Can’t figure out what to post on LinkedIn? The platform has long been a great space to connect with potential employers, customers, and colleagues in your field.
But LinkedIn’s value goes beyond networking.
LinkedIn has become a powerful publishing platform in the last few years. Unlike most social networks, it allows long-form content, including articles, documents, and newsletters.
That flexibility has fueled the rise of LinkedIn influencers and creators working hard to attract followers rather than just one-to-one connections.
Whether you’re using LinkedIn for business or building your own brand as a content creator and authoritative voice, posting consistently—and strategically—is crucial.
So, if you’re stuck on what content to post on LinkedIn, we’ve got you covered with 22 LinkedIn post ideas and examples to spark some inspiration.
Plus, we tapped Hootsuite’s social team and spoke with a few LinkedIn experts to learn how to build an engaging LinkedIn content strategy in no time.
Key Takeaways
- Celebrate your team. Shine a spotlight on your colleagues’ achievements and milestones. It boosts morale, shows your company’s culture, and can turn your team into brand advocates!
- Show empathy. Open up about the ups and downs of your work life. It’s okay to vent a little—just keep it real and relatable to build connections and show you understand your peers’ struggles.
- Mix in some fun. Lighten the mood with posts about your hobbies or fun interests. Your followers will appreciate a break from all the serious content and remember the good vibes you shared.
What to post on LinkedIn: 22 engaging ideas
If you come across a news story that impacts your audience, posting it can help position you as a trusted source of information.
Add some value by including a short caption summarising the news and providing your unique commentary or context.
To encourage more engagement, ask readers to share their thoughts on the news in the comments.
Source: Open Table
2. Empathize with your peers
While it only makes sense to be positive in most of your posts, LinkedIn is about work, and—let’s be honest—work can sometimes be super frustrating!
Sharing personal stories and content that acknowledges the pain points of your role or industry can help position you as someone who gets it and empathizes with your audience.
It’s the social media equivalent of a healthy venting sesh with your work bestie about the things that drive you crazy about the job you love.
Source: James Mulvey
3. Have some fun
LinkedIn doesn’t have to be all business all the time.
Consider adding some fun posts about hobbies or interests, as well as lighthearted content that might make your followers smile.
Your audience won’t always remember what you wrote, but they will remember how you made them feel.
Source: Liz Fosslien
4. Shine a light on your employees
LinkedIn gives you a chance to show off what makes your business or organization shine, namely, the people who make up your team.
Posting employee accomplishments, promotions, or profiles boosts their status and morale. It’s a powerful way to turn your employees into brand advocates as they share the post with their network.
It can also send a clear message to prospective employees that you value your team and celebrate their contributions.
Source: Duolingo
Have you recently read a book that sparked new ideas? Or one that just didn’t deliver?
Share a quick review on LinkedIn and post a photo of the cover.
It doesn’t have to be a long review—this isn’t a high school book report. But sharing even a single takeaway can bring value to your followers or connections.
Drive engagement by asking your audience if they’ve read it or encourage them to use the comments to recommend their own recent reads.
Source: Steve Johnson
Did you win an award or a big contract? Have you landed new funding or hit a big milestone?
LinkedIn is a great place to share good news and pat yourself on the back.
Pro tip: Make a point of mentioning the people who helped you get there: they’ll probably repost it and add to your engagement stats.
Source: Clio
7. Bust a myth
One of the best ways to establish yourself as an innovator on LinkedIn is to challenge the status quo.
Does a common misperception of your role constantly irk you? Tired of “common” sense that isn’t? Want to challenge a long-held myth about your industry?
Sharing content where you disagree with prevailing perceptions can make for a compelling post—and spark plenty of comments for and against your stance.
Source: Jess Ramos on LinkedIn
8. Put a face to your work
If your organization greatly impacts people’s lives, try putting their faces front and center in your LinkedIn posts.
Sure, numbers and graphs make sense when you’re sharing quarterly results, but when the result of your hard work is a real human success story, names and faces are more effective at telling the tale.
Source: DaVita Kidney Care on LinkedIn
9. Post events you’re going to
If your business relies on industry conferences to build business, LinkedIn is the perfect place to announce that you’ll be attending.
Let leads know which panels you’re on, what presentations you’re making, and where they can find you.
To encourage interaction, ask other attendees what they’re looking forward to the most.
Pro tip: During the countdown to the event, you can publish a short series of posts to generate excitement.
Source: Trulioo
Try sharing resources your audience might find handy.
