10 Tips for Creating Meaningful Content on LinkedIn
Last week I hit 17,000 followers on LinkedIn, and I’d like to tell you how.
When I joined LinkedIn in 2012, I had just started my first ‘real’ job. I was an agency recruiter working in Central London, recruiting in the marketing space. I was so happy when I discovered LinkedIn, as I loved the idea of a professional network to connect with and learn from others in my industry. It felt like Facebook for work. Of course, at the time as you might remember, there was this unusual tension on LinkedIn. People only shared very stuffy, work-related content and sharing anything outside of that was a cardinal sin.
A couple of years into using LinkedIn, I started to feel jaded. Even my own posts were making me feel lethargic. There were only so many ‘amazing job opportunities’ (also how did I know this, I didn’t work there?!), team charity runs and ‘outstanding candidates’ I could talk about.
I started to feel brave and wanted to try something new with my content. I also knew I had so much to I wanted to say about the day-to-day life of a recruiter. More importantly, I was learning so much that could help others, especially job-seekers. There was also a lot about the industry that shocked me. For example, the bias and blatant racism in hiring, what companies really wanted, and the traits of a good candidate vs a poor one. I wanted to share this with the world.
The first post I wrote that went ‘viral’ (when a few hundred likes was a lot), was a piece about the lack of part-time roles available on the market. I wrote about how rigid businesses were about hiring part timers, and it meant missing out on some seriously good talent, often mothers/parents who couldn’t work full-time.
A lot of mothers commented on my post, agreeing, and thanking me for speaking up. I knew then that I had to share more of these stories with others, in the hope that company leaders might see it and realise how exclusionary they were being. It also validated my feelings about the issues I was seeing in the hiring process. This kicked off my LinkedIn content career.
Almost every role, speaking gig or client that I’ve ever gotten has been through LinkedIn or via referral from someone who had found me on LinkedIn. Not only did it connect me to the right people, but it allowed me to display my content to the world in the way I wanted to. This has been invaluable. I’ve kept my tone of voice very true to me, but the topics across this time have varied. LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful tool when you know how to use it.
I was so happy back in 2022 when I hit 8,000 followers. I’d been working towards this for 10 years but with no real plan or consistency. I made my mind up once I’d reached this goal that I wanted to throw myself in even deeper and double that number again. I had found my voice and rhythm and I started to see the real potential. As expected, once I threw myself in, that number doubled across 18 months and I became a LinkedIn Top Voice.
Here are my 10 tips for creating meaningful LinkedIn content:
Use Clickbait. Start with a catchy one-liner. Get people to stop in their tracks.
Make sense. There’s a whole lot of senseless jibber jabber flooding our LinkedIn feeds right now. You don’t have to overcomplicate your message with filler words, keep it simple and make it make sense.
Add value. If you build your content muscle based on ‘what value can I add today’ or ‘what can I teach my followers’ you will undoubtedly succeed.
Tell stories. Objective insights can be useful, but make sure that at least half of your posts are luring your reader in through storytelling. They LOVE it.
Be provocative. Writing in a passive tone is boring. I’m not saying be too controversial, but allow yourself be strong and daring with your opinion on a topic. Not everyone’s going to agree with you, and that’s ok.
Engage. The response in the first 60-90 minutes determines the success of your post. As soon as people comment, engage with meaningful replies.
Timing. Forget the weekends, mornings and lunchtime during the week is when people are scrolling LinkedIn the most.
Don’t expect immediate returns. I’ve built my community with a ‘give not to receive’ approach and have given a lot of valuable information away for free. I believe by doing this, people attach value to my brand.
The C word. I know, I hate it too, but consistency is absolutely necessary for continuous growth. ‘Out of sight, out of mind’ is too true when it comes to content. Do you miss people when they suddenly drop off? Didn’t think so.
Never use ChatGPT. As useful as it is for ideas, we can all see when you’re using it to create content and it’s bad. Your voice is what people want.
3 bonus tips to work the LinkedIn algorithm:
Use photos. They generate more engagement and the algorithm likes them.
Don’t repost. Unless you add some thoughts, otherwise it’ll get swallowed.
Don’t share links. If you want a teaser, use a screen grab. Add the link in the comments and tell people it’s in there.
These are just some of the things you can do, I’ll share more tips and insights in future editions of my ‘Sunday Heroes’ newsletters so make sure to subscribe.
If you’d like to join the waitlist for my upcoming LinkedIn Accelerator Course click here.