This post list 7 content ideas to post on LinkedIn to help build your personal brand online
LinkedIn is the perfect platform to build your personal brand online.
You may be thinking, but it’s a personal brand- shouldn’t I spend my time on Instagram or Facebook instead? The simple answer is no.
A personal brand is defined as your professional reputation online. So, it only makes sense to focus your time on building your personal brand on LinkedIn. A platform designed for members to create a space of authority around their profession or in their industry.
The best way to start building your personal brand on LinkedIn? Create intentional and effective posts that highlight all the different parts of your professional persona and image. LinkedIn posts provide your audience with a feel for who you are by the words, images, and videos you share on the platform.
This post lists 7 different ways to create content to help you build your personal brand on LinkedIn. Let’s dive in!
1) LinkedIn Posts: Written Text to Define Your Personal Brand
Unlike Instagram or Snapchat where pictures and videos are the most popular form of content on their platforms, LinkedIn’s most popular type of post is written text. People are looking towards thought-leadership information from the people they follow.
Writing your thoughts, opinions, and stories around your profession or industry is a great way to define your space of authority.
Writing Post Best Practices:
- Start every post with a compelling first sentence. Think of it as a headline to grab the reader’s attention, forcing them to want to continue reading the rest of the post.
- Avoid long paragraphs. Break-up the text by adding a space every 2-3 lines.
- Personalize your posts- it’s OK to start with “I”. People want to learn more about you, your thoughts, and your stories.
- Here is a good example of a long text post.
2) LinkedIn Posts: Create an Image of Your Personal Brand
Sharing images should be a part of your content creation strategy for building your personal brand. It’s selecting the right type of image to represent your story or personality that will make a difference with your audience to spark engagement around it.
Images can help provide some background or context for a post you are sharing or can help showcase your personality with a humorous GIF or image.
Be intentional with your image selections.
Make sure to ask yourself: “Will this image add value to the post or towards your personal brand?”
Image Selection Best Practices:
- Best image size for LinkedIn Posts: 1200 X 627 px
- Avoid stock images for personal accounts. Your pictures should represent you, your environment, and real-life moments.
- Share throwback images. People want to see how far you have come! Here is a great example of a post by Salina Yeung from her University days, to where she is today.
3) LinkedIn Posts: Poll your Audience
Get your audience to interact with you by creating a post with a poll question. Poll-style posts are a fun way for you to learn more about your audience. A great source for future content ideas or a way to get your audience’s opinion around a product or service you plan to launch.
Poll-style Posts Best Practices:
- Make sure your poll question is super compelling so that it would be crazy for people not to add their vote!
- Give at least three options to select. And bonus! Ask them to comment on the post if they have a better option that isn’t offered on the poll.
- Have fun! This is a great type of post that can showcase your personality.
- Here is a good example of a post utilizing the polling feature.
4) LinkedIn Posts: Personalize your Posts with Video
One of the quickest ways for people to get to know you and your personal brand is by creating video content. A video post with you sharing a message or story can quickly establish a good rapport with your audience.
This type of post may be a bit more daunting for people to publish, but putting yourself on camera could be the instant hit that generates traction. Everyone should give this type of content a try!
Video Posts Best Practices:
- No fancy equipment is needed- use your smartphone to film your video.
- Hold your phone vertically at arm’s length distance and slightly higher than your face.
- For the best lighting, stand in front of a window.
- Here is a good video example to check out.
5) LinkedIn Stories: Capturing the Micro-Moments of Your Day
Similar to the function of Instagram or Facebook Stories, LinkedIn has their version of capturing micro-video snippets or image/text posts that will only appear on the app for 24 hours.
LinkedIn Stories is located at the very top of the app with the faces of the people you follow.
Sharing micro-moments throughout your day is a great way for your audience to get to know you, what you do, and where you live or work. Just be mindful of how much to share and select images and videos to build a personal brand that you will be comfortable with- even if it only stays on the platform for 24 hours. An impression of a person can last longer.
LinkedIn Stories Best Practices:
- Make them short and sweet! Up to 20 seconds per video.
- Add stickers to your image. There isn’t a lot of room to write a lot of text, but adding a sticker can help bring some context to the image without a description.
- You can mention a person to your story by typing “@” followed by their name.
6) LinkedIn Carousel Posts: Share Your Expertise or Tips
If you are a wizard at creating PowerPoint decks and want to share some valuable tips and ideas with your audience, then a carousel-style post will be your best type of content that will showcase your deck-creation skills while educating readers.
Carousel Best Practices:
- Carousel post dimensions: 1080 x 1080px or 1920 x 1080px
- Upload using Google Slides document or PowerPoint file.
- Mobile-friendly images and fonts, so it’s easy to read on any device.
- A good example of a post showcasing the carousel feature.
7) LinkedIn Article: Publish Expertise and Insights
If you are a writer or a blogger like me, then writing an article on LinkedIn will establish your expertise and authority around a subject matter you have created outside of the platform.
Writing an article on LinkedIn will give your audience a taste of your style of writing and an opportunity to learn more about a subject matter that you can write in-depth on.
LinkedIn Article Best Practices:
- 400-600 words per article
- A captivating headline to grab a reader’s attention to read the entire article.
- Add a banner image (600 x 322 px)
- Format the article with bullet points and short paragraphs.
- A good example of an article post.
Bonus Tip: Dwell Time
Whichever type of post you decide to test out and try, make sure to create content that will engage the reader to stay longer on your post.
Dwell time is a signal to the LinkedIn algorithm of how to rank member’s content to a wider audience reach.
Three Indicators of Dwell Time:
- When a viewer slows their scrolling
- When the viewer clicks “see more…” on a post
- The amount of time a viewer stays on a post
I hope this article on the 7 different types of LinkedIn posts will help spark new ways to create content that will showcase and build your personal brand online.
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