How to Write LinkedIn Posts That Inspire Action
All too often, I see people sharing posts on LinkedIn and getting no engagement. They keep posting the same types of posts over and over. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the definition of insanity?
If no one is engaging with your posts on LinkedIn, there’s a reason! You need to change your approach. Understanding how to write LinkedIn posts that get noticed is part art and part science.
Would you also agree with the following statement?
“Experts get paid more. People want to work with experts who are authorities on their topics.”
If you believe this to be true, you also likely understand that nobody can gain the reputation of an authority or expert without sharing useful content showcasing their expertise.
Full stop!
If you want more people to see you as an expert or an authority on your topic, sharing content, at least some of the time, has to be non-negotiable.
However, sharing content consistently has an additional benefit: it helps you stay top of mind with your ideal clients.
For these two reasons, having a LinkedIn content strategy is crucial to your long-term success.
In this post, I share three essential LinkedIn content tips that will help you stay top of mind, build trust, and establish your authority with your ideal clients. Next, I share the seven types of LinkedIn posts that inspire action, get you noticed and keep you top of mind with your network.
How to Write LinkedIn Posts That Increase Your Authority
Approaching social media haphazardly has never worked, yet it’s exactly what most people do. If you want your blogging efforts to benefit your business, you have to write posts that get noticed by your target audience. To create such posts, you need to follow three key elements.
1. Plan your pillar posts
Most people struggle when deciding what types of content to create. I’m not talking about the format type, such as blog posts, videos or infographics. You choose your format based on the type of content your target market prefers to consume.
I’m talking about the topics to create content around.
To determine what topics to pursue, start with thinking about the content and topics your target market would be most interested in. Your LinkedIn content strategy should begin with approximately ten pieces of pillar content.
Pillar content is a series of evergreen posts that display your knowledge and, most importantly, address a top of mind problem of your prospects. This foundational content will be of great value to your prospects and clients and become a resource for them. Pillar posts can also greatly aid your SEO efforts.
Sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it?
It doesn’t have to be. The hardest part of a LinkedIn content strategy is often deciding what that content should be.
I’ll make this super easy for you. Here’s how you can come up with ten pieces of content your target market will be hungry to consume.
Write down the top ten frequently asked questions your leads, prospects and clients ask you before buying what you offer. Each one of those questions is a piece of content, whether you make it into an article, video or some other form of content.
Let me give you an example. I always get asked which is more important, a LinkedIn company page or personal profile.
To answer this question, I created a blog post called “LinkedIn Company Page vs. Personal Profile: Which Is Better?”
A repeatedly asked question is the exact topic you need to create content around. If you keep this in mind, you will never have any doubt about how to write LinkedIn posts your network will read!
Two million posts, articles and videos are published on LinkedIn every day.
2. Be clear about the goal/objective of each post
Every status update, blog post or piece of content you share should have a single goal.
The first thing you want to do when creating or sharing a piece of content is to figure out what its specific goal is. Is it to educate your audience, start a conversation with them or prompt them to take a particular action?
For example, once I write a new blog post, I share it on LinkedIn as a status update. My goal for the status update is to drive traffic to the blog post.
Other times, I create a status update to encourage engagement, which brings me to my third tip.
3. Encourage engagement on your LinkedIn posts
It is essential you strategically post content on LinkedIn that encourages engagement – it’s vital to have people engaging with your LinkedIn posts.
One of the best ways to encourage engagement is to ask a question.
There is a wrong way and a right way to do this. Asking pointless, inflammatory or silly questions to get some engagement will almost always backfire.
Even if a piece of content gets engagement, it doesn’t mean it’s good engagement. Negative engagement can harm your personal and professional brands.
And while not all your posts have to be highly engaging, it is important to get some engagement on your posts consistently so that more people will see them. The higher the engagement, the more likely your content will be shown to your network and to other LinkedIn members.
Shortly, I will reveal the seven most effective types of LinkedIn posts that will get you noticed, but first, I want to look at two styles of posts that get the best engagement.
The Engagement Post
One of the best ways to get high engagement is to use an engagement-style post. Such post has one single goal: to encourage engagement. An engagement post asks questions or requests comments on an idea.
Let me share an example of an engagement post I wrote.
Note that in the post, I am asking people to provide their feedback on this topic by using this call to action: “Hey, is anybody else noticing this as well?”
Because I actively ask my readers to engage, many do.
The single purpose of this post was to get people to engage with it. The benefit of having people engage through liking or commenting on the post is the increased visibility of my future posts in these readers’ newsfeeds.
LinkedIn’s algorithm will track those interested in my posts and show these people more of my posts!
But if I were to do this with each post, people would quickly grow bored with me and would ignore my posts, especially my question-type posts. I call that engagement fatigue.
You’ve seen it on LinkedIn and certainly on Facebook. People post silly questions every single day with the sole purpose of getting people to engage with their posts. It’s annoying and tiring, and over time, people begin to ignore them.
I recommend posting engagement posts no more than once a week. The rest of the time, focus on sharing insights and interesting content.
