I had a call with my friend Chris Gittings who runs LinkedIn accounts for a lot of Founders and CEOs.
He’s an expert on LinkedIn marketing and business development. Here’s a list of the tactical advice and best practices that Chris gave me to share for posting on LinkedIn.
The Power of a Face in Every Post
Your face is a critical part of your personal brand.
Including a picture of yourself whenever possible when you post on LinkedIn is going to improve your reach and engagement.
As humans, “we’re very attuned to people’s faces.” Everyone in your audience who cares about you will be much more likely to stop scrolling and show their support on your post when they see your photo.
Chris recommends making sure that you are smiling and looking at the camera for the photo.
He says there’s “a clear kind of tier list” for what images perform best:
- A picture of you smiling is better than one where you’re not.
- A picture that includes you is better than a picture that doesn’t.
- Any picture is better than no picture at all.
The “Belief” Content Formula
Another key component of highly effective LinkedIn posts is to ensure that every post conveys a belief. Bonus points if that belief is targeted to a specific audience segment within LinkedIn’s user base.
Segments could be:
- Employees, the largest well defined user group on LinkedIn.
- Tech enthusiasts, to get more niche.
- Software developers, to get even more niche.
- Entrepreneurs, etc.
As an example, Chris pointed to a guy named Chad Gono who runs a company called Regal Plastics. Chad has been very successful building his brand on the platform and creating viral posts.
Chad makes sure almost all of his posts share a core belief that advocates for employees. Every post he puts out “shares a belief that is meant to recognize employees and boost them up, making a case for why they should be treated better.”
As an employer, Chad’s posts carry extra weight when he speaks up on issues in support of employees. Employees comment on and repost his content understanding that other leaders might be more willing to consider his perspective as a fellow executive.
Chris called this a “winning strategy because anyone who disagrees with him is still reading and engaging with his posts in the comments,” while those who agree are even more likely to share it.
By targeting the largest segment on LinkedIn—employees—with a clear belief, Chad can engage LinkedIn users who may have never seen or engaged with his content before. Whenever anyone likes, comments, or reposts one of his posts, LinkedIn will put that post in front of some of their connections as well, even if those connections have no relationship with Chad. If some of those connections like, comment, or repost as well, the cycle continues. This is the engine that fuels viral posts on LinkedIn.
The Whiteboard Tactic for Engagement
A simple strategy for catching posts is to write the core belief of that post on a whiteboard and hold it up in your photo.
Chris admits this can be “kind of tacky,” but it delivers engagement.
People are much more likely to stop and reflect on your core message if it’s written on a whiteboard. He said he loves that it almost every person who sees the post in their feed will read it, which drives their curiosity to read further and spend more time on the post, which is what you want for engagement.
The “Quality Over Quantity” Rule for Posts
Finally, remember that on LinkedIn, the quality of each post matters much more than the cadence.
LinkedIn is not like X or Instagram where volume is the key driver of the algorithm.
Instead, posting content that users spend a lot of time looking at and engaging with is “way more important than trying to be consistent.”
LinkedIn’s algorithm judges every post you make.
If you put out posts that don’t perform well, Chris warns, “it damages your reach across” the entire platform.
One reason for this is that the average user spends less time on LinkedIn than they do on competing platforms each time they log on, and LinkedIn wants to change that. So their algorithm values content that keeps people engaged and spending more time there. They “really value when people stop and spend time on a post.”
One upside to this algorithmic bias is that the platform encourages you to share lengthier posts and share your thoughts and areas of wisdom in greater detail and depth.
Remind Yourself to Innovate, Don’t Invent
One overlying principle that Chris stressed more than once was the importance of remembering not to reinvent the wheel.
“Inventing the wheel is hard. You’re not going to be the one to come up with a completely new and successful approach to content that no one else has thought of before.”
Instead, he recommends taking the time to research successful content creators with similar audiences to the one you want to speak to, and have a level of success that you aspire to achieve.
Once you have a list of creators and have gone through some of their posts, write down a bullet point list of things you like about their content, as well as the things you don’t. Pay particular mind to patterns that persist across creators as well.
Your job becomes to take the things you like, and use those content formulas and strategies as a starting framework for building content that is authentic to you. This helps you stay true to yourself while positioning your posts for algorithmic success.
Conclusion
It’s easy to overthink your content, but a few core strategies make all the difference.
Here are the best tips for LinkedIn:
- Use Your Face: a smiling photo of you gets more engagement.
- Share a Belief: center every post on a core belief to drive conversation.
- The Whiteboard Tactic: write your main point on a whiteboard in your photo to stop the scroll.
- Focus on Quality, Not Quantity: one great post is better than five mediocre ones. The algorithm will reward you.
- Innovate, Don’t Invent: find what successful creators are doing and adapt it to your own style.
If you want help with your LinkedIn posts, consider hiring Chris Gittings and his company Cogent Connections. They do great work and I can vouch for Chris as a good guy. Plans start at $500 per month.
