Now that you’ve learned a new philosophy of content creation – documenting – let’s get into the specifics: Improving your content quality game.
And here’s food for thought to start:
How do you usually start your LinkedIn post?
Does it often open with you:
- … talking about your business?
- … pitching about a new product?
- … or any other line that really only concerns you?
It’s always easy to talk about what we can do, our products and services.
The benefits of our products and services are so clear to us, but that’s because we are the ones pouring blood, sweat and tears to develop and refine them.
How do we stop our target audience from skimming and get them to start reading?
It’s easy to say that you need quality content to attract your audience.
But few know what quality content is, fundamentally.
Quality content requires a well-organised post structured to attract the attention of your audience.
As you don’t have a sizeable H1 header that screams “Read Me” to use for LinkedIn posts, the first one or two sentences of your post are your best bet to hook your audience.
We’re all busy business owners ourselves, so naturally, we don’t have the time to read every post on our feed.
Think about it: When you are scrolling through your feed, what posts capture your attention?
If it’s an educational or promotional post, it’s usually a pain point or a solution to a pain point that you are experiencing.
If it’s an entertaining post, it’s something relatable that you can’t help but pause and give a bit of your time.
I’ve Got Their Attention; Now What?
You reel them in with storytelling. Since you’ve talked about a pain point, your audience will naturally look for a solution in your post if they’re interested. If you offer an enticing solution, they’ll expect you to elaborate.
Here are a few things to incorporate in your post (subtly!):
Social proof
Informational influence is a powerful thing. When we’re uncertain whether the decision we’re making will be the right one, we look to others for validation.
Talk about the hundreds of clients that have succeeded by using your services or products.
Alternatively, reach out to LinkedIn influencers in your network and ask if you can tag them in a relevant post. Very importantly, make sure that they will respond to the post you’ve tagged them in. LinkedIn tends not to promote a post when the person you tagged on your post does not engage in it.
Exclusivity & Scarcity
People dislike missing out on the good things.
You create a sense of urgency by talking about the limited or remaining slots or chances and a deadline.
LinkedIn’s New 3000-character Limit
There’s split opinion when it comes to LinkedIn’s 2021 character limit update.
Some question if it’s necessary to hit 3000 characters.
Others rejoiced at the extra room given and may even say that they exceeded the limit from time to time.
But does LinkedIn really promote longer content?
More importantly, would busy professionals even have the time to read that much long-form content?
If your long content is amongst many others with the same length, the chances are that these people would skim right through or tell themselves they’ll come back to read it later but never do.
In a nutshell:
- Keep your content concise.
- Keep your paragraphs short — preferably 1-3 lines to accommodate mobile users.
- Don’t #hashtag at #every chance #you get. Reserve them for the end of your post, and cap it at 3 hashtags maximum.
- Make sure to add important and relevant keywords. This is so your target audience can find your post when they key them in the Search bar.
- Add call-to-actions such as “comment below if you want a copy of my e-Book”.
Remember:
Attract, engage and convert.