Have you been thinking about sharing your existing marketing content (blog posts, videos, podcast episodes, etc.) on social media to reach more of your ideal customers and clients? Would you like to learn how to repurpose content for LinkedIn?

I regularly repurpose my own and my clients’ content, and in the six steps below I outline the exact process I follow to:

• Decide on what format to share your existing content.
• Structure your posts so more of your connections stop scrolling and read your content.
• Get more engagement from your connections.

Ready to go?

Step 1: Decide how you’re going to share your content

Once you’re clear on which pieces of content you want to repurpose, you need to decide how you will share them. When it comes to LinkedIn, you have a few options.

You can:

• Write a LinkedIn article.
• Create and share a written post (text only).
• Create and share a written post with an image or a pre-recorded video.
• Share your content in a live video (please note, this feature isn’t available to all users as default. You may need to request it).
• Create a slideshow and share it under the Documents section of your LinkedIn profile.

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Re-sharing a blog post as a LinkedIn article is super easy. You can potentially just copy and paste your whole article as it appeared on your website. Just make sure that when you that, you also include a link to the original piece.

If you want to turn a podcast episode or a video into a LinkedIn article, start from the transcription and edit your piece down until it makes for a brilliant read. If you want to find out how, here are the steps I follow to repurpose a podcast episode (or video) into a blog post.

Or, if you’ve created a piece of content that outlines your services, for example, you could turn that into a slideshow. Plan your slides as you would a presentation and aim to add a few points on each. Get creative and don’t forget to add your branding! You can share your visual presentation under the Documents tab on LinkedIn for all your connections to see. Slideshows make for nice, visual additions to your LinkedIn profile.

In the majority of instances, however, you’ll probably want to create and share simple written LinkedIn updates or posts (with or without images or video). These have a limitation of 1,300 characters (approx 230-240 words). So let’s look at how to make the most of the space you have.

Step 2: Stop people from scrolling

Regardless of the type of content you decide to share on LinkedIn, the first thing you want to do is to stop people in their tracks. You want your post to stand out in their newsfeed. You want to stop them from scrolling. Grab their attention.

Because if you don’t do that, they won’t be able to access and consume the awesome content you’re about to share with them.

So your first job is to come up with an interesting question or statement that will make your connections stop their scrolling and read what you have to say.

You’ll know it works if your post gets a good number of impressions, of course. But an even better metric is to look at how much engagement (i.e. comments) your post receives. If people are commenting, it means they’re reading. If they’re reading, it means your ‘headline’ stopped them in their tracks, and you’ve done your job.

Here are a few examples of some of my most popular headlines.

• “Do you have MORE or LESS time?” This is interesting because it’s unexpected. Time is universal, but the context of the question isn’t specified. This question triggers people’s curiosity and prompts them to read more to find out what the post is all about.

• “Have you received the letter from the Prime Minister?” This got people’s attention because, when I posted it, it was timely and topical. In March 2020, every household in the UK received a letter from the Prime Minister about the lockdown. My heading tapped into people’s curiosity. Why was I asking the question? Why was I mentioning the letter?

Top tip: Be creative and have fun with your post headline. Also, try out a few things – not everything will work, so be prepared to have a few posts that might fall flat on their virtual face. It happens. But if you keep trying and changing things up, you’ll find your style. And more than anything, you’ll find exactly what your audience enjoys and responds well to.

Step 3: Hook them in 

So they’ve stopped scrolling for you. They’ve read your headline, and now you have their full attention.

Fantastic!

Don’t waste this chance. Take this opportunity to tell them why they should give you a few minutes of their day. This is the point where you share a story, an anecdote, or give a short introduction to your topic. I call this the hook. 

So use your hook to tell people:

• What you’re going to tell them.
• Why it matters (and why they should pay attention).
• And why you’re telling them now. 

Here’s how I did that in my example above after getting people’s attention with the headline, “Have you received the letter from the Prime Minister?“.

I said:

“Please note – this isn’t a political post. It’s not about the PM, his message, or what that represents. It’s about the use of the written language for effective communication. And I’d like to use the recent letter sent to all UK households as an example of great B2C (business to consumer) writing. If you have it home, please take a quick look at it – and apologies to anyone not in the UK.”

