How to Consistently Write Posts for LinkedIn if You’re Not a Great Writer
Feb 13, 2024If you run a business or are in sales, you’ve undoubtedly heard about the value of consistently posting on LinkedIn.
Consistently publishing helpful content on LinkedIn as well as on blogs, videos, social media, and email is essential for attracting your ideal audience and getting them to engage. It’s also the perfect way to nurture your lurkers.
But there’s one big catch:
- Creating all of that content for LinkedIn and other media requires writing. A lot of writing.
- And if you’re not a natural-born writer, that can feel totally overwhelming and intimidating.
- The thought of writing fresh LinkedIn posts day after day may stop you from even starting.
But here’s the truth:
You don’t actually have to be an amazing writer to create great LinkedIn content consistently.
In fact, with the right systems and strategies, you can establish an entire content pipeline without doing much writing at all.
In this article, we’ll explore 7 simple tactics you can use to create killer Linkedin content consistently, even if writing isn’t your superpower. And I’ll show you how to repurpose it for your blog and emails too.
1. Record Quick Videos for LinkedIn Using Your Smartphone or Loom
One of the easiest ways to create helpful content for LinkedIn without writing is to record short video lessons and tips.
Thanks to smartphones, you now have a professional quality video studio right in your pocket.
Here are some ideas for quick videos you can record on your phone to share on LinkedIn and YouTube. You can also embed them in blog posts:
- Share a client success story in 3 minutes or less (get in the weeds about a small win your client had recently).
- Explain one of your processes or frameworks in 2 minutes (this is perfect for Loom).
- Highlight a common problem your audience faces and how you solve it.
- Answer a frequently asked customer question.
- Provide a step-by-step tutorial for part of your service (e.g., how to perform a particular function).
- Discuss a common mistake you see customers or prospects making and how to avoid it.
- Give a high-level overview of your methodology.
- Tour your office or studio to give people a behind the scenes look at your operation.
- Interview one of your team members about a recent project.
As you can see, you can teach and provide tremendous value just by recording short videos covering different helpful aspects of your business.
You don’t need fancy scripts or studio level production. Just make sure your face is well lit, grab a selfie stick, and hit record. Interestingly, videos with lower production value actually perform better on LinkedIn than the super polished ones.
But it’s key to keep the videos very short - less than 2 minutes will perform best on LinkedIn.
2. Capture Your Thoughts With Voice Memos to Share on LinkedIn
Throughout the day, you’re likely to have thoughts that would be great to share on LinkedIn. For example, you might see a post or a comment on LinkedIn that sparks an idea.
Use voice memos on your phone to capture your raw, in-the-moment thoughts and ideas.
Just speak into your phone as concepts and insights come to you. Don’t try to be scripted or stiff. Just speak your thoughts.
For example, maybe you just finished a strategy session with a client and want to memorialize the key takeaways while they’re fresh.
Or perhaps you attended an industry conference and want to share epiphanies from an impactful speaker.
Voice memos let you capture your thoughts on any topic at any time.
Once you capture the video, feed it to an AI tool like Otter.ai or Wysper.ai to get a transcript. Then you can send it to a freelance writer or feed it to AI to turn it into a draft post.
Tell the AI that you want it to mimic your voice and tone. Tell it to keep the post under 500 characters (annoyingly, AI can’t count, but at least you can set a guideline).
Then edit it to make sure it’s a reflection of your voice. Voila! You’ve got a LinkedIn post ready to go.
Once you’ve compiled a library of voice recordings, you can turn transcripts into lots of content including blog posts, social media updates, and more.
The transcripts maintain your voice and perspective. From there, light editing and structuring is all that’s needed to transform them into content.
So don’t wait until you’ve organized your ideas fully. Capture your raw thoughts via voice as inspiration strikes. You’ll have abundant content fodder.
3. Transform Client Conversations Into Helpful LinkedIn Posts
Your conversations with prospects and customers are your most valuable content asset. But very few companies leverage this. So it’s a way to set your firm and yourself apart from the competition.
Each of those conversations likely covers questions, objections, insights, examples, and perspectives that would be valuable to more of your audience.
So instead of keeping them private, consider repurposing client dialogues into educational content. You don’t have to quote the client, and you can keep confidential information confidential while still leveraging these conversations.
This serves two purposes:
- First, it helps your potential customers learn from your expertise. Your prospects are probably asking the same questions, or if they’re not, perhaps they should be. So this can help to open up lines of conversation with them.
For example, this blog post you’re reading is the result of a question from one of our newer Accelerator members. - Second, publishing this type of content demonstrates that you have meaningful conversations with clients and provide real value. It builds authority and trust.
To repurpose conversations into content, record your calls and meetings (with your client’s permission), or have someone take detailed notes highlighting key client interactions.
Use the same steps I mentioned above to create a LinkedIn post for each question.
Once you’ve collected a few, you can compile them into a single blog post. For example, “5 Most Common Questions About X”. You now have an amazing piece of search-friendly content without writing anything new.
4. Create a Content Waterfall
Now let’s discuss a powerful content creation strategy known as a “content waterfall.”
The idea behind a content waterfall is to take each piece of content you produce and repurpose it across multiple formats. This amplifies the reach and impact of each individual piece.
For example, let’s say you record a client success interview and turn it into a video for YouTube and LinkedIn.
Instead of stopping there, take that same video and:
- Transform sections into short videos. Shorter is better on LinkedIn.
- Turn the transcript into a long-form blog post summarizing key points.
