Content for LinkedIn

You now have a new, improved profile on LinkedIn and you may be feeling pretty good about it and yourself now.

I’m here to tell that it’s not enough.

Sure, someone may stumble across your profile one day, especially if you’ve used keywords properly.  But, that could take a while.

How many sales departments do you know where they just sit at their desks and wait for the phone to ring?

Maybe in the movies, you can build it and they will come but that strategy doesn’t work on LinkedIn.

There are two ways to get noticed on LinkedIn:

1. Having a plan to build connections and to interact with them once you do
2. Publishing content

I’ll cover the latter in this article now because it also helps with the former.

Your first question may be, “What to write about?”

That’s not as hard as it sounds.

Why are you on LinkedIn in the first place?

What’s your purpose? What’re your goals and objectives?

Look back at your keywords that you developed to prepare your LinkedIn profile.

These will be important indicators as to what you should be writing about.

They will help you to stay on topic and stick to your knitting!

Your next question is, “What does your community want and need?”

You want to be relevant, add value, while being succinct and to the point in your content.

You also want to be original with your content.

(There is an important place for sharing the content of others on LinkedIn but I’ll cover that in a separate article.)

You want your community to know what your thoughts are and why you think that way.

Once you determine what your content is, there are three ways to post it onto LinkedIn:

1. Status update – Best for short content of immediate use
2. LinkedIn Publisher – Best for your longer, evergreen content
3. SlideShare: Best for graphical presentations

Within these three tools are different formats that can be used:

1. Text – Best for status updates and LinkedIn Publisher
2. Video – Video links are best for status updates and LinkedIn Publisher.  Be careful here, good video takes time to produce and shouldn’t be from your most recent trip to Disney World!
3. Powerpoint – Best for SlideShare (Canva is an excellent freemium tool to use here.)
4. Infographics – Can be used on status updates, LinkedIn Publisher, and SlideShare
5. Podcasts – Like video links best for status updates and LinkedIn Publisher
6. White papers – Best as attachments for status updates and LinkedIn Publisher.

Remember to be thoughtful in how you approach your content, and to be disciplined in how you prepare and post it.

Best practices include using an editorial calendar and posting regularly and frequently!

If you need help then don’t be shy about asking for it!

I’m always willing to help you out!

That’s it for now!

In the meantime, thank you for following and reading my blog!

I look forward to any and all comments that you may have.  I will reply to any comments made to this blog post as promptly as I can.

Remember!

I do this for a living and if I can be of any assistance to either you or your organization, please feel free to call on me.  Our initial discussion will be of no charge to you.

I can also be reached at conpsweeney@someddi.com.

My Twitter handle is @conpsweeney.

Stay well!