What do the Highest-Performing LinkedIn Posts Have in Common?
LinkedIn is fast becoming an ideal platform to get blogging upon. With content on the rise this year, the professional networking channel is offering prime opportunities to get yourself published and read by hordes of prominent peers. When paired with an impressive professional portfolio, you can potentially become a top influencer within your industry.
However, to do this, it’s important to keep a few key factors in mind. While there are no concrete rules to approaching LinkedIn Posts yet (the tool is still relatively new), there are some certain factors that the most successful pieces of content tend to have in common. Let’s take a look.
Keep your titles between 40 and 49 characters
Interestingly enough, it’s been found that posts with 40-49 character length titles managed to attract the greatest number of views. Given that many publishers tend to agonise over that ‘golden number’ when it comes to choosing a title, this is a nifty bit of information to tuck away.
Include images
Did you know that 93% of all human connection is visual? Images are great for attracting an audience’s attention (particularly in the digital landscape, where users have extremely short attention spans). Ok Dork suggests a total of eight images is the winning number, but as long as you complement your post with a cover image then you’re on the right track.
Opt for ‘how-to’ and list-style posts over question posts
Recent data has shown that question posts don’t perform nearly as well as their counterparts. Instead, structure your posts as ‘how-to’ guides and include lists. These have proven to encourage more views, likes, comments and shares.
Keep your posts long-form
We suggest keeping your LinkedIn posts between 800 and 2,000 words. On average, the longer the post, the better: recent data indicates that posts with 1,900 words purportedly attract the most views (almost 51,788, to be exact).
Break your content up into five sections
Considering you’ll be writing long-form posts, you’ll need to divide your content into easily-digestible chunks of information. Readers want to be able to see which direction your post takes as soon as they click on it. Furthermore, digital users are prone to skimming, making it even more imperative that you attract their attention with strong, bold sub-headings. According to Ok Dork, posts with a total of five sub-headings perform the best, followed closely by posts with nine sub-headings. Use your intuition and consider the overall length of your post to determine how many to incorporate.
Publish consistently (on Thursdays, if possible)
Whether you post once a week or once a month, make sure you get into a bit of a routine cycle. Interestingly, Sundays and Thursdays have proven to be the best days of the week to post, with Thursdays just taking the cake. Conversely, Fridays generate the least amount of post views.
Maintain a neutral tone with your language
Even if discussing a controversial topic, remain factual and neutral. The idea is to take an informative and educational stance rather than turning the opportunity into a sales tactic. Essentially, you want to position yourself as a thought leader – so stay on top of the latest trends and industry news, and do your research before you start tapping away at the keyboard.
At the end of the day, LinkedIn posts are designed to generate a conversation and gift your readers with a valuable piece of information. Keep this in mind each time you go to publish, and you’ll be sure to succeed.