Guides, templates, or checklists can all bring value to your profile or company page, and have a good chance of being shared.
If you don’t have time to create resources from scratch, Slack your work colleagues and ask them to send you their top industry resources and thought leaders so you can compile and share them in a post.
Even a collection of your top bookmarks can help your audience!
Source: Jason Murray
11. Ask a question
For a different post type, use LinkedIn’s poll feature to ask your audience questions or gauge preferences.
It could be a fun love/hate choice between different ways of working or preferences (“Oxford comma: Yes or No?”) or a serious question about a hot-button topic.
Remember the “social” part of social media: Starting conversations by asking thoughtful questions can prompt a lot of interactions.
Plus, you can use the poll results as the starting point for a future post!
Erica Stoltenberg, Director of Corporate Communication, for Cvent, an event management platform with nearly 400,000 followers on LinkedIn, says one of their most powerful posts was asking their audience about their biggest challenges in their role.
“The post ignited a lively discussion,” said Stoltenberg. “And it gave us valuable insights into our audience’s needs and preferences—which in turn inspired a whole new library of social content.”
Source: The Female Lead on LinkedIn
12. Highlight a customer or supplier
Give a shout-out to your clients, customers, or suppliers. The recognition can make them feel appreciated—and motivated to share your post.
It also shows potential customers or partners that you value these relationships.
It doesn’t have to take a lot of time or need a fancy video, either. They’ll usually be happy to share a photo of themselves and answer a few questions by email.
Source: Slice
13. Toot your own horn
If your organization is involved in the community, supports charities, or backs other outside initiatives, it’s worth a post. Do you encourage your employees to volunteer? Share their stories.
It’s a smart way to build your profile and generate some goodwill. It can also showcase a positive aspect of your corporate culture to prospective employees.
Even better, it helps the organizations you support gain valuable exposure. So be sure to link to them!
Source: Porter Airlines on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is already chock-full of vague and generic career advice, so surprise your followers with practical tips, hacks, and offer actionable insights they can’t get anywhere else.
Has there been a change in the platforms your industry relies on that people may have missed? Any expert tips that can save them time?
Leading people to that “ah-ha” moment can help you stand out.
Source: Jan Tegze on LinkedIn
15. Celebrate every day
Nearly every day on the calendar seems to be set aside to celebrate something, somewhere (“National Whiskey Sour Day” is August 25th, BTW).
Pro tip: The Hootsuite Planner lists tons of commemorative days.
When you find a special day that might resonate with your followers, OwlyWriter AI can whip up a LinkedIn post for you with just one click.
Cheers to that!!
Source: Honda
Craft perfect posts in seconds
OwlyWriter AI instantly generates captions and content ideas for every social media network. It’s seriously easy.
16. Post a micro lesson
If you’re a creator with a book to pitch, a blog to flog, or courses to offer, use some of that existing content to create a micro lesson.
Put together a carousel of PDF documents with clear, simple steps and provide it for free. It’s like those samples at Costco: give folks a taste of what you offer so they can judge the quality for themselves.
Note: While LinkedIn dropped carousel posts a while ago, this uses a clever workaround called the “PDF post hack.”
Source: Eddie Shleyner on LinkedIn
Nothing speaks louder than the facts—especially when it comes to engaging professionals on LinkedIn. Sharing relevant industry stats, surveys, case studies, research, and data can help bring your posts to life.
However, be sure to keep all stats, facts, and figures relevant to your brand. This helps ensure that your content on LinkedIn is informative rather than just fluff.
Pro tip: If your organization isn’t behind the stats always credit the original source of the statistics.
Do you feel strongly about something? Share it!
It can be serious or silly, but this type of post can generate a lot of reactions and comments. Though you should probably avoid politics or other hot-potato subjects unless your organization is in the thick of it already.
Source: Kendyl Vanscopy
20. Be topical
Is everyone talking about a meme or image that’s going viral?
Find a way to tie it into a product or service you offer, or your company culture. Viral images pack a real punch, especially when you can add your own spin to it.
Source: 37signals
21. Use images
Always include an image or other asset. Posts with visuals receive 98% more comments than text-only posts.
You don’t need to be a photographer to share images with your audience, either—here’s a list of free stock photo sites for pro pics to supplement your content (user generated content works great, too), and 15 helpful tools for editing and creating eye-catching graphics.
You can also create images right in Hootsuite. Just use Canva’s huge template library and create beautiful and effective visuals from start to finish— all without leaving Hootsuite Composer.
Running out of ideas for pictures to post?
