How to get your team posting on LinkedIn
I’m standing next to a large TV, that’s screwed to the wall.
In front of me sits a long wooden table, and a small group of people, all here for my ‘ Lead with LinkedIn’ workshop.
I thank everyone for coming. Introduce myself. And then ask a question.
“What’s stopping you from posting on LinkedIn”
Their eyes shift away from me.
They begin looking for anything in the room to focus on to avoid eye contact. A lamp, a window, their shoes.
After a brief silence, I pick on someone.
“I don’t know what to say”, they reply.
I pick on another.
“I don’t want to sound stupid.”
And again.
“I don’t have the time.”
The room suddenly feels lighter. A group of people who realise that everyone else in the room feels the same.
I thank them for their honesty.
“Right, let’s get started.”
The problem with posting on LinkedIn
When getting teams to post more on LinkedIn, you must remember one thing.
The majority of your company doesn’t want to do it.
They work hard. Colanders are rammed. Inboxes keep piling up.
The last thing anyone wants to do at the end of a long day (me included) is spend their evening staring at a blank LinkedIn post.
Nor should they have to.
My approach has always been simple.
Don’t ask them to write it.
9 times out of 10, they’re not going to do it.
(see reasons above).
So, Plan B.
Write it for them. Or, more accurately, write it with them.
It’s their account after all.
Whatever they post, they’re going to want it to sound like something they would say.
The worst thing you can do is just hand everyone the same piece of copy “to get you started” along with a link.
Because no one wants to spend time editing something they don’t really want to post anyways.
So you just end up with 20 people posting the exact same thing. Written verbatim to what you sent them.
And that’s helping no one.
All it takes is a conversation
Book 20–30 minutes. Ask them questions. Record it.
Ask them about:
Their experience before starting the role
What inspired them to choose this career
Their thoughts on a trending topic
What they see clients struggling with at the moment
What they’d advise those clients
Their proudest achievement
The oddest item on their desk
Their go-to takeaway order
At the end of the call, you’ll have a transcript. Half an hour of their raw thoughts. Spoken in their voice. Full of juicy morsels they wouldn’t offer up themselves if you just asked them to “write a LinkedIn post.”
All you need to do now is take what they’ve said, and build a story around it.
Note: If you’re doing this approach for your own content, AI can be great for asking questions and transcribing your answers.You can even prompt it to look for interesting hooks and content in your answers. You’ll need to do the heavy lifting on the copywriting though.
When you’ve written the post, send it back to them.
Let them approve it, rewrite bits, tell you they’d “never say that!”.
Gradually you’ll build a content calendar you’re both happy with, that you wouldn’t have had before if you just waited for them to post something on their own. .
All you need to do then is schedule it.
Repeat that every couple of months, or so, and, you’ve got a team promoting themselves (and your business) on LinkedIn, without asking them to be part-time copywriters.
