Guidelines for LinkedIn Posting (Pt. 1): 4 questions you must answer before posting.

LinkedIn is one of the most powerful tools at a tech founder's disposal. However, to truly leverage its potential, it's important to approach LinkedIn posting strategically. In this three-part series, we will provide you with a comprehensive guideline to optimize your LinkedIn posts. In part one, we will focus on 4 crucial questions you should ask yourself before ever posting on LinkedIn: Why?, What?, How?, and When?

Why Are You Posting?

The first step in your LinkedIn posting guideline is to clearly define your intent for posting. Ask yourself, “Who is my target audience for posting?”, “What value/information am I delivering?”, and “What call-to-action do I want my target audience?” Defining your intent will give your posts a sense of purpose and help you align them with your overall professional or business goals.

Furthermore, it is important to thoroughly consider the call-to-action (CTA) you want your audience to take. Do you want them to visit your website, engage with your content, or connect with you directly? Your CTA should clearly reflect your reason/intent for posting. By guiding your audience towards a specific action, you can create meaningful engagement and drive desired outcomes.

What Type of Content Should You Be Posting?

The content you share on LinkedIn should be a combination of relevant and interesting to your target audience. Put yourself in their shoes and think about what they would find valuable. Further, any content you provide should still be reflective of your reason/intent for posting. Don’t water-down your messaging for the sake of hitting a set quantity of posts. Instead, be highly intentional in your posting to achieve your LinkedIn goals.

It's important to have a clear message that you want to deliver through your posts. Whether it's an actionable takeaway, a unique perspective, or a solution to a common challenge, ensure that your message is compelling and adds value to your audience's professional lives.

How Will You Deliver the Content?

To make your LinkedIn posts stand out, they must be engaging and provide relevant and necessary information. Experiment with different content formats to keep your audience captivated. Videos are highly effective for delivering messages in an engaging and dynamic manner. They allow you to showcase your expertise, share interviews, or provide visual demonstrations. Carousels, on the other hand, enable you to present multiple points in an interactive and visually appealing way. Also, carousels will force you to summarize information into bullet points which should keep your content concise and clear.

When using any content format, remember to keep your message concise, compelling, and focused. Avoid overwhelming your audience with excessive information. Stick to the essentials and make sure: your content is easily digestible, your main point is clear, and your CTA is relevant and understandable given the content you are providing.

When Should You Be Posting?

Determining the ideal posting time can impact the visibility and reach of your LinkedIn posts. Now, as a disclaimer, if you are putting out genuinely “poor” content, what time you post will have little bearing on the outcome of your posting. This should be the last question you answer, because it is the least important. However, finding the best time to post can take a great post to the next level by ensuring your target audience is active on LinkedIn. While there are general guidelines on the best times to post, it's recommended to utilize posting platforms or LinkedIn's built-in analytics to identify when your target audience is most active. This data-driven approach will increase the likelihood of your posts being seen and engaged with. However, keep in mind that this shouldn't be a strict rule but rather a guideline to optimize your post's visibility. Testing different posting time’s will be your best friend!

Before you embark on your LinkedIn posting journey, it's essential to have a strategy in place. Define your intent, craft a compelling call-to-action, share relevant and interesting content with a clear message, utilize engaging content formats such as videos and carousels, and consider the best posting times based on audience activity. By following this checklist, you will be well-equipped to create impactful LinkedIn posts that resonate with your connections. Stay tuned for part two of this series, where we will delve into how to write the perfect caption.