Images can be simple text, too. Find a sentence or phrase from your post and create a graphic with bold, easy-to-scan text to catch attention people’s attention.
Source: Eric Partaker
22. Post a video
According to LinkedIn, audiences are 20x more likely to share videos than any other type of post.
Camera shy? No video equipment? The great news is that you don’t need to be in the video. Some brands do a great job using animated text and images to share their message in video form.
You can use free video creation software or create compelling graphics right in Hootsuite using Canva’s text animation features.
Source: Zumzum
Expert answers to 6 key questions about posting on LinkedIn
If you have questions about posting effective content on LinkedIn, you’re in the right place!
We dug into LinkedIn’s research, tapped Hootsuite’s social team, and chatted with a couple of LinkedIn experts to answer a few key questions about making the most of LinkedIn.
1. How often should you post on LinkedIn—and when?
So, how often should you post to LinkedIn?
LinkedIn says that companies who post at least weekly see a two times lift in engagement.
They recommend posting at least once a day, even on weekends. Which can seem like a lot, especially if you’re a one-person team or just starting to focus on LinkedIn!
Hootsuite’s LinkedIn account tends to fall on the more frequent end of the posting spectrum. “We generally post 2-3 times per day—and sometimes up to 5 times per day, depending on campaigns and events,” shares Eileen Kwok, Hootsuite’s Social Marketing Specialist.
But quality is more important than quantity. And there are no shortcuts, cautions Jan Tegze, a LinkedIn “Top Voice,” with over 120,000 followers and author of the book Full Stack Recruiter.
“Aim to post at least three times per week,” he suggests. “Be cautious of purported ‘magic formulas’ or frameworks promoted by large accounts.”
Use the tips we’ve shared in this blog post to generate new ideas, get OwlyWriter AI to help craft the content, and schedule your posts to publish automatically to save time.
And don’t feel pressured to post poor-quality content just to keep up with a set schedule.
“The rapid pace of algorithm changes, trends, and corporate priorities means we don’t follow a set schedule,” says Stoltenberg. “We’re flexible to better accommodate trending topics or timely updates.”
#1 for LinkedIn marketing
Schedule posts, answer messages, and manage ads from one spot. Then, show off your results in beautiful reports. It’s so easy.
2. What’s the best time to post on LinkedIn?
Our crack social media team at Hootsuite has done a ton of research to come up with their suggested times to post on LinkedIn.
As with everything social, your audience is unique so keep experimenting. Hootsuite Analytics can help ensure your posting strategy is aligned with your engagement goals.
You can also get customized advice from Hootsuite’s built-in Best Time to Publish feature in Analytics. It tracks the performance of your previous posts to recommend exactly when you should publish new content.
It will even adjust the time based on your new post’s goals: to build awareness, increase engagement, or drive traffic!
3. How do you come up with new LinkedIn content ideas?
If you’ve read this far, you’ll understand the challenges of coming up with new, engaging ideas for posts day after day!
So, how do our pros do it?
“We generate new ideas by constantly monitoring industry trends, listening to our customers’ feedback, and monitoring social media conversations,” says Stoltenberg. “We also regularly collaborate with different teams within our organization for fresh perspectives and creative ideas.”
For Tegze, “it takes a village! There are great stories to tell across the company and everyone brings a unique perspective.”
Generating new ideas is a continuous process, powered by his extensive reading.
“When I come across a compelling topic, I jot down notes for future reference,” he says.
“Later, when crafting content, I review these notes and consider how to best present the information—whether as an article, LinkedIn post, or by combining multiple ideas into a comprehensive piece.”
4. How do you find which types of LinkedIn posts work best?
With so many types of posts available on LinkedIn—from articles to videos, and documents—it can be hard to figure out which to use and when.
The short answer is to test, test, and then test again.
“My LinkedIn posting strategy involves continually experimenting with new content types, frameworks, and ideas to engage my audience,” says Tegze. “By testing various approaches, I gain valuable insights into what resonates with my network and with different types of audiences.”
Stoltenberg agrees. “Don’t be afraid to experiment with different types of content, and always use analytics to guide your strategy.”
5. How do you make the most of existing content?
Whether you’re a company looking for leads or a creator searching for followers, consider mining any existing content to fuel your LinkedIn posting strategy.
If you already have long-form content developed, try chopping up the best points into bite-size pieces that are perfect for posts.
“For longer reports or e-books, we might create a short video to highlight key findings,” says Stoltenberg.
