What You Need to Know About Creating LinkedIn Content for 2023

This article is a Q&A derived from a LinkedIn Live hosted by Lynnaire Johnston talking with US content queen Fanny Dunagan which you can watch here .

Why is content important on LinkedIn? What benefits does it confer?

Whether you're a corporate professional, an entrepreneur or own your own business, when you create content, you’re building authority, showcasing your expertise, and explaining your products or services. The more content you create – offering tips, advice or insights – over time, you're going to become known as the expert or go-to person in your field. It's a wonderful way to build your brand, build your thought leadership and your authority. People immediately think of you when they have a problem in that area as you become the first person they call which makes you top of mind.

How frequently should people be creating content on LinkedIn?

It depends on what phase of the journey you're on. If you're at the beginning, you're growing and want to grow fast, then post something every day in the mornings Monday to Friday. If you’re further along the journey and start to get enough leads or momentum going, you could slow it down. There are days?I skip when work gets overwhelming so it depends on your schedule. If you create and post one great piece of content at the beginning of the week and that's all you have time for, then do that. And that could be enough but at the beginning I recommend every business day.

How would you suggest that people decide which is the best post format to use?

I like to break it down into what I call my four by 12 content creation framework. The four are the purposes of the content and they are 1/ to educate (tips, advice, insights, best practices), 2/ to inform (presenting a webinar, hosting or guesting on a live, happenings around town, or what you’re up to.) 3/ to inspire, posts that make us pause or touch our hearts (an inspiring quote, an uplifting story or a challenge you faced and how you overcame it.) 4/ to entertain and have a bit of fun (tying into your hobby but being both personal and professional).

You need to ask yourself: what's your purpose for your post that day. I usually like to do educational posts early in the week because those showcase your expertise.

The 12-part of this framework is post formats:

?? First of these is comments. If you never create any kind of content but you comment, you could just as easily grow your network.

?? Number two is you just share an article or post. If you're timid and don't want to start too big, just share something that you see from someone else.

?? Three is text-only posts.

?? Four would be image posts with a photo or a graphic.

?? Five would be the PDF carousels where you can scroll through tips on each page.

?? Six would be long form articles.

?? Seven would be videos. You get so much from the energy of a person through a video.

?? Eight would be polls which were popular for a while and are still very effective whenever I want to ask my audience a question to gauge something I'm thinking about.

?? Nine would be a newsletter you publish every week, every other week, every month.

?? Ten – live streams like the one this article is based on.

?? Eleven is audio events.

?? Twelve is the LinkedIn podcast network that you can apply to get your podcasts featured on.

Decide what you're comfortable with first. Let's say you like to write. Start with text-only posts. Say you talk better than you write. So start with video, just hit that record button. If you like long form content, write articles. Go with what you're naturally inclined towards.

Second, ask yourself what the clients you want to attract want. What is their preference? I deal a lot in the technology industry and that audience is facts, numbers and process-based so the content tries to reflect that. Carousels (slideshows) are great for that where you can do tip one, tip two, tip three and so on.

So ask yourself what you're comfortable with and naturally inclined to do, first. And then ask yourself, what kind of content would the audience you want to attract most gravitate to.

How can we use livestream events in our content?

It starts with planning it very intentionally so out of it can come image posts and text posts. The transcript can be turned into articles and newsletters, and you could chop up the video into post-sized pieces.

You can structure your livestream in two main ways:

?? In the form of a Q&A – for every question asked, there’s an answer which can become a micro video, text that becomes a carousel or a quote that becomes an image.

?? Introduction, body and conclusion – which lends itself to a newsletter or an article. If there’s a significant quote, that can become an image that inspires others.

For one livestream, you could easily have 15 to 30 pieces of content come out of it. And it’s even better if you're the guest on someone else's livestream because you're the one answering the questions. Each one of your answers becomes a micro video that can be chopped out and then repurposed. Pick out five different sentences from your livestream that are attention grabbers or aha moments. And that gives you five image posts either with your photo or an uplifting image. Those inspirational photo posts do very well. If you invest in a bit of planning, all you need to do is use that livestream chopped up into all kinds of content you can use for a whole month.

How can you use a livestream to build a network?

First, you as the host have your network. So you're promoting to your network that this livestream is happening. Second, when you have a guest, you send them the link ahead of time to promote the event and invite people to attend. Now there's two networks and double the number of potential invitations. Third, there’s the network of those on your team. They can also invite people just by hitting the invite button. Suddenly, you have three or more networks inviting guests. Fourth, if you have co-hosts, they can add even more people to it.

