How to win the LinkedIn game fair and square?

I analyzed 199 pieces of LinkedIn content so you don't have to

Dear GTM Strategist! 

LinkedIn is not just a platform. It's a gateway to success in the B2B arena and a key to securing your next investment. It's where your customers, partners, potential investors, and other stakeholders will inevitably look you up. 

However, LinkedIn can also be a very cringe place: 

• “I used to be so afraid of public performance. Now I hit the stage 3x a week.” 

• “I started my company with $20. Now I have 200 people working for me.” 

• “Yes, Stacy. Content marketing is very important. Keep on slaying on social media.”

With all the drama, your above-average IQ may resist all the shenanigans and keep you away from the platform. 

Beat the instinct. There are indisputable benefits of having a presentable LinkedIn profile and being active on the platform at least 1-3 times a week. I give this advice to all the founders in my network, and I am happy that some follow it to the T. 

Congrats, Dragan, on overcoming the urge to hide from recruiters on LinkedIn and starting to build in public. I am so very proud of you and Gorjan. You are one of my favorite examples of how technical founders can thrive by building in public. A year, a couple of pilots, and an investment round later, you made me so proud! 

You can play the game based on your rules. LinkedIn is too good to miss out on.

I spent the entire weekend analyzing 199 posts from 25 brilliant content creators on LinkedIn to get hands-on insights into playing the LinkedIn game like a PRO. 

Let’s bring it on! 

The method: No hook meisters in the sample 

Once a quarter, I do a LinkedIn content moodboard by analyzing the creators in similar spaces (go-to-market, product management, B2B marketing, and product-led growth) to get new ideas for the content and visuals. I usually share it with my team and mentees, but this time, I was like - why not make it semi-public? 

Here is how I did it: 

• Since January, I have been saving posts that catch my attention on LinkedIn. Overall, I have saved more than 400 attention-worthy posts that add value.  

• Not everything that seems attention-worthy to me ends up being the best-performing post, so I reviewed the traction on all these posts and limited the analysis to content creators with a method and signature style so we can learn some patterns. 

• I analyzed 3 months of their post (mid-JAN to mid-APR) to find patterns - what topics and formats performed extremely well for them. It felt a bit like solving a murder 🤠

• Then I studied the categories and derived advice and interesting best practices that you and I can use to inform our content creation process.  

The results: Value-first is still the name of the game in our space

Many of my colleagues in the space complain that the LinkedIn algorithm has become totally random and that it is hard to counter the “fortune cookie” wisdom noise with intelligent content. Luckily for smart life, I have collected the opposite evidence. Over 75% of the best-performing content in my sample are knowledge bombs: models, infographics, cases, and processes. While nearly everyone is “guilty” of an occasional meme or emotional post, the lion's share of best-performing posts adds extreme value to the audience. It is like a virtual textbook, and it is the most candid conversation about business traction that you can have with a fellow human. 

Best-in-class creators have a signature style and often reshare best-performing topics and posts to double down on the reach. Apparently, the audience loves numbers and quick tips on how they can benefit from the content, aka “cooking recipes for business growth”. There was also a lot of “common sense” against the buzz ideas out there and contrarian views. Many creators openly (not pathetically) share their struggles. That makes them human. 

Without any further ado, here is the LinkedIn Best-Performing Content Moodboard, made with love over the weekend. It is designed to help you quickly grasp patterns and get content ideas for your Big Swing on LinkedIn.

Some takeaways 🥡:

• Most content creators post a few times a week.

• Product launch posts work well when they show a product and tell the story behind it.

• “Building in public” is best accompanied by screenshots, applicable tips, and social proof (testimonials).

• Memes often have good reach, but they should still stay on your professional topic and nail the pain point.

• Longer text-only posts can be extremely impactful but need a good hook.

• Videos are usually 1-3 minutes long.

• Familiar logos attract attention.

• You can find many examples of how to structure knowledge posts and infographics.

• Image+text is by far the most common format

Applications to the content strategy: Experiment with formats more 

What was obvious from this analysis is that best-in-class content creators swear by knowledge sharing, but they also include other formats and themes in their content strategy. That can be a personal story, video, meme, carousel, or short snippet. 

My next steps after conducting this analysis are: 

• Send the board to the design department for additional patterns.

• Try out memes - I am considering a partnership with a cool 145K+ LinkedIn Page called Lazy Programmer. The founder read the GTM Strategist book and is a really cool guy. ✌️

• I will drop “topic weeks” in my content planning since I need faster iteration loops.

• I will hire a freelancer to help me tackle the infographics and teach me how to get great at their briefings. I thought: “We have 350 pages of book insights to repurpose and upgrade. How difficult can that be?” It turns out that very 😅- it is a science of its own. 

• Regarding frequency, I have a huge FOMO that I should be posting daily because, over the launch campaign, we posted 2x a day. It is not rational. It is just something that weirdly sticks with me like a guilt trip. I will mediate or whatnot to embrace the reality that many top content creators post 2-3 a week or even irregularly. You cannot outwork the system. But you can outsmart it with deliberate content strategy and faster feedback loops (I hope). 

While LinkedIn algo remains a weird beast, the intelligent life still hangs out on LinkedIn. For most readers and Substack, optimizing for the number of leads and meetings is better than for reach per se, but it does feel great to have a “semi-viral” post here and there. It attracts new people to your ecosystem.  While content creation is a long and resource-intense game, the least you can do is apply these principles to your LinkedIn profile. If you invest in outreach or ABS (Account-based sales), Let’s wear our Sunday suit on LinkedIn. 

This is why I created … 

🎁 Special Bonus: Since I had so many content creators in one place, I went ahead and created another moodboard - screenshots of their profiles to get additional ideas on how to pimp up our LinkedIn profiles and optimize them for conversion.

Here, dear:

I hope you enjoyed our LinkedIn conversation and found the assets useful. 

Start by copying the style of great performing posts by others.

Eventually, you will find your signature style.

Play with numbers - it’s fun!

Search for patterns.

Reverse engineer. 

Again and again 

and again

🌲 😂

If you have any questions or dilemmas about how to apply this research, hit me up. 

Really. Usually, less than 2% of people who receive the content reach out. 

Reaching out makes you special, and you bet I will remember you. 

Have a great day & create at least one post this week on LinkedIn.

Not for me, but for you ❤️

(you might like it). 

Let’s go to market! 🚀

One LinkedIn post at a time ✌️

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