To stand out on the world’s largest online business network, you need to create powerful content.
Although it can be challenging to regularly come up with new content ideas, publishing content that appeals to your target audience is an effective way of showcasing your knowledge, personality and experience – and, ultimately, gain you more clients.
Throughout this blog, I’ll briefly walk you through the different kinds of content you can create and six essential qualities your LinkedIn content should have.
Types of LinkedIn content
Posts
LinkedIn allows you to create easy-to-read posts with a maximum of 3,000 characters. When your connections interact on your post, it becomes visible to many of their connections – meaning posts can often gain a high number of views.
Articles
Articles allow you to go into much more detail, but often get lower levels of engagement. In spite of this, they can offer incredible value to your reader and allow you to set yourself apart as an expert in your field. At present, articles cannot be created using the LinkedIn app – they need to be written on a desktop computer. They can also be saved to the Featured section on your profile, meaning it’s easy for you to highlight the articles that will have the strongest impact.
Videos
Videos are an excellent way to introduce your personality to your future clients. Research has shown that videos between 30-60 seconds long perform best, so they’re also an excellent way of making brief but powerful content. Make sure to post the video directly to LinkedIn, rather than sharing a YouTube link – if a post encourages a user to click off the LinkedIn platform, it won’t be featured so prominently on a user’s newsfeed. Include subtitles because research shows that 79% of online videos are viewed with the sound muted.
Polls
LinkedIn polls are a great way to increase your engagement on LinkedIn. Polls are easy to interact with so they tend to get a high level of engagement. They’re easy to create, just ask a question and add some options for the answers. Introduce the poll with a few short sentences to explain what it’s about and encourage your readers to comment as well as vote for an even higher rating with the LinkedIn Algorithm!.
Document Posts
Uploading a pdf document is a great way of showcasing your content in a visually appealing and easy-access way. Your audience loves them too as they’re interactive – they click on the image to move to the next one. You can add images as well as text so they’re very versatile and can be used for any type of content.
Qualities your LinkedIn content must have
Whether you choose to record a video, write an article or share a post, each form of content comes with a different set of benefits. Whatever kind of content you choose to share, here are the top six qualities that make for scroll-stopping LinkedIn content.
#1 Relevance
Before you post any content, think about how relevant it is to the services you offer and to your audience’s needs. For example, if you’re an expert on producing posts for Instagram, it wouldn’t make sense to write about creating content for Facebook. Make sure your content fits with the services you provide – or the services you’d ultimately like to provide.
Content also needs to be relevant to your audience’s interests. Generally speaking, they’ll be looking for information that is useful, interesting and answers any questions they may have about your industry. Keep your content relevant and they’ll keep reading.
# 2 Add value
Whenever you create a piece of content, ask yourself what value it would add to your audience’s lives. Your posts have the power to make a change in someone’s life – so ask yourself how you can help change them for the better, even in a small way.
You have a lot of expertise and insight to share, so think about how you can impart your knowledge in a way that can improve someone’s business or personal life. Sharing valuable content demonstrates your expertise and builds your audience’s trust.
# 3 Evoke emotion
Making your audience feel something is vital to producing great content. Maya Angelou is quoted as saying: “At the end of the day, people won’t remember what you said or did – they will remember how you made them feel.”
Don’t worry too much about evoking extreme emotions in your readers – there’s no need to feel compelled to make someone laugh out loud or burst into tears. Simply surprising them with a fact they didn’t know or capturing their interest is an excellent start when it comes to evoking emotion from your future clients.
#4 Be human
Don’t be afraid to showcase your personality throughout your content. Although LinkedIn is a professional networking site, it can benefit your business to include subjects you’re passionate about, snippets of your personal life and a glimpse of your likes and dislikes.
Remember, people buy from people, so showing your human side is a powerful way of attracting clients that would be a good fit for you and your brand.
# 5 Resonance
How often have you read something that truly resonated with you? Content that resonates is both powerful and memorable – and, chances are, it will make you want to read more of that person’s writing.
If you can produce content that resonates with your reader, you are one step closer to enticing that person to read more of your content – and possibly gain a future client.
# 6 Simple and specific
Don’t confuse your audience by trying to pack too much into one post. People don’t have time to consume long articles about different subjects. Respect that your reader has taken time out of their day to listen to you – and make sure what you say is worth listening to.
Focusing each post about one thing will increase the readability of your content. Keeping things simple and specific means your readers are more likely to remember and retain what they’ve read.
And finally….
Don’t feel pressured to immediately start creating content that ticks all six of the boxes. Start slowly and focus on one aspect of your content, before gradually building up.
Once you start producing content which consistently does these six things, you’ll be well on your way to increasing your LinkedIn audience – which can, in turn, increase your chances of gaining the clients you want.
Don’t forget to follow up on the engagement you do get, making sure to respond to comments and interact with your connections – this not only shows you care about the responses from potential clients but will encourage the LinkedIn algorithm to show your posts even more widely.
