7 Ideas for Start Posting on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is dying to get your content. 

Over the last 2 years, I’ve been career counseling various people from different verticals, professions, education, and social backgrounds. What is their biggest block when it comes to LinkedIn? It’s definitely how to start posting here.

Many find it painful to be active and generate content. Others feel comfortable but have no clue how to start. 

Generating content and engaging in others’ posts may be too overwhelming. Exposing personal opinions, stories, and being open to receiving comments and critique naturally frighten human beings.

In general, this is my perspective for professionals when it comes to content creation on LinkedIn:

🎯 Jobseekers: no need to engage here. Work on your all-star profile QUALITY. Remember, you will be found in your profile that contains attractive keywords and a winning triad: HEADLINE, ABOUT, SKILLS.

🙂 Happily employed people: you can like and comment. When doing that, use long sentences (5+ words). Avoid polemic topics and always be yourself. This is a strategy for personal branding and building a reputation.

☹️ Unhappily employed people: use LinkedIn for networking instead of creating content. The first step to change is action. Tell some of your connections you are open to work with and have powerful instruments in place: CV, updated Linkedin profile, and well-written cover letter.

However, If you think the opposite, this is the best place to inspire and contribute to your professional network, this article is for you. To implement a smart strategy on personal branding by using LinkedIn, you may follow this mind thread.

The strategy I present here is meant for members, especially managers that do not suffer from impostor syndrome or any other fear of exposing vulnerabilities.

It’s absolutely not a criticism to those who prefer anonymous navigation. But remember, recruiters, love to find more about you. If you're a leader, your team will be inspired by your content. Ultimately, your employer will be following your digital footprint.

LinkedIn offers the opportunity for content creators in many forms. Answer yourself 7 simple questions that will allow you to proceed with an action plan.

1. Why would I create content here?

Identify your purpose in creating content. It can reinforce your working identity in your field of expertise or even establish a new one while doing a career change. Take your time to define the reason behind it. Be less egocentric and more collective-oriented. Think about your strengths and interests. Use them as your purpose. It’s much easier to be authentic by being yourself.

2. What am I going to write about?

This is called an editorial calendar in digital marketing. You can apply the same principle to your reality, even though you’re not directly selling anything. List at least 5 topics of your interest. Work on providing your connections more about those topics during the week. Remember: your 1st-degree connections are usually people that know you from the workplace. They may relate your name and image to the time you met or worked together. I want to state that your connections may not know more about your expertise or interests. Provide them with that.

3. Which LinkedIn features am I using?

Use as many of the algorithm’s tools as possible. Find the ones you are most comfortable with. Here are some possibilities:

• Post
• Article
• Story
• Slideshare
• Photo/Video
• Discussion groups 
• Celebrate an occasion / a person
• Add a document
• Create a poll

4. When is the best time to post?

This is a controversial question. It usually depends on your network. In general, it’s great to post early in the morning. Since many members are checking their timelines before starting their workday, it increases the chances of getting more views.

5. What to post about?

Write an article of 1,000 words about a topic you master and feel confident about. 

Slideshare for summarizing an article of your own or one you liked. Great summaries are built out of personal notes and mindmaps.

Comment on others’ posts. It’s a good way to engage and grow your network. Be careful with what you write. If you regret it, go back and delete it. Be constructive and not destructive.

Join discussion groups of your 5 topics of interest and contribute with your knowledge by answering doubts and originating new discussion threads.

Record short videos (3-5 minutes). Be straight to the point and offer your audience more about your ideas and expertise. It will lead to more proximity between you and your connections. 

Create stories. It’s a new feature, and only a few people are using it. But it’s still a place you can use for posting motivational quotes, screenshots from articles and news, quotes from podcasts, or books you are reading. Focus on your 5 topics of interest.

6. Who is my audience?

This is a tricky one. Instead of trying to guess who would be viewing your content, work on being yourself. This is authenticity. Here goes a good definition*:

*Professor Herminia Ibarra on https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-authenticity-paradox

7. When should I post?

You can choose the frequency of your content. Regardless of whether it is daily or once a week, you must have discipline and cohesion. Remember to check comments on your publications and reply.

Organize the answers to the 7 questions into an action plan. The next time you read that “LinkedIn is becoming Facebook,” you can smile. Facebook has 2.7 billion members; LinkedIn has 700 million. It would be awesome if LinkedIn had so many members focusing on professional development and not only on corporations’ posts. It would mean that the chances of people being found and landing new jobs would be really much higher….

If you’ve been through something similar, let me know in the comments. It would be awesome to know more about your experience and thoughts!