A good LinkedIn post makes one point to one kind of reader, in short, plain paragraphs. In the feed, a longer post is folded behind a “more” link after its opening lines, so the first sentence has to make someone stop scrolling, and the last one should tell them what to do or answer. The posts that work are built from something only the writer has: a number, a scene, a mistake, or an opinion they can defend.
Below are 20 posts sorted by what you have to say, each with a note on why it works. The people, companies and numbers are invented, so each post shows a writing choice, not a result to expect.
| If you want to… | Post type | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| If you want to…Share something that happened | Post typeStories and lessons | Examples1–4 |
| If you want to…Show what you know | Post typeExpertise and opinion | Examples5–9 |
| If you want to…Announce a job, a move or an opening | Post typeCareer news | Examples10–14 |
| If you want to…Talk about your team's work | Post typeCompany and project news | Examples15–17 |
| If you want to…Write for an executive | Post typeExecutive and ghostwritten posts | Examples18–20 |
| If you want to…Fix your first line | Post typeEight openings | Examples1–8 |
Stories and lessons
A story post earns its lesson by being specific: a named person, a time of day, a number. Start in the middle of the moment, the way fiction starts in medias res, and state the lesson once, as something you now do differently.
The best question I've been asked on a job site came from a drywall foreman named Luis, on a Tuesday, at 6:40 in the morning.
“Who decided the outlets go there?”
We were three weeks from handing over a pediatric clinic. In every exam room, the outlets sat behind the spot where the nurses' workstations would go. The drawings were right. The drawings were also wrong, because nobody had asked a nurse.
We moved 46 outlets in four days. It cost $11,000 and a lot of overtime.
Now every project I run has a walk-through with the people who will use the building before the walls close, not after.
Luis gets a coffee from me every time I see him. He has earned about 300 by now.
Why it works. The opening names a person, a day and a minute, so the reader is in the scene before they know what the post is about. The lesson arrives as a changed practice, not a slogan, and the coffee line lets the post end warmly without a moral.
In my second year as a controller, I approved the same $38,000 invoice twice.
Same vendor, same amount, two invoice numbers, because the vendor's system had reissued it. Our process checked invoice numbers. It didn't check amounts.
The vendor returned the money within a week, graciously. So did my CFO, in her way. What she said was: “Good. Now we know where the hole is.”
We added one rule that afternoon: any two invoices from the same vendor for the same amount within 60 days get a second look. In the seven years since, that rule has caught 31 duplicates. The largest was $112,000.
If you run accounts payable, check whether your system matches on amount as well as invoice number. It takes ten minutes to find out.
Why it works. The mistake is concrete and owned in the first line. The turn comes with the CFO's “Now we know where the hole is”: from that line on, the post stops being a confession and becomes a rule other finance teams can copy, a second look at any two same-vendor, same-amount invoices within 60 days. The evidence for the rule is what it has caught since, 31 duplicates and the largest worth $112,000. The ending hands the reader a ten-minute task.
People ask why our stories take so long. Here's what went into Thursday's 900-word piece on ambulance response times in our county:
- 14 months of dispatch records, requested in March, received in August
- 3 days cleaning the data, because the timestamps used two different time zones
- 41 interviews, including 9 paramedics on the record
- 2 rounds of fact-checking, and a call to the county at 9 p.m. so they could respond
- 1 editor who cut my favorite paragraph, correctly
The finding fits in one sentence: in the county's three most rural ZIP codes, the average wait is 23 minutes, more than twice the county's own target.
That sentence took six months. It's why local news costs what it costs.
Why it works. The list turns invisible work into countable steps, and the joke about the editor keeps it from sounding like a complaint. The single-sentence finding shows the payoff, and the last line makes the argument for paying for journalism without asking for anything.
Something I noticed at three different client sites this month: the best-run warehouses all had a whiteboard next to the time clock.
Not a dashboard on a TV. A whiteboard, with yesterday's pick rate, today's truck count and one handwritten line from the shift lead. At one site the line was “Dock 4 door sticks, use Dock 5.” At another it was “Happy birthday, Marisol.”
The sites with expensive screens had better data. The sites with whiteboards had better shifts, because people read the board while they waited to clock in, and they could see that someone had been there before them, paying attention.
I'm not against screens. I'm for putting the most important information where people already stand still.
Why it works. Three sites make it more than a single anecdote. The two handwritten lines are the evidence, and the final sentence turns the observation into a principle a reader in any industry can use.
Expertise and opinion posts
These are the posts people save and forward. They work when the writer has standing (years in the job, their own data, a result) and says something a reader can act on or argue with.
I've been a recruiter for 11 years. Here's how to follow up after an interview without being annoying:
- Send a thank-you within 24 hours. Two or three sentences, with one detail from the conversation, so it couldn't have gone to anyone else.
- Ask about the timeline before you leave the interview. Then you know when checking in is reasonable.
- If the date passes, wait two working days and send one short email: “I'm still very interested. Is there an update on timing?”
- Check in once more a week later, then let it go. Silence is an answer, even when it's a rude one.
- If you get another offer, tell them. It's the one follow-up that always gets a quick reply.
The candidates I remember didn't write the most. They made it easy to say yes.
Why it works. The credential and the reader's problem share the first line. Each step is specific enough to follow today, step 3 gives the exact wording, and the closing line reframes the whole list in one sentence.
We stopped giving take-home assignments to engineering candidates last year, and our hires got better.
Our old take-home took most people six to eight hours. The candidates who finished it were the ones with free evenings. Parents, people working second jobs and anyone in a demanding current role dropped out. We were selecting for spare time, not skill.
Now we run a 90-minute session together: the candidate reads a small pull request with three planted bugs and talks us through a review. We pay $150 for the time.