“Content repurposing is a key aspect of my strategy,” says Tegze. “Revisiting older articles is another effective tactic, as I can explore different angles, update information, or expand upon the original ideas”.
In fact, Tegze has been able to reuse content in the opposite direction, too. He’s published articles on LinkedIn that eventually became chapters in a book. Not only is this an effective use of his content, but it also gives him direct feedback on the material—like a free workshop and market testing—to make the finished book even better.
Pro tip: You can do the same by posting a series of tips or tactics that you can eventually collate into a guide—which you can then post on LinkedIn too!
6. Any last words of advice?
Both our experts mention the need for patience and consistency when it comes to posting on LinkedIn.
“Consistency is critical,” says Tegze. “New creators may not see immediate results, but perseverance is essential. Focus on developing your unique voice and perspective.”
“Building a genuine presence takes time. It took me years to build my audience, but the lessons learned along the way are invaluable.”
Stoltenberg’s advice is to work to truly understand your audience, their needs, challenges, and preferences. “Post content that adds value to them, be consistent, and engage in conversations.”
What to post on LinkedIn: Stats for 11 industries
Wondering what to post on LinkedIn based on your industry? We’ve got you covered!
Between photos, videos, links, and status updates, it can be tough to know what to prioritize. To simplify things, we’ve gathered key engagement stats across 10 industries.
Here’s what our research has to say.
1. Technology: Best content type for engagement
According to our research, photos receive the highest average engagement rate in technological fields — followed by posts with videos, links, and status updates.
2. Real estate, legal, and other professional: Best content type for engagement
For real estate, legal, and other professionals, photos and videos receive much more engagement than their link and status update counterparts.
3. Non-profit: Best content type for engagement
For non-profits, photo posts generate the most engagement, followed closely by posts with videos — so don’t count those out!
4. Media and entertainment: Best content type for engagement
If you’re in the media and entertainment space, listen up: Fans prefer (and engage!) most with videos on LinkedIn.
5. Marketing agency: Best content type for engagement
It appears users particularly enjoy photo and video posts, which — in marketing — is not exactly a surprise.
6. Healthcare, pharma, and biotech: Best content type for engagement
In Healthcare, pharma, and biotech, posts with photos and videos outperform links and status updates.
7. Government: Best content type for engagement
Government fields see the highest engagement on LinkedIn with photo posts at 2.1% as of Q3 2024, closely followed by videos at 1.9%.
8. Financial services: Best content type for engagement
No surprise here; financial services posts with photos nearly double the engagement of status updates. So be sure to add a picture to your LinkedIn posts
9. Education: Best content type for engagement
In the education industry, photos reign supreme. Posts with photos receive 1.8% engagement, while posts with videos receive 1.4% engagement, and links generate 1.2% as of Q3 2024.
10. Consumer goods and retail: Best content type for engagement
In consumer goods and retail, you should stick to posting primarily videos and photos, as they both generate the most engagement on the platform.
11. Construction, mining, and manufacturing: Best content type for engagement
Photos, videos, and links receive similar amounts of engagement on LinkedIn. So, it’s a good idea to consider incorporating a mix of all three formats to diversify your content strategy on the platform.
3 free tools to help you come up with—and write—LinkedIn posts
While we’re HUGE fans of our OwlyWriter AI which is built into Hootsuite’s Publisher, we also offer a few free AI tools to help you generate ideas for LinkedIn posts. These tools will change the way you build your LinkedIn content calendar.
Think of them as adding an experienced copywriting assistant to your team. And one who happens to know the algorithm inside out, works at 10x speed, and always delivers.
1. LinkedIn Post Generator
Still stumped for ideas of what to post on LinkedIn? Put AI to work for you and generate new, original content fast with our free LinkedIn post generator.
Powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT 3.5 technology, our LinkedIn content tool can write in dozens of tones—from frank to friendly and everything in between.
2. Content Ideas Generator
Brainstorming takes more than one brain. But no one said it had to be a human brain!
Brainstorm with this free LinkedIn content idea generator to get an endless supply of ideas. And unlike us humans, it never gets brain fog.
3. AI Caption Generator
This free AI Caption Generator works for LinkedIn and six other social networks.
You can even use the tool to rephrase existing captions you’ve already posted. Just paste your existing caption to the tool and it will spit out three new captions ready to publish!
Easily manage your LinkedIn Page and all your other social channels using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, you can schedule and share content (including video), reply to comments, and engage your network. Try it free today.
Do it better with Hootsuite, the all-in-one social media tool. Stay on top of things, grow, and beat the competition.
