How to create LinkedIn articles (with examples)

Writing a LinkedIn article may seem unneeded. However, it is a service that does not guarantee the desired outcome. On the other hand, though, a well-written LinkedIn article provides many benefits to the author. Therefore, the benefits of writing a LinkedIn article are more than making the endeavour worth the time investment.

Else, why are others still doing it? So let's dive in and see what LinkedIn articles can do. 

Table of content: 

• What is a LinkedIn article?
• Benefits of publishing LinkedIn Articles
• How to create a LinkedIn article
• Examples of LinkedIn Articles 

What is a LinkedIn article?

Articles are different from updates. They are longer, in-depth articles like pieces that you can create and publish on LinkedIn for you to share business content about: 

• Knowledge
• Expertise
• Experiences
• Anecdotes
• Insights 
• Pieces of Advice 
• Thoughts and opinions 

Benefits of publishing LinkedIn Articles

In my opinion, there are three obvious benefits of creating and publishing LinkedIn articles:

Establishes you as credible

Establishing yourself as credible and a go-to person is critical in most industries. Prospects and customers are looking for people who are experts in their fields. An article outlining or providing your expertise allows you to position yourself like that.

People have similar levels of expertise on any given topic. However, from the customer's perspective, those who have made their expertise available in an article have proven their knowledge. This gives them a leg up on other experts.

Articles create interest

The core purpose of LinkedIn is to amass relevant connections that allow you to build a network within your field. Therefore, a relevant article will resound among industry insiders, allowing you to make contact and grow your network.

Also, LinkedIn articles rank on Google. So, if your articles do well enough, they will reach those searching for particular topics you have been publishing content about before. If a prospective customer is looking for, e.g. a solution or how to solve a challenge or a problem, and they find your article, you have increased the odds they will reach out to you. 

You get smarter

LinkedIn articles provide helpful analytics to all authors of articles. For example, you will see how many people clicked on your article, what generated the most interest, the role of those who read it, and more.

This can help you understand the audience looking for information on the topics you create and publish content about, and it will help you prioritise and shape your future articles. In addition, detailed analytics lets you know if you are heading in the right direction or need to change the order or approach in the next LinkedIn article.

How to create a LinkedIn Article

When creating a LinkedIn article, it is essential to ensure it is relevant.

Most of us do not create content for a living. Writing one for all your connections is often concerning if you need to be more experienced in creating quality articles. 

LinkedIn articles are not written exclusively by professional writers or content creators. So, while it can seem daunting, you can create an article any professional would be proud of with enough effort.

Choose Your Topic 

An essential aspect of creating a LinkedIn article is to choose the subject. The subject is vital because you need to balance three critical factors at this stage of your process:

First, make sure you create content about something you know. This will make creating the article significantly more straightforward because you will be more comfortable talking about it and will need to do less research before starting.

You also want to create content about something your target audience will read. So, could you consider your target audience: for instance, what topics are crucial and relevant if you're writing for B2B decision-makers?

Similarly, you want to find something as unique as possible to create content about. This means you could find a new spin on a popular or relevant topic, discover engaging new ideas, dive into niche subject matters, or do anything that you believe is relevant and engaging for your target audience.

Three factors are often at odds with one another. There are many ways to balance them, but the most effective thing you can do is use research. For example, could you look at what your target audience talks about and interacts with and find interesting topics to focus on? 

You can choose the LinkedIn article headline.

As said above, your article headline is critical in getting the reader's attention. The headline must be relevant to the topic — no one is happy to read an article after a clickbait headline brought them there while garnering their attention.

I encourage article headlines to be succinct and to the point. Clearly state the purpose of the article without over-explaining it to the reader. Minor changes like this can make a difference in the reader's eyes.

Prioritise easy reading

Professional writers use techniques to increase engagement in their articles. While I could write a whole article about these techniques, here are three of the most common ones:

• Keep your preamble, paragraphs and sentences short and concise. When you aim for a business-oriented audience, you want to reach the point as quickly as possible. 
• Include images to break up the text. Please pay particular attention to the banner image, as it will be your article's first impression with the headline.
• In LinkedIn articles, you can use up to 125,000 characters, and I recommend using about 500-750 words per article. This retains reader engagement throughout the piece. However, once your article reaches over 1,000 words, could you consider cut?

Examples of LinkedIn articles 

For the last section of this article, I show six examples of excellent LinkedIn articles, and I have written a short explanation of why I believe they are effective. I hope you'll be able to get a sense of direction using these articles as inspiration.

• Is John F. Kennedy's quote a vision or an objective? - An article I wrote might have yet to fit here on The Onlinification Hub. However, LinkedIn is a great place to try out quick ideas like this that might have a different home on your usual channels.
• Why digital transformation fails - My colleague Martin Ray's article about the potential pitfalls of large-scale change projects was also published here on our site, but posting it separately on LinkedIn allows it to reach a different audience who may need to be made aware of Zooma's other channels.
• Gated content: The gated vs ungated debate - Stellan has a great deal of knowledge about this topic, so it was easy to make a LinkedIn article out of it. Importantly, it's straightforward for readers to contact the author via a LinkedIn article if they're interested in learning more about the topic.

Could you let me know if you are ready to create an article? 

You can try giving LinkedIn articles an attempt and see if there is any traction on your topics and content. 

For more insights into using social media for business, please have a look at our in-depth guide on the topic, and download the accompanying presentation below to use in your organisation.