And what people sometimes forget is there's also your audience's network. At the beginning of every one of my shows I'll say, ‘Hey, everybody, I want to remind you to network in the comments, make sure you connect with each other, introduce yourself to each other, let people know what you do in the comments.’ And I challenge them to connect with three additional people in the comments. I also suggest they tag anybody they think would find value in attending the show.

You go from just one person to the co-hosts, the guests, the collaborators, the partners and the audience. It becomes a huge ecosystem of people all interacting with your livestream. And then in addition, when you engage with the audience, you're also building tiny relationships by acknowledging them and going back after the event to reply to all the questions and comments. When you do lots of little shout outs you build a supportive community that lifts up not only your audience, but yourself as well as your guests and it becomes a win-win-win-win for everybody.

How can companies leverage their employees on LinkedIn?

At the subject matter, expertise level of the company, one of the most effective ways is through educational posts – when a company and an individual collaborate together on the content. That's going to bring in potential business to the company as well as elevating the individual’s brand. I advocate for marketing teams to work in collaboration with a subject matter expert or a key person of expertise in the company. Together you can create content that's on brand and – this is the golden tip here – post it on the employee's personal page first. It will get way more views and engagement than posting it on the company page. Then a few days later, you can post the same content on the company page. You're then building both brands at the same time with the same piece of content.

Where companies get nervous is when they think employees are going rogue but I think that's where the inspirational posts can come in. You could do an inspiring quote that has nothing to do with the company but talks about values which isn’t any kind of conflict.

And then there’s the entertaining posts that can be photos of company events, team building events, dinners with colleagues and these are still safe content. There's nothing to be antsy or nervous about.

More senior leadership can talk about the vision for the company, the five-year or 10-year plan, values etc.

Middle management can talk about what it's like to work in a team, the values, their colleagues, why join the company etc.

Together, you can really create lots of content without ever being nervous about what will be published and it will be a win-win for the company and employees.

Where do you draw the line between professional, fluff or downright inappropriate?

Ask yourself what kind of audience you want to attract. If you put out fluff and inappropriate material you will attract that. And if you put out professional posts, which can still be personal, you will attract that. Whatever you put out is going to come back, it's the law of physics.

What I do is try to incorporate my hobbies. I love plants and the other day I was repotting some plants, moving them from smaller pots to bigger pots so they can grow more and the roots can expand. I tied that to my growth as an entrepreneur. With every step in my growth I've had to scale. I've had to do new things like additional training to get to the next level of my business. So I've had to be in bigger and bigger pots, and it's stretched me more and more and more. And that's a post – a picture of me and my plants, but I tied it to career growth and entrepreneurship. I find that works really well on LinkedIn because it's personal but at the same time ties into work and business.

I did a post of me whitewater rafting and looking terrified. I tied it to ‘doing it scared’ which I always tell my clients and my audience to do when it comes to video. Just do it scared. Lean into the discomfort and fear of being on video. Leveraging your hobbies and interests by tying them to a career or entrepreneurship journey is a great way to be professional and personal at the same time.

What is the one thing you would like to mention about content that that I have neglected to ask?

I believe in being purposeful about your content. If you really want to grow your business, or grow your authority and expertise in something, be very purposeful about your content. Let's say your expertise is human resources. Then under the educational umbrella, every month pick a theme or a topic within human resources that you want to talk about. Maybe month one, you talk all about hiring, and share tips and advice around that. Month two, you might want to talk about employee retention. Month three, about succession planning.

Be very intentional about the topics you talk about. That way, by not posting haphazardly you can be more intentional about your content which is how you'll set yourself up as an expert and thought leader in your industry.

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Lynnaire Johnston is the author?of Link?Ability, 4 powerful strategies to maximise your LinkedIn success?and co-author of?Business Gold – Building Awareness, Authority and Advantage with LinkedIn Company Pages,?both available on Amazon. She is also the creator of the Link?Ability members community for those who are serious about LinkedIn. [https://www.wordwizard.co.nz/membership/].

To learn more about LinkedIn and how to use it to advance your professional goals, please connect with or follow Lynnaire. She posts several times a week and always with something of value.

If you're looking to leverage LinkedIn to achieve your professional goals and would like to know how Lynnaire could help you do that, please DM her.