies are active on LinkedIn
- 136,000 schools and educational institutions use LinkedIn
Additionally, LinkedIn provides valuable opportunities for B2B growth. 40% of B2B marketers say that LinkedIn is their most effective channel for lead generation and 77% say that it provides high-value organic results.
LinkedIn also remains one of the best social media platforms for sharing written content. Although posts with images and videos always boost engagement, LinkedIn users are thoughtful readers. They use LinkedIn to learn and to improve themselves or their business. Unlike Instagram or TikTok, people using LinkedIn are far less likely to be “scared off” by long-form text.
We also recommend writing content for LinkedIn because of its built-in audience demographics:
- 50.6% of users are between ages 25 and 34
- 55% of users in the United States are from high-income households
- 4 out of 5 LinkedIn users are key decision-makers
Many LinkedIn users are entrepreneurs and business owners, coaches, consultants, recruiters, marketers, and other well-established professionals. If your company has B2B offerings, sharing content on LinkedIn will help you reach your target audience more easily.
Difference between LinkedIn posts & articles
Before we dive in, it’s important to understand the two primary publishing options on LinkedIn: posts and articles. Depending on your goals, you may prefer to focus on one publishing method over the other.
LinkedIn posts
On LinkedIn, posts are the most common type of content. Depending on your privacy settings, posts are automatically visible in your LinkedIn network’s newsfeed and on your profile. You can create a LinkedIn post in seconds and share anything from a short status update to photos and videos. You can also include polls for real-time feedback from your network.
While it’s always recommended to keep your tone relatively professional on LinkedIn, posts are more casual than articles. You don’t have to be a professional writer or journalist to craft a fun, informative, engaging post on LinkedIn. This makes posting more accessible and efficient.
Unfortunately, LinkedIn posts have some downsides. First, you’re limited to 3,000 characters per post (which is roughly 500 words, give or take). Second, LinkedIn posts have a limited lifespan. Your post may reach many users within the first week or so, but views quickly drop-off.
LinkedIn articles
LinkedIn articles are a new form of content. Similar to Medium or Substack, the article platform is designed for longer, more in-depth content. LinkedIn articles are an excellent choice for think pieces, case studies, sharing technical expertise, or offering detailed insights and analyses about your industry. Unlike posts, the character limit for a LinkedIn article is 120,000. That’s around 14,000 words!
There are other reasons to choose LinkedIn articles vs. LinkedIn posts. Articles are indexed on Google, which means they can show up in Search Engine Results Pages. When publishing an article, you can add additional SEO settings like a meta title and meta description to control how your article is displayed on SERPs.
The LinkedIn article platform also provides thorough analytics about your readers. These analytics are more in-depth than the analytics provided for posts and include data from readers’ LinkedIn profiles. You can use this information to adjust your content strategy. For example, if you notice that your readers work in a specific industry, you can begin creating more content that tailors to their unique interests or pain points.
However, LinkedIn articles require more time and energy than posts. If your article is too short, poorly written, or lacks in-depth information, readers won’t engage. LinkedIn articles also have less short-term reach, as compared to posts, because an article won’t automatically show up in your network’s feed. To share with your LinkedIn followers, you’ll need to create a new post that links to your article.
Tips for writing content for LinkedIn
Whether you’re creating posts or articles, there are universal best practices for writing better content on LinkedIn. Like any social media platform, there’s no perfect formula to guarantee your content will go viral. Consistency on social media is imperative and a regular publishing schedule will help more than any gimmick or trendy “hack.”
However, here are some important guidelines about how to write great content for LinkedIn:
Optimize your LinkedIn profile
First and foremost, create a solid LinkedIn profile. Your posts and articles will link back to you, so you’ll need a professional profile photo, headline, and bio. Include your education and experience, as well as any relevant portfolio work or white papers. If your profile is empty, out-of-date, or otherwise unprofessional, your audience will have trouble trusting your authority.
