The 10 key factors of quality content on LinkedIn

I often get asked about the most important factors for high performing content on LinkedIn. In general, the advice below is applicable not just on LinkedIn, but really any content you look to create for any platform.

Note: A great piece of LinkedIn content does not have to contain all 10 factors, but the more the better.

Ensure that all pieces of content at least include Factors 1 through to 6. These are essential. Factors 7 through to 10 should be taken under consideration depending on your content strategy, budget and resources.

Ok, so let's jump in.

1. Relevance

Is the content relevant to your intended target audience?

This is probably the most important factor and would seem like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised on how much content shared on LinkedIn is more relevant for the brand, than their target audience. Put yourself in the mindset of a LinkedIn member. It's not about what you want to say, it's about what they want to see/hear. Audience-first is a great principal to begin any content endeavor.

2. Uniqueness

Does the content have a clear and unique point of difference?

On noticeable factor regarding quality content is it's often differentiated from anything else in the industry. Put some real thought into making your content both original and memorable. For more on how to do this, check out my recent article regarding the 4 Content Archetypes.

3. Goal

Does the content have a call-to-action (CTA)?

Whether its a high-funnel brand awareness piece or a advertorial designed to drive conversions, every piece of content you produce and publish on LinkedIn must have a reason to exist as well as a plan to measure its performance. What is it that you want the audience to do after consuming the content? Check out my recent Slideshare that explains some ways to measure content performance.

4. Branding

Is this content easily recognizable as coming from your brand?

Creating content with a recognizable design and a consistent look in LinkedIn's feed helps grow brand awareness, recognition and trust. When creating the look and feel of your content think beyond using just your logo. Consider the types of images you use, the tone of voice, the types of colors and formats. Build a specific platform-based brand guideline. E.g. EY's striking yellow trapezoid is a great example of easily recognizable content in the LinkedIn feed:

5. Leading

Is the content the 'best-in-class' piece for the topic / industry / platform?

This factor is especially important if you are creating higher funnel 'thought leadership' content. Quality thought leadership content should be designed to lead thought, not follow what everyone else is already saying. To look at this another way, if you consider your product to be industry leading; why are you satisfied with your content promoting it to be second-rate? If your content is not setting the benchmark in your space, then one of your competitors surely has that coveted position.

6. Cadence

Is your content part of a regular and dependable publishing cycle?

One of the most important winning plays with content is being regularly present and on time with your distribution. You want to condition your audience to expect your content and to question when it is not there. Be vigilant about publishing regularly, which means exploring the use of techniques such as re-targeting, account based-marketing, sequential messaging, always-on methods or episodic tactics on LinkedIn in order to ensure you are always present when the audience needs you.

7. Variation

Are you using or even experimenting with different formats?

There are many ways to tell the same story - video, images, text, meme, whitepaper, webinar - I could go on. It is important to play with different formats to find out which content your audience engages the most actively with. Sites like lumen5.com use AI to transform blog posts into video, it was used to create this Amazon Go video below.

8. Scale

Can your content be sliced and diced in many ways to increase its longevity?

At LinkedIn, we have a concept called Big Rock. The premise is to create on big piece of content (say a piece of research) and then cut it up into many smaller chunks of content in order to help you scale the volume of your content. This is a great tactic for both B2B and B2C marketers; as well as everyone from Enterprise brands to start ups.

9. Shareability

Is the content able to be easily leveraged and shared by your network, audience or employees?

Whether you are posting organically or using paid distribution, you ultimately want to generate 'earned' engagements on your content. Having valuable content that contains that 'shareability' factor is incredibly important because it will assist in increasing your reach and performance of the content as well as increase the content's longevity on the platform. Incentivize your audience or employees to help promote and share your content with their networks.

On LinkedIn, employees are a marketer's secret sauce to earning fast and effective organic reach. LinkedIn has a product called Elevate that is designed to encourage your employees to discover and promote content created by other employees in your organisation. It's a great way for brands to improve the regularly shareability of their content.

10. Platform Specific

Has the content been created specifically for the platform you are distributing it on?

There is a stark difference between how people consume content on LinkedIn compared to Facebook. While both are social media platforms, a viral cat video on Facebook will not be well received by the audience on LinkedIn, even if it reaches the same person. The reason is, we use our accounts on each platform differently and go to specific platforms to consume specific types of content. Marketers are often slow to grasp this point. They promote the same content across all platforms, usually in the interest of scale and time, but truly valuable content is best received when you account for the nuances of the audience on a specific platform and create the content that plays to that platform's strengths.

Bonus: LinkedIn Mission

My bonus tip to ensure that your content is relevant on LinkedIn. Ask yourself, if your content aligns with LinkedIn's mission statement "to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful"?

If your content helps your network, community or target audience be more productive and successful in their jobs and lives, then it belongs on LinkedIn.