The Opinion Post
We all have opinions, and we all like sharing them. Some of us like it too much. 😉
Often, opinion-style posts are negative in nature. Negativity alone is not the problem. The problem is when it becomes polarizing. There is no need for heated debates on LinkedIn. It hurts far more than it helps. Engagement is not all created equal!
Once in a while, you can share your opinion post, inspiring others to give their thoughts on the topic. You can either share your opinion and leave it at that, or you can ask your readers to add to the discussion.
Here is an example of one of my opinion posts:
In this opinion post, I address what has become a common issue on LinkedIn: people posting non-business-related content, such as images of their food. In my opinion, this is fine on Facebook and Instagram but inappropriate on a business platform such as LinkedIn.
But that is just my opinion, and there are many others, which was the point of this post – to encourage my LinkedIn network to discuss the topic and share their opinions on it in a non-polarizing way.
Although I didn’t ask people to share their opinions, of course they did as people love to share their opinions.
Here are some of the supporting opinions left as comments.
People will share differing opinions. Notice I chose not to reply to those who offered them. I simply hit the Like button, acknowledging their opinion since it’s not my intention to criticize them because they disagree with me. It should never be your intent to find fault in someone else’s opinion.
There was even some humor in the comments.
If you decide to share an opinion post, the most important thing to remember is to be respectful of other people’s opinions. Your goal is to encourage engagement through a discussion, which should not turn into a heated debate. When responding, take care not to belittle others and their views.
If you do use this type of post, use it sparingly and with caution, avoiding opinion posts related to religious, political or other polarizing and controversial topics. You want to get noticed on LinkedIn, but not for the wrong reasons!
Let me now share with you seven types of posts you should consider adding to your LinkedIn content strategy. Each of these posts has a different purpose.
7 Types of LinkedIn Posts That Inspire Action
Each style of post has a different objective. Most people randomly post on LinkedIn without any strategy or purpose. I believe every single action you take in marketing must have a clear goal. That applies to each LinkedIn post you make as well.
Next, I share with you the seven types of LinkedIn posts (status updates) I teach my clients to use most often. I explain the goal and the recommended posting frequency for each post style.
1. The Thought Leadership Post
Provide education and new ideas through short tips, extended commentary and videos.
Goal/Objective: Build your authority on your topic and within your network.
Recommended Frequency: Once or twice a week.
94% of B2B marketers on social media use LinkedIn to publish content.
About 45% of LinkedIn article readers are in upper-level positions (managers, VPs, Directors, C-level executives).
2. The Curated Post
Sharing other people’s content allows you to stay top of mind with your target audience without having to create your own content consistently. The added benefit of curated posts is they can help you build relationships with influencers.
Goal/Objective: Your goal with this post is to stay top of mind with your network while adding value to them. In some cases, however, your goal may be to build a relationship with one or more specific influencers.
Recommended Frequency: Two times a week.
3. The Promote Your Content Post
Share blog posts from your website or videos from your YouTube channel.
Goal/Objective: The goal of this post is to drive traffic to the specific content you have created on your website or YouTube channel.
Recommended Frequency: Two to three times a week.
4. The Engagement Post
Ask questions or request comments on an idea or thought.
Goal/Objective: Encourage engagement and conversation with your network.
Recommended Frequency: Once a week or less often.
5. The Opinion Post
Share an opinion on something, either implicitly inviting others to join the conversation or explicitly asking them to chime in with their opinions. No matter what you choose, sharing your opinion will inevitably inspire others to share theirs.
Goal/Objective: Inspire a conversation with your network.
Recommended Frequency: Once or twice a month or less often.
6. The Celebration Post
Share your professional wins through insightful storytelling.
Goal/Objective: Humanize yourself or your business while highlighting what you do professionally, allowing people to connect with you emotionally.
Recommended Frequency: As appropriate.
7. The Current Events Posts
Share your thoughts on a topic trending in the media. Current events are top of mind for many people and prompt conversations around the subject.
Goal/Objective: Inspire conversation around newsworthy events.
Recommended Frequency: Only when relevant.
91% of executives rate LinkedIn as their first choice for professionally relevant content.
LinkedIn content strategy: Top of feed = Top of mind
The best way to determine how to write LinkedIn posts that get noticed is by paying close attention to what you and others share that’s getting good results. Do more of that!
I mentioned at the start of this article that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. To get noticed on LinkedIn, attract your target market and build your authority, you need to become more strategic in your content approach.
Pay attention to what’s working and what isn’t.
As you build a network of prospects and clients on LinkedIn, you always want to stay top of mind. Content is the perfect way to do that.
Top of feed = top of mind!
Additional reading: Never run out of content ideas again.
Content alone isn’t enough, however. You need to proactively find, connect and engage with your target market. Don’t rely solely on people coming to you. Take charge of your lead generation on LinkedIn with direct outreach to your ideal clients.
Passively waiting for business to find you has never been, and never will be, a good business strategy.
Learn how to elevate your personal brand, master creating high-quality content and have a strategy for generating new leads and clients proactively by watching my free LinkedIn Leads video series. Register for it here.
