What is the most important LinkedIn content strategy? Many people already focus their content marketing efforts on other social media platforms, other than LinkedIn.
But on LinkedIn, there is also a lot of potential for content marketing. My team and I tried different approaches on LinkedIn and noticed something.
The difference between LinkedIn and other social media channels is this: The rate on which a post dies is a lot slower.
Let’s take Instagram as an example. When you post a piece of content it gets the most engagement within the first hour after being posted. If you don’t get many likes or comments fast, the post will die down. It’s all about those first few hours. So, content on Instagram is relatively short-lived.
LinkedIn is currently very different. That’s why content marketing on LinkedIn is something you should absolutely consider. Especially if you want to build your personal brand in your niche.
So, what is the most important LinkedIn content strategy? How can you build your social brand?
Is Copywriting The Key To Your LinkedIn Content Strategy?
In my opinion, to know and utilize copywriting is the most important LinkedIn content strategy. What does that mean?
Copywriting is a skill that allows you to persuade others through your written words. If you know copywriting, you know to write in a way that gets others to act.
On LinkedIn, there are two important chances to use copywriting: Your posts (updates) and your content (articles on LinkedIn).
If you know some principles and rules of copywriting your written content will go up in engagement. You will know exactly how to position your personal brand, too.
Articles on LinkedIn are a lot like blog posts. Profile posts, on the other hand, are more like traditional social media ads.
How To Write Engaging LinkedIn Posts
How do you write a good LinkedIn post? A great way to start is giving your posts these three parts: a hook, the main content and the call-to-action.
First of all, your post needs a hook. A hook is something that draws the reader in. It could be an interesting question or an unusual claim that you are making. Anything that stops them from scrolling and actually gets them to read your article.
Remember though that on LinkedIn, most people aren’t looking for light entertainment. They are looking for content that makes their life easier or is helpful to them in some way. They are looking for value or useful knowledge. So really deliver value in your posts.
The way LinkedIn posts work is that you will only see the first three sentences on the feed. Then comes the “open more” button. You want to make sure your hook is right at the beginning, so the reader actually clicks on the “open more” button.
Good copy is crafted in a way that the reader is guided from one sentence to the next.
Before they noticed they read your whole post and want to engage with it.
After the hook, you could tell an interesting story or give valuable information to the reader. Something so that they actually want to read on.
You also always want to have a call to action at the end of your posts. The call to action tells the reader what they should do next. Is there a link they should click? Should they leave a comment? Share your post with a friend? Clearly tell the reader what you want them to do exactly.
So as you see, a LinkedIn post looks like a typical social media ad.
But as not many people are actually posting content on LinkedIn yet.
That’s why it’s a great chance to get a lot of engagement. It should definitely be part of your LinkedIn content strategy.
How To Write World-Class LinkedIn Articles
The second piece of written content in LinkedIn are articles. They are very similar to blog posts.
When you write an article on LinkedIn, it’s a great idea to keep sharing them in your posts too. This way your articles will get more attention.
In your articles, you want to give valuable advice to your readers. Keep in mind who your audience is. You will mostly communicate with other business owners or self-employed people. They are on LinkedIn to expand their network and possibly to find jobs.
It’s a very different audience than on most other social media channels. So don’t go ahead and copy your Facebook posts on LinkedIn. Instead, keep your audience in mind and write for them.
Focus on your niche to build up a strong personal brand. Really think about what you want to portrait. Position yourself as an expert through your content.
Articles are usually longer than posts. However, they shouldn’t be long-winded. In articles, you don’t want to do academic writing. Keep it conversational. It’s best to write in the language of the audience in your niche.
If you make it sound like a scientific paper, most readers will scroll past it or stop reading in-between. Why is that?
Because, on social media, people aren’t using their full attention. They scroll through their feed rather mindlessly. If your copy is too hard to read, they won’t bother.
The Importance of Copywriting
The thing with copywriting is, most people don’t know how important it is. They think it’s enough to quickly write out a post.
But, writing something on the go isn’t a content strategy. Copywriting is not like the writing you learned in school.
Actually, you sometimes break the rules of traditional writing in order to sound more conversational. Copywriting isn’t about being academically correct. It’s about engaging the reader and get them to take action.
Copywriting is most prominent in ads and sales letters. But it’s also valuable for your LinkedIn content strategy.
I personally started out in copywriting. I see how most people don’t really understand how copy works. It’s about captivating people and it’s closely linked to marketing.
That’s why when you learn the skill of copywriting you also will understand marketing on a deeper level.
It’s not enough to quickly write out a text. You have to understand your niche and target audience first. Then tailor your content to them.
So, you might want to learn how people get engaged and re-engaged by your written words.
If you use the principles of copywriting in your LinkedIn content strategy, your engagement will skyrocket.
Leverage Videos on LinkedIn
Videos are another great piece of content on LinkedIn. Especially, as there aren’t as many videos yet as on other social media platforms.
So this is a great time to start out. No matter if you are new to video making or a novice who is used to making videos.
LinkedIn videos produced some impressive numbers of engagement:
- more than 300 million impressions on the platform
- three times more engagement than text-posts
- videos are five times more likely to start a conversation between LinkedIn members
For your own videos, you want to make sure you know exactly what you want to portrait. Be yourself, but highlight the parts of your personality that fit with your audience.
If your clients tend to be more professional then you want to make sure to dress professionally and the camera is set right. Even the camera angle is important.
For business, it’s best if the camera angle is going up. You don’t want to be looked down on. Also pay attention to your body language, mimic, and gestures.
Keep in mind, you are on LinkedIn and the users there value a certain type of content.
