From slow walkers to loud chewers and everything in between, everyone’s got their list of pet peeves – the little things that just seem to aggravate you more than they reasonably should.
While anyone who knows me knows that I find listening to music aloud on public transport quite possibly the worst sin any one human being can commit, the past twelve months have also introduced me to many new things that bother me – especially when it comes to LinkedIn.
As a content writer, my peeves typically relate to the words themselves – and it seems I’m not the only one either. LinkedIn even used to post a yearly round-up of the most overused buzzwords on company pages, with words such as ‘expert’, ‘innovative’ and ‘solution’ often finding their way into the top ten regularly.
With over two million posts on LinkedIn every day, you want to do all you can to ensure your posts have the best chance of standing out – and the words you use and how you use them play the biggest role in helping you do that. Ensure you stand the best chance of not getting lost in the noise by following these tips.
Poor storytelling
Like any good story, a good LinkedIn post needs to hook you from the start. You need to give people a reason to keep reading – what makes this specific post make the reader stop scrolling and read what you have to say?
Take the below example:
“We were delighted to attend the Massive Marketing conference which took place last week on Tuesday 4th January.”
Informative and factual? Sure. Exciting and engaging? Not so much.
This is because people often fall into the trap of thinking that the beginning of the story needs to be the actual chronological beginning of the story when often, that’s the least exciting part of what you want to say.
Attended a conference or event? Lead with your most exciting takeaway from it. Launching a new product or service? Lead with the biggest benefits for a user. Promoting a new piece of content or research? Lead with the most prominent stat or finding.
Remember, you always need a beginning, a middle and an end – but don’t be afraid to mix up the order to make your post more exciting.
Superlative language
If LinkedIn continued to publish their yearly top buzzwords on the platform, I’m confident the word ‘revolutionise’ would have made the list in 2023.
It’s not that it’s a bad word per se, it’s much better than saying your product is ‘changing the way things are done’ or ‘shaking up the industry’.
It’s that it’s a classic example of overusing superlative language – words or phrases that are used to express when something is the best or highest of its kind.
There a very few cases when something is revolutionary. Smart phones revolutionised the way we access information. A new package for a hotel, for example, likely isn’t revolutionising the hospitality industry.
Overusing superlative language can also lead to it having the opposite intended effect, so be sparing in usage and only use it when necessary. Take the following example:
“Our new computer system is the most advanced of its kind on the market. With only the biggest and best components used, it’s our most reliable product yet.”
With four different superlatives used in just two short sentences, the overall impact is greatly diluted. Using them so close together also means you’re not being very specific in your descriptions, leading you to fall into the trap of telling the benefits instead of showing them.
Not varying sentence length
Some LinkedIn posts use short sentences to keep your attention.
Why?
Because it’s easy to read.
It grabs your attention.
For a while.
Until it starts to look like a post written by someone with an irrational fear of sentences over 10 words long.
On the other hand, some posts are filled with massive walls of text with lengthy sentences which makes me question if the writer was working with a keyboard without a working enter key.
To keep a reader reading through all of your LinkedIn post, you want to make it easy to consume and mixing up your sentence length is a great way to do this. Always read what you’ve written back before you commit to posting – how does it flow? Is it easy to read, or is it difficult and monotonous? If it’s the latter, start by switching up the length of some of your sentences.
Improper use of hashtags
Hashtags within your LinkedIn posts can be a great way to increase their reach. However, just because LinkedIn doesn’t have a limit on the number of hashtags you can use, doesn’t mean you should include every possible hashtag possible within your post.
When half of the content of your actual post is comprised of different hashtags, it can end up making your post look spammy and detract attention away from the actual content of the post itself.
LinkedIn recommends keeping to between three and five hashtags for your post, so pick those most relevant to the topic of your post. This might mean sacrificing a #throwbackthursday or a #mondaymotivation but equally, you shouldn’t feel tied to specific days for your posts. A strong message that resonates with the reader shouldn’t need to be tied to a certain day of the week to achieve the desired effect.
Want more help when it comes to mastering the world of social media? Find out more about our digital marketing and PR services, or contact us today to find out more.
