So You Want People to Read Your LinkedIn Content...

You write what you think will be a thought-provoking, maybe even controversial LinkedIn blog. You draw in a deep breath and hit the "post" button, sending your many-times-revised baby out into the world.

For the next hour, you try not to look, but you can't help it. You answer a few emails, but you keep toggling over to see the response. Crickets. Well, not exactly crickets. The post has gotten a few likes and a comment. They're from co-workers, and you wonder if they're just being nice.

Within two hours, you know it's fallen flat. You beat yourself up. Maybe it just wasn't that good. Then you look at the Impressions and see that it's been put in front of 271 people. Of course it didn't get traction. You have more than 2,000 followers and it's being surfaced to fewer than 15% of them. You curse the algorithm and wonder if you should just delete the post.

What really happened and how can you avoid that in the future? It's hard to know for sure; the LinkedIn algorithm is a black box, but I have a few working hypotheses.

First, some context.

For my first ten years on LinkedIn, I didn't do much other than accept connection requests and like the occasional promotion announcement. I stayed under the radar, which happened to be the personality of Allegis Group . We were proud to be the biggest company nobody had ever heard of.

But times change and in 2017, we decided to refresh our brand. I committed to becoming a brand ambassador-- I just needed to figure out what that meant. Even if Allegis Group (a mostly passive parent company) stayed in the background, I could use the platform to promote our operating companies and recognize the accomplishments of our team members.

I was tentative at first, not wanting to say the wrong thing or come off as inauthentic. With each post, I gained a little more footing. Seven years into this journey, I'm still gaining footing.

I love having a platform to engage with people in a constructive way. Followers are fine, but my goal is to engage in thoughtful dialogue about how we can find more fulfillment in our work and life. What works for me, might not be right for you. You need to start with your goal.

Here's what I've learned:

What I've Learned about the Post Itself:

Be authentic. Voice and tone matter. If something sounds like it was written by someone in marketing or communications, I stop reading. If something sounds like it was generated by Chat GPT, I stop reading. So does everyone else. Use personal anecdotes. Tell stories. Be vulnerable. Strike a conversational tone. No one wants to read something by someone trying to impress you with how smart they are.

You get one chance to make a first impression. Make sure your first line is engaging. Newspaper editors talk about "above-the-fold" content. You have to grab readers. For LinkedIn, your post will only display the first sentence or two. If you're busy clearing your throat, it doesn't matter how good the rest of your content is. People won't read it, and the algorithm won't promote it. Think of your first sentence as a headline. Does it grab someone or not?

Include a twist or offer a fresh look at a much-discussed topic. You have 3,000 characters to evoke some sort of emotion. My posts that have garnered the best engagement often have attempted to hook the reader early and then surprise them with a pivot (why we should end the work/life balance debate, why you should ignore leadership advice, why the unassuming CEO of 微软 outperformed the market). You may have different goals, but I'm wanting someone to say, "Hmm, I hadn't thought of it that way." Or, "Wow, that story really illustrates something I've been feeling but couldn't articulate." These reactions garner responses.

Keep it business focused. This might sound obvious, but let me explain. I wrote a post about the value of friendships and community. It had a clear connection to well-being, a common topic on LI. The ratio of views-to-engagement was great (meaning, people who saw the post responded at a rate greater than most of my posts). And it died a quick death. I assume the algorithm dissects a post and assigns it a bunch of keywords. It then looks for people who engage with content that fits those keyword categories. This being LinkedIn, the keyword categories connect to business. If your post doesn't touch on some popular categories, almost no one will see it.

What I've Learned about Format

Posts > Links. I love to promote other people's material. If I watch a video or read a cool article, I'll push it out on LinkedIn. Very few people see it. LinkedIn favors? original content over a repost and it certainly favors your own content over anything that takes someone off the platform. I still repost interesting content but mostly to signal to someone that I really liked their material. I have low expectations that my efforts will amplify their message. If you're constantly sending out other people's material, you won't get a lot of eyeballs.