This told my audience exactly what the post was about and what type of information they were going to get by reading it. I’m sure my hook put a few people off – those who were after a political post about current affairs could immediately tell this wasn’t for them. At this point, they probably kept scrolling. But the people who might be interested in what I had to say kept on reading.

Top tip: in your hook, be concise and honest. Try to make it interesting and intriguing but also stay true to the content of your post – don’t try and mislead your connections by implying the content is about something it isn’t.

Step 4: Deliver the goods

It’s now time to deliver on your promise. You’ve stopped people from their scrolling, you promised them some good stuff, now it’s time to give it to them. I call this the core of your LinkedIn post – this is where you share your top tips, your knowledge, and your expertise. It’s the bit where you give your connections something of value.

So let’s go back to my post about the language used by the Prime Minister in his letter to all UK households. Here is what the core of my post said:

“So here what I loved about the language used:

• It gets straight to the point of what it’s all about.
• It uses short sentences and paragraphs so the message is easy to grasp.
• Also, it uses contractions and informal language.
• It bolds key information, so even if you skim read it, you’ll get the message.”

In my post, I elaborated a bit more on each point by giving actual examples from the letter. At this stage, you’re probably wondering how the above information was of any value to my readers or to me as a business owner and Content Writer.

Here’s why:

1. It gives my audience quick actionable tips they can use in their own content writing.
2. The context of the post gives those practices credibility and ‘authority’ – if these techniques are good enough for the PM to use when addressing the nation, they are good enough for solopreneurs or small businesses (my ideal audience) to use in their own content.
3. And finally, the fact I’m pointing out these techniques gives me, as a Content Writer, credibility and ‘authority’. If I know about these things and can pull them out from a piece of well-written communication, it means I also use them in my own writing and in the writing I do for my clients.

This is how the post ‘delivers the goods’. It gives useful information that my readers can take away and implement on their own, but it also tells them something about me and the way I work.

Top tip: be clear and concise in your points – after all, space on LinkedIn is limited. So try and break your post down into bullet points where possible. Pick your top 4 to 5 points and use emojis to introduce them. You may not be a big fan, but they are an easy way to add a splash of colour and personality to your posts.

Step 5: Engage your audience

Now you’ve delivered the goods, it’s time to give your readers the next step. What’s your Call to Action? What do you want them to do now?

In order for your post to reach more of your ideal customers and clients on LinkedIn, you want your readers to react to your post and comment on it. You may know that comments are worth more than reactions, and they certainly give you a much better chance to start a conversation and build and strengthen relationships with your connections. Let’s not forget that this is what social media is all about after all!

So how are you going to get engagement in the form of comments? Ask them a question they can and will want to answer. 

In my post above, here’s what I asked:

“So are you already using this type of language on your website, or do you think you could improve it?”

Last time I checked, the post had 36 comments and a few thousand views. For me personally, this is good reach. But what matters the most is that the post allowed me to have interesting conversations, make new connections, and expand my network of like-minded business owners who will now see more of my content and get a better idea of what I’m all about. These connections may one day become clients or recommend me to someone they know, if and when the time is right. So it’s a win for me!

Top tip: always reply to comments. Don’t miss the chance to engage with someone (old or new), build a new relationship, or strengthen an existing one.

Step 6: Don’t forget your hashtags!

So you’re at the end of your LinkedIn post. But before you go, make sure you add your hashtags. These not only tell people (and LinkedIn) what your post is all about, but they also help more people find your content. If you use a particular hashtag in your content, when people search for that hashtag, they’ll find your post.

On LinkedIn, it’s also possible to follow hashtags. This means that if someone is following hashtag #digitalmarketing, for example, and you’ve used it for your post, your content will show up on their feed.

At the time of writing (September 2020), the recommended number of hashtags for LinkedIn is three, so don’t use less or more than three!

Top tip: try and experiment with your hashtags to see what gives you better reach and engagement.

Would you like some help to repurpose your content for LinkedIn? 

Repurposing your own content takes time you might not have. In fact, I believe that doing your own content repurposing is a waste of your precious time. The good news is that repurposing your existing content is a task you can easily outsource to an expert. If you want some help repurposing your content for LinkedIn, email me at hello@sarabussandri.com or fill in the Contact Form on my website.