How to create document posts on LinkedIn
Sarah Clay
Need more visibility on LinkedIn? ?? Company page not bringing in leads? ?? I'm a Keynote speaker & LinkedIn trainer who can help you ?? Training, consultancy, management ?? Employee advocacy champion ?? Cyclist ??♀?
Document posts on LinkedIn are getting pretty high engagement on LinkedIn at the moment. We’re never really sure why certain types of posts and activity suddenly start performing well on LinkedIn, but we can make reasonably educated guesses.?
The most important thing is to act on trends. So as document posts are performing well on LinkedIn right now, it’s important that we’re posting them on our feed!
WHAT ARE DOCUMENT POSTS?
They’re, quite simply, pdf’s which you post organically on LinkedIn. They appear as a single image but when the reader looks closer, they see that they can scroll through the pages.?
This is possibly one reason why they are a success: they’re interactive. We all like a bit of interactivity, right??
Another reason I think people like them and spend time reading them is that the content is broken up into chunks. We’re busy people, there is a lot of content on LinkedIn, so if something is easy to read and fun to access, then it’s likely more people will engage with that content.?
It’s important that you vary your content to prevent your audience having ‘content fatigue’. Vary in terms of what you post about but also the style of your posts.?
Keep reading for some tips how to make your document posts really ‘engageable’ but let’s first look at how to create them!
You can use various platforms to create your pdf’s. I have used PowerPoint in the past and I know some folk are having a go at creating document posts with photoshop (my new buddy Franklin Swann is going to be trying this. Franklin – I’d be keen to know your thoughts).?
My favoured platform, however is Canva . I find it SO easy to create images on Canva – it’s like photoshop for kids!
If you don’t know how to use Canva, may I suggest you get in touch with Canva expert Marie-Louise O'Neill who is an absolute Canva WHIZZ – and very lovely to boot.?
If you’re ok with Canva then this is what you do:
Ta dah! Not too tricky right?!
Ok Now some tips to help you make a slider – oops (I’ll let you into a secret – we call them ‘sliders’, but don’t tell LinkedIn ??)
HOW TO CREATE REALLY ENGAGING DOCUMENT POSTS
Choose the correct size
Either square or portrait.? Portrait images stay in people’s feeds a bit longer. It’s the ‘scroll’ factor. However,? don’t go too long and thin otherwise LinkedIn cut off the top and leave bars down the side.?
Don’t put too much text on each slide
People don’t want to be there for hours. This is about accessible content so keep it brief and snappy so folk want to click through to the next slide.
Beware the bottom bar!
LinkedIn put a dark bar along the bottom so keep the very bottom of each slide clear otherwise the text will be obscured.
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Make sure the text is readable.?
If the text is too small, people won’t be able to read it as it’s hard to ‘expand’ the size of the document on the screen.
Don’t make them too long.?
Sad but true, folk have short attention spans on LinkedIn. I’d go 6 slides max.?
Tell the full story
What you’re doing here is telling a mini story, make sure you have a beginning a middle and an end. It’s good to clearly identify the final slide so folk aren’t trying to click through to the next one.?
WHAT KIND OF CONTENT WORKS AS A DOCUMENT POST?
All kinds but especially content which can be split into sections and tell a story. ‘How To’s work well as they are sequential.??
Another idea is testimonials. In this post, I split one long testimonial into sections and in this post, I used different testimonials which I had received around one event.?
HOW TO POST DOCUMENT POSTS ON LINKEDIN
Oh again, it’s super simple!?
Now you will have some space to ‘introduce’ your document. Do that, introduce it, and no more.? If you write too much here you’ll ‘give away’ what’s in the document and folk won’t bother to scroll through it.?
Invite your audience to ‘find out more’ or ‘scroll through my document for more information’. Give them a call to action!
Use the relevant hashtags, tag in anyone relevant and hit ‘post’!?
Ta dah!? Not that tricky right?
Have you used sliders – oops – document posts before? Are you going to give them a go?
If you like my tips, please hit ‘subscribe’ at the top of this newsletter and follow my hashtag #LinkedInSimplified.
If you’d like to work with me to increase the amount of leads you get on LinkedIn, just send me a DM!
Sarah ??
Marketing Coordinator
9 个月This is such a helpful article, thank you Sarah Clay! Such an effective way to tell a story ??
CMMS | HRIS | ERP | Social Media | Digital Marketing | IT
11 个月Finally got learned something new ??
Passionate about growing businesses through Inbound Marketing and Demand Generation | B2B Marketing Specialist | Digital Marketing | "Smarketing" Enthusiast | Creative at heart
1 年This was awesome Sarah Clay. Thanks!! :) But I created a document i Canva and when I upload it on LinkedIn it looks blurry. The pdf has a high resolution so I am wondering what the problem could be. Do you know?
International creative brand strategist
1 年Hi Sarah, YES! I have been having some success with these. I use illustrator. I post GIFs that are animated very slowly, so the moving image attracts the eyes. I also use PDFs, but they do not seem to pick up an image for the post when sharing on other media, e.g. `X′. Do you or anybody else know of a way to add an image?
The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
2 年Sara, yes … I use Photoshop and Illustrator for Posts and Documents. Really, the only difference in Canva and Photoshop is the program that creates the .jpg or .png image. The creation of the multi-page document is the same process as you described above for both. For those who may not know, a .jpg is a photo file, used for most all photos stored digitally in your computer. You can create a post as a .jpg file, but make sure the resolution is high enough that the image doesn’t appear blurry. The .png file, called a ping, is a graphic image that has no white holding field attached to it. In other words, it’s a graphic with a transparent field that can be placed into a document without the annoying white square field present in .jpg files