Posts > Articles. I've written 28 articles on LinkedIn. This just means that I iterated on ideas 28 times and ended up with something that didn't fit neatly into 3,000 characters. When I publish these articles, I expect them to get 30-50% of the traffic on day one that I'd get from a post, and as a result, the time they get promoted is about half of what a typical post gets. I would think LinkedIn would promote articles (drive more thought leadership, accelerate its shift from a networking/ recruiting platform to one where people go for information), but the algorithm favors shorter posts. I'm guessing it's a function of attention span, friction and flow. People are not as likely to read a longer article, they have to click on the article to get the content, and by doing so, they leave the infinite scroll. I'll still post the occasional article (like this one), but I aim for most of my material to fit into a post.

Include a graphic. LinkedIn is a visual medium. Posts with pictures get more attention. It's not hard to find applicable content (just beware of copyright infringement). And if you have an idea for a graphic, test some of the image-generating language models. I've had a lot of fun iterating on ideas through Dall-E and Stable Diffusion (again, beware of copyright infringement).

Stories over data. There's a study for everything, and it can make you sound credible. With apologies to four out of five dentists, citing studies doesn't inspire engagement. I'll include a fact or two, but rarely is the post about that fact. Engagement comes from the heart, not the head, and stories of people dealing with conflict and overcoming adversity engage the heart. Save the graphs and percentages and data-driven analysis for the academic journals, and understand that academic journals appeal to a tiny audience.

What I've Learned about Timing

Post once a week. Many experts will tell you to post more often if you want to build a following. For me, weekly seems to be about the pace at which I can generate content I'm comfortable putting out into the world. Any more would risk over-saturation (some might feel that way about my posts now!). And I find that posts show up in people's feeds for three or four days. I'd rather let each post run its course than have competing posts out there during the work week. Last, committing to once a week helps me build writing into my routine. I work much better with a deadline and a commitment to ship.

Post early in the week when people are at work. As mentioned above, posts seem to stay in feeds for a few days. If you put your post out on a Friday, it will likely lose momentum over the weekend. I push something out most Tuesdays. As LinkedIn has curated more content, I've seen usage rise in non-working hours, but to be safe, post early in the week at a time when most of your audience is working.?

What I've Learned about Process

Keep a File of Ideas. I have a OneNote section dedicated to LinkedIn ideas. At any given time, I likely have 15 pages with either a sentence or two that captures the essence of the idea or a half-baked draft. I usually have three or four that are close-to-ready, and then, on Monday afternoon, I decide which one I'll post. From there, I'll re-write it a few more times and then sleep on it. I might re-write it again in the morning, and I'll definitely review carefully when I've pasted it into the LinkedIn box. You see things differently in the moments before you send something out in the world.

Use an LLM, just not for writing. I use generative AI to help me with a post or article. I'll use it to brainstorm ideas (asking it for titles or metaphors). I'll ask it to provide feedback on an early draft. I'll ask it to find me a story or a study or an example that illustrates a point. And I'll ask it for help with accompanying images. I don't ask it to write the article. Ever. Maybe that will change someday, but it's derivative by definition and raises some ethical questions. Besides, the fun for me is in the creation.

Tag people and companies. This sounds obvious, but I sometimes forget to do it. And it's amazing how many people don't do it. I wrote a story about 微软 that generated a typical response pattern for 48 hours, and then it exploded. Someone from Microsoft must have seen it and promoted it inside of Microsoft. I could see through the analytics that Microsoft employees were becoming the biggest readers and Seattle was the biggest location. And then it spread to San Francisco and Bangalore. People at 谷歌 and 亚马逊 and HubSpot (including their President Yamini Rangan ) liked it. That probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't tagged Satya Nadella and Microsoft.

