If you want to learn what to post on LinkedIn, you need to understand why people post in the first place. This will inform the type of content you share and direct the effort of your engagements with other users.
Recruiters, job seekers and freelancers will all have different reasons for posting on LinkedIn – specifically, different reasons to you. While some of the motivations might overlap, you need to ensure your focus is clear.
As a solopreneur or small business owner, there are four key reasons you should be posting on LinkedIn.
Find prospects
There are millions of users on LinkedIn and amongst those millions you need to find your prospects as well as help those prospects find you. You also need to make sure that you’re not wasting time on inactive accounts or active accounts who won’t commit to a sale.
The way you’ll do this is by posting content that is basically engagement magnets – posts that are purely to attract the right people to your profile. These posts won’t be promotional or mention your offer but will be linked to something topical that’ll start a conversation.
By relating these posts to your ideal client criteria (using it to inform the topics you post about), you’ll draw prospective customers into your network.
Nurture relationships
Once these prospects have been drawn in, you need to give them a little more if you want to bring them closer to a sale. However, you don’t want to push them away by suddenly turning to hard-sell posts.
The middle ground for this is value. How can you use your knowledge and experience to give your audience something practical, something they can implement themselves that will give a taste of what you’ll help them achieve?
Whether this is drawing attention to their pain, giving an example of the benefits of elevating this pain or recommended a tool they can use – these posts will nurture the relationships you are building with your prospects.
Share story
Another reason people post on LinkedIn is to build their personal brand and that is something you should definitely be doing as a solopreneur or small business owner. Your prospects want to know the person behind the profile, the person they will be trusting to help solve their pain.
One of the best ways to do this is to share your story. Why do you do what you do? What success have you found doing it? What mistakes have you made and how have you overcome them? What heights do you want to reach in the future?
It might seem intimidating at first but this is how your prospects are going to relate to you and build that trust needed to move them closer to a sale.
Demonstrate expertise
There’s a fine line between demonstrating your expertise and showing off on LinkedIn – but it’s not actually that hard to stay on the right side of that line. First of all, there’s nothing wrong with a little showing off as long as you can back it up. More importantly though, it’s the purpose behind this post that will make the difference.
Even when you’re sharing posts that demonstrate your expertise, you should consider how this post is going to help your prospects. What will they gain from learning this about you? It could be increasing credibility or drawing attention to a pain they weren’t even aware of.
Know the WHY to help you post the WHAT
There are plenty of reasons people post on LinkedIn but you need to uncover your own reasons. Each one of the reasons in this article doesn’t have to be your whole reason but will help determine the content you post and engagements you have on the platform.