6 Meaningful Ways To Create Content Ideas for LinkedIn
Consistently creating content ideas for LinkedIn is a never-ending struggle.
What should you post?
How do you get people to engage?
How can posting help you achieve your business goals?
All important questions.
This article explains:
How to come up with post ideas
Strategies you can use to increase post engagement
The process of developing a posting strategy that aligns with your business goals
Let’s dive in.
How To Come Up With The Best LinkedIn Content Ideas for Your Brand
Two things often distract me when I’m on LinkedIn:
My feelings of inadequacy
How other top-notch LinkedIn users are doing
Let me start by saying this. The best LinkedIn content ideas for your brand come from your experience, customers, and online community.
Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by other seemingly successful LinkedIn users. They may be getting a lot of likes and followers.
But, is their content helping them achieve their business goals?
That’s the real question.
My approach to LinkedIn has helped me achieve these results:
Someone invited me to be a guest on his podcast
People have inquired about my content creation and content marketing services
I was recommended for a short-term job that paid me my desired rate
A small SaaS company was interested in hiring me to be a full-time content writer
One of my current clients has been working with me for a little over four months. She found me on LinkedIn and has been impressed with my work. What should have been a three-month contract has been extended.
Using LinkedIn the right way can boost your content strategy.
But, you have to focus on building your brand.
I’m far from being a LinkedIn influencer. The reality is that I don’t need to be a LinkedIn influencer to get results from the platform.
The five outcomes I mentioned prove that.
Engagement on my posts has fluctuated; some posts have far higher engagement than others.
But, some of the posts with the lowest engagement have been the ones that result in business inquiries.
Business outcomes on LinkedIn go far beyond engagement.
It all boils down to creating the right content that resonates with the right people.
Here are six ways you can create meaningful content ideas for LinkedIn.
Do Deep Customer Research
Customer research is not:
Moving forward based on what you think your customer wants
Asking your friends questions. Are your friends even a part of your target audience?
Doing what everyone else around you is doing
No.
Customer research is a detailed process of getting answers about your target customer’s emotions, purchasing patterns, decision-making process, and motivations.
It takes time. But, the time you spend getting it right will make a world of difference. One of my recent articles teaches you how to do deep customer research effectively. Here’s the link.
How To Do Customer Research And Improve Your Marketing ROI
What I want to focus on here though is how this deep customer research can lead to fantastic content ideas for LinkedIn.
Deep customer research allows you to ask your customers the right questions. Those questions will help you identify topics related to their:
Misconceptions
Frustrations
Use-cases of your product/service (This could lead to high-impact user-generated content)
Learning needs (What do they want to know more about?)
There’s a subtle strategy that I use for my customer research. It could work for you too. I pay attention to the questions my clients frequently ask.
For instance, my clients tend to ask me some variation of this question - how long should a blog post be? I answered that question by:
Using it as a question during one of my podcast interviews
Writing a blog post
Repurposing that blog post into a series of LinkedIn posts
Deep customer research will help you create the best LinkedIn content ideas.
2. Find Your Competitors’ Gaps
Finding your competitors’ gaps doesn’t mean you’re going to be distracted by what they’re doing. It’s not about comparing yourself with them and then drowning in self-pity.
Stop saying, “Oh, she’s so much better than me. I could never be like her.” The brand you’re building on LinkedIn is about the value you can provide to the people who care about what you have to say.
So, you’re doing your LinkedIn competitor gap analysis from a place of strategy. You’re analyzing what they do well and what their content is missing.
Don’t know how to find your competitors on LinkedIn? You could either use hashtags or search through your list of connections to find people who would be the right fit.
Here’s what you’d do if you’re using hashtags.
Type the hashtag into the LinkedIn search bar.
Click “People” when the search results popup.
Filter based on location if necessary.
Steps For Effective Competitor Gap Analysis On LinkedIn
Once you’ve identified your competitors, it’s time to complete the competitor gap analysis. These are the steps that you’d follow:
Identify three of your top competitors on LinkedIn.
Use this Google Sheets file to do your analysis. The video below explains how to use the sheet.
Create at least nine post ideas from your analysis.
The video below explains how you can use the Google Sheets file to do your analysis.
3. Use Quora
Quora is the social media platform for asking questions and getting answers. It’s a great place to go if you want to know more about industry-relevant questions.
Here are the steps for getting content ideas from Quora.
Create an account.
Search for a niche-specific topic.
Look for the most recent questions related to the topic. You don’t want to be looking at questions that were from many years ago.
Read the answers.
Identify a unique spin that you could bring to the topic. This would be your LinkedIn post!
4. Practice Social Listening
Social listening can be done in two ways:
Look at all the conversations about your brand on social media.
Pay attention to the conversations happening on trending social media topics in your niche.
It’s a good idea to note the conversations about your brand on social media. But, that’s a strategy best used for popular small businesses and large corporations. Some of the social listening tools that you could use for this purpose include:
Sprout Social and BuzzSumo can also be used to identify trending topics on social media.
But, you may not have the budget to invest in these tools. That’s okay. You can use hashtags on LinkedIn to identify trending conversations on hot topics.