Writing is Re-writing and re-writing is cutting. Mark Twain famously said, "Sorry for the long letter. I didn't have time to write you a short one." Spend the time to pare down your LinkedIn Post (says the guy who just posted a 3,000-word article about LinkedIn posts and a 9,100 word essay in a newsletter). If a sentence doesn't push the post forward, no matter how much you love the sentence, kill it.

Read your post out loud before you hit submit. As I said earlier, I'm aiming for a conversational tone. There's no better way to test that than to read your work out loud. Did you stumble on something? Was it a mouthful? This advice applies to all writing, but is particularly useful for this format.

What I've Learned about Engagement

Engage with people who comment or repost. Algorithms are tuned to maximize engagement. So… engage early and often. If someone comments on your post, respond. Ask them to connect with you. Beyond influencing the algorithm, I've learned a lot from people who have shared their perspective on what I've posted.

Don't fret over comments. LinkedIn isn't Twitter/ X. There's usually respectful dialogue and supportive comments. Still, you're liable to get someone who doesn't like what you said or had a bad experience with your company. It's easy to take these as a personal affront. Don't. It's not worth it. If someone offers a counterpoint, even if it comes off as angry or hostile, I'll acknowledge their perspective, thank them and either defend my position, explain the nuance or acknowledge that they've made me think differently about the issue. I'd rather model civility than let it fester (that bothers me too much). If it's an ad hominem attack, I ignore it. Life's too short to give trolls any oxygen.

Set aside time to engage with others' LinkedIn material. If you like someone's post or comment on it, LinkedIn's algorithm will serve up more of that person's posts. It works the other way too. If you engage with people, they're more likely to engage with you and see your content. Of course, that's all secondary to leveraging the platform for learning and advocating and promoting people and ideas.

Some More General Advice

Don't be afraid to ship. Talking about Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels says, "The show doesn't go on because it's ready; it goes on because it's 11:30." I view everything as a draft. I can re-write something twenty times but still want to tweak it. Part of why I've committed to a regular posting schedule is to break myself of never feeling like anything's done. Every Tuesday, whether it's fully ready or not, I'm going to publish. This is not heart surgery or rocket science. It's LinkedIn. If you have a typo, you can edit the post. If you wrote something no one likes, no one sees it. Lorne understood that there was going to be another show seven days from now. You can always put out another post. Move on.

Have fun: Play the game. Just don't get sucked into the game. I can understand why teenagers take Instagram posts down when they don't get so many likes in the first hour. After I post, I look at the analytics too much. I'm hypercompetitive and I want to know how the post is performing. There's a fine line between analysis and self-esteem, and I've crossed over that line, letting the dopamine game impact my mood. Why didn't this one work? What did I do wrong? What's wrong with me? Did I just embarrass myself? It's so unhealthy. I've tried to re-frame it all as a game and every at-bat is a chance to learn and get better. If it's not fun or if it's affecting your sense of self, stop posting and stop scrolling. Life's too short.

Experiment, take risks, and strive to be an elite failure practitioner. I've pushed out poetry, told stories about my kids, posted dog videos, written lengthy social commentary and published a parable. Some of it landed pretty well. Most of it didn't get much traction. And I didn't care because I knowingly was taking a risk. If you look at LinkedIn as a place to iterate, experiment, and learn, it can be a creative outlet and a liberating experience. Conversely, if you're worried about how something will come across, you're going to sound like everyone else. These experiments will allow you to post more interesting and engaging content. Amy Edmondson notes that elite athletes and Nobel prize winners have one thing in common: they're "elite failure practitioners."

Break all these rules. Seinfeld (a comedy about nothing) doesn't happen if Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld followed the conventional rules for situation comedies. The Metamorphosis doesn't exist if Kafka cared about literary convention. Lin Manuel Miranda didn't conceive of a hip-hop musical while reading a text book about Broadway shows. Do what works for you, have fun, and try different approaches. When it's all said and done, let me know what works. I'd love to know what I've gotten wrong!