If you’re publishing posts on behalf of your business’ LinkedIn Company Page, make sure the page is similarly fleshed out. Double-check that the contact information for your company is prominently displayed so that readers can reach out about your products or services after reading your content.
Make content unique and original
If you’re a B2B brand, you might be able to recycle the same posts across all your social media channels. If not, you’ll need to adjust your messaging to appeal to LinkedIn’s unique professional audience.
For example, let’s say you’re a plumbing company. On a Google Business Profile or Instagram, you could share a general post about leaky faucets (Don’t let a dripping faucet increase your water bill!). For LinkedIn, that same content could be repurposed to reflect a home office setting (Don’t let a dripping faucet distract you from that big client Zoom!)
However, if you’re writing a longer LinkedIn article, your content should be as original as possible. It may be tempting to save time and copy/paste an old blog from your website, but this risks keyword cannibalization.
Tell a story
The best LinkedIn posts and articles tell a clear, compelling story. They open with a hook that evokes emotion or curiosity, which encourages the reader to keep going until the end. Many writers on LinkedIn incorporate elements of their personal life to draw us in.
If you’re struggling with writer’s block for a LinkedIn post or article, anecdotes from your life can be a great place to start. Consider using some of the following prompts:
- Who inspires you to be better at your job, and why?
- What’s something you learned in childhood that has helped you in your career?
- If you could give career advice to your younger self, what would you say?
- What “mistakes” have you made, which you now see as valuable learning experiences?
Remember to keep your writing professional, yet simple. Use short paragraphs, subheadings, and bullet points or numbered lists to make your content easier to read. If you’re intending your posts for a general audience, make sure you define any niche technical terms so you don’t confuse readers.
Stay on topic
Remember that LinkedIn is used by professionals. Although their userbase reflects a wide range of diverse industries and roles, no one is using LinkedIn to hear about your dog – unless you brought your dog to work, he charmed a notoriously difficult client, and you’re sharing new insights from the experience.
As we mentioned above, personal stories are a powerful hook. But don’t stray too far off-topic. Your LinkedIn content should always connect back to your career, your business, or your industry. Before you publish a post or article, ask yourself, does this content offer career insights or information to the reader?
If you’re not sure what value your LinkedIn content provides, it probably needs a rewrite.
Use statistics
Like any type of content, LinkedIn pieces should be accurate and well-researched. Whenever possible, include relevant statistics from the last three years and link to your sources. LinkedIn users are more likely to fact-check than users on other social media platforms. If you discover that any statistics in your content are wrong or taken out of context, issue a correction.
Use other media
Whenever possible, incorporate other types of media into your content. Infographics, photos, or videos are an excellent addition to LinkedIn posts and articles. According to LinkedIn’s Ads Marketing Leader Steve Kearns, via Forbes, posts with images average twice the engagement of posts that are text-only. Video drives five times more engagement.
End with a clear Call To Action
What do you want readers to do after they view your LinkedIn content? Do you want them to contact you for a consultation? Do you want them to order your product or sign up for your service? Always include a clear Call To Action (CTA) in the concluding paragraph of your post or article.
However, don’t go overboard. If your content sounds like an ad, the LinkedIn platform may not promote it organically. Avoid spammy anchor text and make sure any links to your website are relevant to the content of the post or article. Don’t write about email marketing tips and link to a product page for shoes.
Engage with your audience
Finally, always engage with your audience. Reply to every comment and answer questions. Engagement will boost your content’s performance on LinkedIn while helping you form stronger connections with your network.
After all, the power of LinkedIn lies in professional networking. Even if a post or article doesn’t drive tremendous traffic to your website, you may develop a relationship with someone who needs your product or service.
Build your brand on LinkedIn
Learning how to write great content on LinkedIn can help your brand grow. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or consultant, a marketing manager at a big company, or simply looking for a new career, don’t overlook the power of posting on LinkedIn.
Want to add LinkedIn to your organic content strategy, but still not sure where to start? Let Redefine help! We can handle all your content or work in tandem to support in-house teams. Contact us today for a discovery call.
