How to Post on LinkedIn 🤔 There's more then just writing and hitting send

So I am back from Hawaii officially with a bunch of new shirts!  They were all made in China, but bought in Hawaii so they’re official…

Anyway, while out on vacay, it was funny to see my social media use as still my JOB…so I wanted to dive a little deeper into some of it.  This week we are going to talk about LinkedIn (aka Microsoft’s attempt to be facebook, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying about FOMO and instead wanted to talk about work all the time)

How to Post on LinkedIn

Step 1) Go to LinkedIn

Step 2) Start writing at the top

Step 3) Voila

Kidding, there’s a lot more to it than that to do it right.

1) How The Algorithm Works

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of it, it’s helpful to go over the algorithm in general.  Most social media platforms don't need your content. They already have plenty, and they want to give you just enough to stay active and ideally to spend money to get more impressions. LinkedIn is different - it NEEDS your content. LinkedIn has more eyeballs than content (something like 99% of users don’t post content consistently) so it wants to share your stuff. But, it needs to know what is good content.

LinkedIn figures out what is good content, by giving your post a shot.  It will push it out to a small group of people, and see what they do with it.  Originally it was about an hour, but they’ve since relaxed that time window.

After that initial phase, either they douse your content in sardine oil and feed it to the masses like Carole Baskin did to the tigers or they bury it in their backyard like Carole Baskin did to her ex-husband. 

But do be aware, if your content makes it through the filter here, it's going to be seen for about a week which is AWESOME. Many of my posts are getting thousands of views for 7 days, other platforms seem to only really push your most recent post or two.

2) The Kinds of Posts

Text - The most common on linked in (and mostly the same, look at everyone posting, short sentences, lots of dead space, etc).

Polls - Sort of a text post, but you can ask for answers back from your audience (as of this writing, LinkedIn is still pushing polls hard, but not as crazy as it was a few months ago (my polls used to get 500-1000 votes with 20,000 or more impressions…crazy for someone with under 10,000 followers).

Images/Graphics - Not as common as on facebook (and remember, still write something about the photo, even if it’s just a line or 3).

Slide decks/carousel - The series of images you can scroll through (like a powerpoint slideshow, but if you call them a powerpoint then everyone thinks you're old and archaic).

Video - I don’t see much traction with video on LinkedIn, but others do, if you do video make 100% sure to have captions to the text, so readers can still follow it.

3) So what makes a good post?

LinkedIn limits you to 1300 characters for a post, shorter seems to be better.  You can write longer articles, but that’s a waste and they get no traction.  Don’t ask me why they do that, they added the article feature, but it would be like if you bought a brand new car and then didn’t drive it and just left it in the garage.

You’re better off writing blogs on your website or another site and then posting them in LinkedIn (put them in the comments of your post, not the body).

Engagement is key - but really you can't control that. So look for these three things:

1) The Hook - The first sentence or so - designed to draw people in and get them to keep reading. LinkedIn will normally show the first three lines, so make them something that forces people to click the see more and read the rest!

2) The Meat - The content, the middle, what can someone learn from your post and implement now/soon/this week (or stop doing). Finding the right content to share is the hardest part - the better you know your target audience the easier it is to write things that are helpful to them.

3) The Call To Action - The end, how do you get people to interact with the post? Remember engagement is key, so ask a question that starts a conversation on your post (or multiple conversations) and watch the engagement skyrocket.

4) Tips and Tricks for Reach

Do: Tag people and companies in your post when it makes sense.

Don’t: Hashtag the companies (hashtags are making a SLIGHT come back, but tagging will get a better response).

Do: Make a fake LinkedIn dark mode (take tweets or text posts from other platforms, swap them into dark mode so they on a black background and then repost them on LinkedIn).

Don't: Just post text posts all the time without any change.

Do: Like and comment on your own posts - take the conversation to the next level (literally) and add some more personality in the comments, those that hate that will not get there, those who like you, will read the comments and oftentimes have conversations with you on your comments.

Don’t: Be 100% business and never show any personality - you know who you are!

Do: Engage Back - comment and share other people’s content, respond to comments on your post, get into conversations with people, heck, take relationships offline (or to zoom/google meet).

Don’t: Just post and never engage.

Do: Give it a try - it will take about 30 days of good use to get your algorithm dialed in, and then 3-6 months to get a consistent following

Don’t: Expect one post to go viral and make you a celebrity

5) What to post?

Think about how you can mix different types of posts with different topics. For the most part, you want to find your NICHE. For me for example, no one cares about my marketing tactics posts (they just never do well), but my marketing mindset posts do great. I am targeted to not just lawyers, but to firm leaders or at least lawyers who want to build a brand that involves mentorship, leadership, biz dev, sales, marketing, etc.

Share your story - Why do you do what you do? Why do you do it differently? Show us your journey.  Add in your hobbies here and there.  Aka disc golf, the Miami Dolphins, and the hilarious shit my 4 year old says (but thankfully he hasn’t said shit…yet).

Give great content and advice - What should people start doing today? What should they stop doing? What action can they take RIGHT now to move the needle?  Think of a post as some change that can be made in 24 hours.  For criminal lawyers, a funny way to reminder your clients NOT to talk to the police will do a LOT better than the 15 different ways you can qualify for an expungement.

Motivate them - Share some great quotes, cool sayings, but make sure it’s not just motivational and instead you have that mixed into actionable content and tips.

Mix it up in type and topic and goal and see what works the best.  LinkedIn is awesome and will give you viewership numbers on everything, I cannot stress this enough, when it doubt, try it out and see.

6) Seriously engage with others

Remember, LinkedIn needs content, so keep the engagement going.

• Reply to all your comments and keep the conversation going.
• Piggyback on other people's comments on other people's post.
• Tag people who will benefit from the content (your posts and others), but make sure they engage quickly after you tag them.
• Add your thoughts to other people's post (this helps them directly and helps you indirectly).

7) Connect with more people

Send connections to people who you want to connect with. You can find them by:

• Searching
• Going through friends connections
• Going through other people's post and seeing who comments
• Looking at relevant hashtags and seeing who's there
• Asking people you know to follow you on linked in
• Asking people you know who YOU should follow on LinkedIn
• Sending out carrier pigeons and smoke signals (kidding, but I would follow you if you did that)
• Take these connections off-line - start doing zoom meetings with connections (there used to be a daily clubhouse room for some awesome Linked In people…is clubhouse still a thing? Regardless there are twitter spaces (oh wait)...there are facebook rooms! I digress, just don’t keep all your eggs in one basket.)

Will this work for anyone? I think so. It works for me and I don't think I'm special - not sure if my mom would agree or not, and in a good way or not . ;)

But will it appeal to everyone? No. If that's your goal, you're going to appeal to no one. So get started on your journey and let's see how far you can get. 

Remember, you're trying to appeal to your ideal follower/client/customer/referral source - not EVERYONE. In fact, the more I "rock the boat" and take strong stances, the more engagement I seem to get. 

And I know, I know, I'm a lawyer, pissing people off is easy for us, I get that. But seriously, take it to heart.

So...what did I miss in this article?

Who would benefit from reading this article?

Who should I be following on LinkedIn?

(see...I walk the walk!)

Bonus tip for getting this far - click here

Do that today! It's a huge help to your growth.

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