LinkedIn is Different From Youtube
In youtube videos, most people are a bit more hyped. It’s okay to be more casual and outgoing. On LinkedIn, you might want to tone it down a bit. You don’t want to turn off your potential contacts.
Really be mindful of who your clientele is and what you want to appear like in your videos.
Even for videos, you want to follow the principles of copywriting. Maybe script out what you are going to say. Don’t read out your script though, you want to stay natural and engaging. Share on XDon’t be over the top, but don’t sound a robot either. Be a human being that has something valuable to say.
Again, you want to know your audience and what kind of words they would use. What kind of person do they see as an authority? What topics are they interested in? What will stop them from scrolling and watch your video?
If you focus on them it will allow you to build a strong personal brand.
What Kind of Content Does Well on LinkedIn?
When it comes to content, you want to be original and valuable. Don’t repeat the advice that everybody else has already posted. Or if you have to, add a different angle to it.
Original content is interesting and a great way to build your personal brand.
Nobody likes boring stuff. Keep it fresh and engaging for your readers.
Again, it all comes down to good copywriting.
Also, don’t be too self-centered in your content. Yes, you want to position yourself as an expert, but that doesn’t mean you want to boast.
You can position yourself as an expert by actually caring about your readers and adding value to them.
If you only talk about yourself in your posts, your readers will get bored. Really think about what’s in for them.
An Underrated LinkedIn Strategy: Hashtags
Hashtags are another thing you want to add to your LinkedIn content strategy. They are severely underused on LinkedIn – which means there is a lot of opportunities.
It’s most common to use hashtags on your posts. So, if you write a post on sales, for example, you can add the hashtag #sale.
But your hashtag shouldn’t be only in your post- Also put it in your comments when you comment back on other people. It’s gonna trend and your name will keep popping up in your industry.
You can also put hashtags in your LinkedIn profile. Put it anywhere, where it makes sense. You don’t want to spam people but you want your name on posts that get trending.
If your name keeps coming up in trending posts, you will get known in your niche on LinkedIn.
Which hashtags to use exactly is a question of marketing. Again, know the audience you want to attract. What hashtags are popular and relevant in your niche?
Increase Your Network on LinkedIn
Another vital part of your LinkedIn content strategy is to expand your network.
Whether it’s followers or mutual connections, for LinkedIn, every connection you have counts. So really work on getting a bigger network.
One thing that is so great about LinkedIn is that it is relatively easy to reach users in other people’s networks. If a person engages with your content, that piece of content might show up in their network. So you can really branch out into other networks.
And the more people are in your network, the more people you can reach in their network. It almost sounds like an MLM – thankfully it’s not. But this is how LinkedIn is set up. If you know and understand this part, you can see how important networking is on this platform.
So, by posting valuable content that is very engaging you expand your network. And because you have a bigger network now, the next piece of content gets even more engagement.
Do you see why this is so powerful to build your personal brand?
This way you will get well known in your niche. Your name keeps coming up on relevant topics in your sector. Others will see you as an authority in your field.
Choose The Top Trending Material
Now you published all that amazing content. You’ll likely see that some posts, articles or videos got a lot of engagement. Maybe it got many comments or got shared a lot.
You want to pay attention to which posts were trending. This means the readers do resonate with something you said. You managed to position yourself as an authority and expert in your industry.
Now you want to go ahead and copy that post on your LinkedIn profile for several reasons. It re-engages people back into your LinkedIn content. Also, it keeps your post alive. If you don’t do this the post or piece of content might die. But if people re-engage, it goes back up and might even show up in their network all over again.
So that’s a huge advantage of putting what already worked back into your profile and have it re-trend again.
Monitor Your Performance
Now I said that content on LinkedIn doesn’t die down as fast as content on other social media platforms.
Still, your post has to perform well within the first few hours after you published it. In those hours after posting only a part of your network sees the post. If they react well to it, your reach expands.
If none of your connections engage with your post, it will die immediately. It won’t even get a chance to trend. That’s why it’s so important to know a bit about copywriting. An engaging copy will get your content to actually be seen. Copywriting will also help to keep your posts alive.
So pay close to attention to your posts early after it was published. But even later, keep monitoring your content. If you notice some of your posts aren’t performing well, you can learn from that and adjust your strategy.
And of course, also monitor which posts are doing especially well. Find out what made these posts so good and apply the principles to your future posts too.
Understand LinkedIn
Another important part of your LinkedIn content strategy is to understand how LinkedIn works. What kind of content does well on LinkedIn? How does the algorithm work? What kind of people are on there and what do they value?
An important aspect to note here is the use of links on LinkedIn. LinkedIn wants the users to stay on the platform as long as possible. So, when you post a link, LinkedIn doesn’t like that. The algorithm will pick it up and your post doesn’t rank well. You want to avoid that, as you want all your content to be visible and trending.
So, what can you do? Instead of external links, direct your users to other posts that are already on LinkedIn. Share valuable information with your audience but don’t send them to leave the site. This way, LinkedIn won’t punish you.
Want To Develop The Number One Skill You Need To Succeed In Content Marketing On Any Social Media?
Now really, the basis of every successful content strategy on social media is copywriting.
It’s about understanding the user, writing for them and persuading them to take action with your words. And that’s exactly what copywriting is all about. We see a lot of this on LinkedIn.
It’s so much more than just writing. It’s persuasion in your written words.
In my early twenties, my career skyrocketed after I mastered the skill of copywriting. It allowed me to increase my income and slowly get to where I am today.
Many of my followers kept asking me to offer training so that they could learn copywriting from me.
That’s exactly what I did. I created a free, on-demand training that explains the principles of copywriting in greater detail.
In fact, copywriting works for all social media channels. If you want to take your LinkedIn content strategy to the next level, check it out.