Let’s say I wanted to know trending discussions on content marketing. These are the steps I would follow:
Type #contentmarketing into the search engine.
Click “Posts”.
Identify the posts with the highest engagement.
Copy and paste the links to those posts into a Google Sheets file.
Note their strengths and weaknesses.
Identify common themes and/or questions being mentioned in the comments.
Think about my unique spin.
This strategy can help you come up with some great content ideas for LinkedIn.
5. Identify Common Objections
You speak with potential clients. What are the things they mention that prevent them from purchasing? These common objections could help you come up with some useful content ideas for LinkedIn.
One of the common objections I hear is that the price of a content strategy is beyond their reach. That’s fine. But, it also means that I haven’t effectively sold them on why a content strategy is better than creating one-off blog posts.
That single idea could give me content for a week of posts.
6. Repurpose Existing Content Assets
You probably create a lot of content regularly. From articles and videos to audio clips and images, there’s a lot of content to go around. Do an audit of your existing content assets.
Ask yourself these questions:
Do any of these pieces no longer fit with my brand? If they don’t, discard them.
How can I use my relevant content to create at least five LinkedIn posts?
Is there a way for me to use my LinkedIn post to direct traffic to wherever my content is hosted?*
*Remember, put the link to any external content in the comments section of your post! LinkedIn will show your post to fewer people if external links are included in the body of the post. The platform prefers native content.
Carefully considering how you can repurpose your existing content for LinkedIn can help you get the most value from your blog content strategy.
What Kind Of Content Should You Post On LinkedIn?
Your aim on LinkedIn, or any social media platform for that matter, shouldn’t be to go viral. Your aim should be to create valuable content. Give your audience as much value as possible and you’ll be seen as a resource.
That’s the type of content you should post on LinkedIn. I’ve tested many different types of content. Some of my content has flopped, others have done fairly well. Those that work well have what I call the H-V-C elements.
But, let me apply a word of caution. You also have to pay attention to how you define post success. More engagement doesn’t necessarily lead to more sales.
With that said, it can take at least seven post interactions before someone approaches you with a business request. So, engagement can help but it’s not what you should be striving for. What you should be striving for is adding as much value as possible.
Here’s one of my better performing posts that led to someone asking if I offer content marketing services. It had 5,006 views, 113 reactions, and 26 comments. It was also based on an article that I was repurposing.
*** I included the external link in the body of this post. But, I shouldn’t have. I’ve experienced a dip in the views of other posts because of this strategy. Please don’t include any external links in the body of your post.
LinkedIn Post Example
H- Hook (Represented by red in the image.)
Start with something that will encourage people to read more. It helps tremendously if you’re addressing a pain a lot of people are experiencing.
I started with a question - do you often hear crickets when you publish your content? That resonated with people because it happens to a lot of us.
V - Value (Represented by green in the image.)
Provide tips and/or practical solutions that can help solve the problem. People want to learn something from your post. So, provide them with some knowledge.
I explained what should be done to get more people to pay attention to your content.
C- Call To Action (Represented by orange in the image.)
What do you want the person to do next? Use only one call to action. Make it clear, concise, and easy to follow.
The LinkedIn Content Creation Ferris Wheel
So, I’ve given you some strategies for creating content ideas for LinkedIn. But, how do you give this some structure?
I’m usually one of those people who randomly posts what I feel like. That’s why I’ve probably had sporadic points of success and a few duds here and there.
But, I couldn’t do the same thing when I took on my first LinkedIn management client. No siree. I had to think of a structure that would work.
I did and she’s moved from:
No comments on her LinkedIn posts to at least two comments on one of her newest posts
People not paying attention to her posts to people commending her for her new posts
People reaching out to her in her LinkedIn inbox to tell her that they enjoy her content and find it valuable
Not connecting with the right people on LinkedIn to connecting with people who can provide her with visibility
So, I know this posting format works. It’s what I call the LinkedIn Content Ferris Wheel.
Here’s how it works:
Choose a theme for the week.
Use the theme to conceptualize five posts:
Post 1 - What are you talking about?
Post 2 - Why is it important? How will the person’s life be negatively impacted without it?
Post 3 - How to implement it
Post 4 - Concept in action (show real results if possible)
Post 5 - Personal post related to the theme
LinkedIn Content Ferris Wheel for LinkedIn Content Ideas
Final Words
Consistently creating content for your LinkedIn profile is hard. But, the six strategies mentioned in this article make it a bit easier.
Remember, your content strategy should focus on your target customer. That’s how your content will help you achieve your business outcomes.
Having a structure for posting is also helpful. Share what you know and be consistent. It will pay off in the long run.
I offer LinkedIn management services for $1,000 per month. These services include:
A consultation to determine your LinkedIn goals
Creating and documenting the right strategy for you based on your goals
Helping you create and publish content based on my thematic approach
Helping you increase your engagement on the platform using meaningful comments
Monitoring your LinkedIn messages
Connecting you with the right people for meaningful collaborations that contribute to business growth
Responding to comments on your posts
I only work with people who have at least three years of experience in their field and are serious about investing in long-term results.
Does this sound like you? Schedule a call with me and let’s discuss how I can help you get the most out of LinkedIn.