- Turn individual points from the blog into short LinkedIn posts.
- Extract the most valuable themes into a slide presentation and post on LinkedIn as a carousel.
- Turn bullet points into emails for your newsletter or nurture campaign.
This is important, because it maximizes your audience for each piece of content. Some prospects might see it on LinkedIn, others on YouTube, others in your email.
Repurposing means you don’t have to start from scratch each time. Just take existing material and present it in new ways.
The waterfall effect lets you sustain constant content with minimal extra effort. Set it up once, and value flows forever.
TIP: Schedule a waterfall to go out with synchronized timing to get even more benefit. For example, I’ve started releasing emails, LinkedIn posts and blog articles on a specific theme all on the same day. This reinforces the message across multiple channels and is especially valuable to capture the attention of prospects who are in the middle of a buying process.
5. Use AI Tools to Create Initial Drafts
Here’s another game-changing way to develop content without writing everything yourself…
Let artificial intelligence do the initial heavy lifting of creating your first drafts.
Tools like Copy.ai, Jasper.ai, Wysper.ai and ChatGPT and Claude.ai allow you to feed in basic ideas, transcripts, or notes.
For example, in a recent Accelerator session, we had a guest speaker. Our members asked our guest a lot of great questions. I grabbed a transcript of the meeting from Zoom. Then I fed the transcript to Claude.ai and asked it to identify all the questions. It provided a list.
Then I went through the questions one at a time. I asked it to review the transcript and answer that question. I asked it to create an email (100 words). Then I asked for a LinkedIn post (500 characters). Then I asked for a blog post (1500 words).
This blog article is a result of that AI chat. Of course, I have edited it heavily to make sure it doesn’t sound like AI. But by starting with the transcript, the output was already very conversational.
The AI helps to organize your thoughts coherently and emulate a human writing voice.
You can also feed the AI a prompt to describe your brand style and voice. For example, I asked it to take a conversational tone, friendly but authoritative. I asked it to address the audience in second person (that’s you!) and to mimic my tone from the transcript.
You then go through and edit the draft to add character and your voice. But the hard work of getting a first draft is done.
6. Schedule Thought Leadership Interviews
Conducting interviews with clients, prospects or thought leaders in your industry is another excellent way to develop content without coming up with original ideas yourself. You can share these on LinkedIn, tagging the person you interviewed. That will help increase the reach of your post.
Reaching out to respected experts lets you tap into their knowledge. And most people are flattered to be asked to share their insight.
To do this, come up with 2-3 questions to start a conversation. Then book a conversation with your speaker and record the call. Ask them the questions and engage in a dialogue to dig deeper.
The interviews will produce the starting point for TONS of educational content featuring influential voices, which you can then repurpose and splice into multiple formats. And the cool thing is that your personal brand gets associated with those influencers.
I also use this as a way to restart conversations with prospects who are ghosting me. I teach a workshop on how to do this. Keep an eye out for the next time we run “Break the Silence: Re-engage Cold Leads.”
This approach works great with industry leaders, but it also works really well with your clients and prospects.
Just remember to tag them in any post where you mention the conversation and include links to their website and LinkedIn profile in your blog posts. You’re helping them gain visibility at the same time that you’re building your own.
7. Hire a Ghostwriter
I’ve told you lots of ways to collect the content. Now you’re probably groaning and saying, “Candyce, I have a full time job. I don’t have time to create all of that content even if I use AI.”
If that’s the case, consider hiring a ghostwriter.
A talented freelance writer can use the recordings, transcripts and AI drafts to create Linkedin posts, blogs, newsletter articles, emails and more.
How do you find a great ghostwriter that ensures quality and embodies your brand voice? Here are some tips:
- Look for specialists in your niche who understand your industry well. Don’t go cheap on this. You need someone who understands your market.
- Find a native speaker in the language you intend to use.
- Vet portfolios for examples of previous work that match your style.
- Start with a one-off trial post to test the writer (yuo should pay them for this).
- Provide detailed topic guidance and parameters.
- Request drafts in Google Docs for easy collaboration.
- Schedule an intro call to align on voice, style, process etc.
- Plan to spend time reviewing and providing feedback to get it right.
- Use AI to speed up the feedback process. I use Claude.ai to evaluate the content and provide feedback on writing issues like structure, transitions, grammar, etc.
- Request copyright assignment so you fully own the end product.
While hiring a writer may seem like taking the “easy way out,” keep in mind you'll still need to invest significant time providing direction, feedback, and oversight to ensure you get great content. It will take some back and forth before you land on a flow, but it’s worth it.
But a talented ghostwriter can be invaluable for offloading the actual writing process. And they can create a steady stream of content you can use in posting on LinkedIn to build your presence and consistently attract your ideal audience.
About the Author: Candyce Edelen is founder of PropelGrowth, where she teaches B2B entrepreneurs and sales professionals to build authentic, human-to-human relationships on LinkedIn. Her strategies have helped clients shift from spammy automation to genuine outreach, resulting in higher-quality leads and increased sales. Candyce is passionate about helping professionals build trust and create a reliable, predictable sales pipeline. She's also a firm believer that you can't automate a relationship.
The LinkedIn Prospecting Accelerator will help you supercharge your effectiveness on LinkedIn through live group training and coaching with like-minded colleagues. Each session focuses on optimizing a particular skill to improve your effectiveness on LinkedIn. It is particularly beneficial for those who enjoy being part of a community and need accountability to stay on track.
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