Since the change, offer acceptance went from 61% to 78%, and the people we've hired have been reviewing code from week one.
I know some teams swear by take-homes. If yours is under two hours and you pay for it, I have no argument with you.
Why it works. The claim is in the first line and the evidence is the writer's own. The last paragraph concedes the strongest objection and narrows the claim, the same move as the to-be-sure paragraph in the op-ed examples, which helps an opinion post persuade rather than provoke.
38%.
That's the share of our support tickets last quarter that came from one sentence on our pricing page: “Cancel anytime.”
Customers read it as “cancel anytime and get a refund for the rest of the year.” We meant “cancel anytime and we won't bill you again.” Both readings are reasonable. Only one of them was ours.
We rewrote it to say exactly what happens: “Cancel anytime. You keep access until the end of the period you paid for, and we won't charge you again.” Cancellation tickets fell by two-thirds the next month.
The lesson I keep relearning in support: when many customers misunderstand the same thing, the problem is the sentence, not the customers.
Why it works. A bare number raises a question the second line answers. The before and after are quoted in full, so other teams can see the fix, and the lesson is a rule rather than a feeling.
Sharing this report on a regional credit union's 18-month trial of a four-day week for branch staff, because it measured what most of these studies skip: what happened to members.
What stood out to me:
- Friday wait times rose at first, then fell below the old level once schedules were staggered.
- Complaints didn't change. Compliments rose by a quarter.
- Teller turnover fell from 31% to 12%, which at our cost to hire and train would pay for the trial by itself.
What it doesn't answer is whether this works at small branches with three staff. That's the version I'd want tested next.
Worth 20 minutes if you run anything with a front counter.
Why it works. A shared link with no comment gives readers little reason to click. This one says why the report is different, pulls out three findings, names a limit, and tells the reader who should read it.
Question for people who manage teams across time zones: how do you run a weekly meeting when someone always joins at 7 a.m. or 9 p.m.?
We have people in Lisbon, Chicago and Manila. Right now we rotate the bad slot monthly, so the pain is shared. It's fair, and everyone hates it.
Two options I'm considering:
- A short recorded update instead of the meeting, with written replies due within 24 hours.
- One live meeting a month, at a time that's bad for me, not for the team.
If you've tried either, what broke? I'll share what we decide in a month.
Why it works. The question names exactly who should answer. Real constraints and two concrete options give readers something to react to, and the promise to report back turns one post into a small series.
Career news posts
Job news gets read because people care about people. Put the news in the first line, explain it for readers outside your field, and thank specific people for specific things.
Some news: on Monday I start as head of content at Fieldbook, which makes accounting software for small nonprofits.
For six years I wrote grants for food banks and shelters, so I've spent a lot of late nights in exactly the spreadsheets Fieldbook replaces. When their team asked what I'd change about the help center, I sent a list of 40 things. They hired me anyway.
Thank you to the board and staff at Westside Community Kitchen, who taught me how to run an organization on a thin budget, and to Priya Raman, who sent me the job posting with the note “this is you.”
If you work at a small nonprofit, I'd love to hear what's hardest about your books. That's my first month of research.
Why it works. The news and a plain description of the company come first. The old job becomes the reason for the new one, the self-deprecating line about the list makes her likable, and the closing ask invites useful replies rather than a stream of congratulations.
Ten years ago this week I started at Hollis Bread as a dishwasher on the 4 a.m. shift. On Friday I was named director of production, for our three bakeries and 64 people.
Here are the people who got me here, and the one thing each of them did:
- Ana, who taught me to shape loaves on her break before anyone asked her to.
- Marcus, our first head baker, who gave me a station of my own after six months.
- Jill, our owner, who paid for my food safety certification and never asked when I'd be done.
What I most want to do in this job is what they did for me: notice the person on the early shift who is watching closely, and hand them something real.
Why it works. The career arc fits in two sentences. Thanks with a specific act attached reads as gratitude, not a list of names, and the last paragraph looks forward instead of congratulating itself.
I was laid off from Brightline on Tuesday, along with most of our customer success team.
I'm proud of what we built there. When I joined, one in five veterinary clinics canceled in their first year. When I left, it was closer to one in eight, mostly because we stopped teaching features and started helping clinics get through their first busy Monday.
What I'm looking for: a customer success manager role at a B2B SaaS company that sells to small businesses, remote or in Minneapolis.
How you can help: if you know a team like that, an introduction means a lot. If you're hiring for support or success roles, several of my former teammates are excellent, and I'll vouch for them by name.
Thank you for reading. Back to the job boards.
Why it works. No bitterness, one proud result, and a precise description of the next role. Offering to vouch for teammates is generous, and it gives readers who can't hire her something useful to pass on.
We're hiring a maintenance technician for second shift at our plant in Dayton, and I want to describe the job honestly, because the posting can't.
What you'd do: keep six injection-molding machines running, fix whatever breaks between 3 and 11 p.m., and teach operators to catch problems before they become breakdowns. Some nights are quiet. Some nights a hydraulic line fails at 10:45.
What we offer: $34 an hour to start, a $2 shift differential, paid certifications, and a supervisor (me) who won't call you on your day off.
What matters more than experience: you want to know why a machine failed, not just how to restart it.
The posting is on our careers page, or message me directly.
Why it works. It describes the hard part of the job, which builds trust, and it states the pay, which many hiring posts leave out. The line about curiosity tells the right candidate this job is for them.
Please welcome Dele Okafor, who joins our newsroom on Monday as our first data reporter.
Dele spent four years at a statewide nonprofit newsroom, where his analysis of eviction filings showed that a third of them came from 20 landlords. He reads court records for fun, and he once corrected my spreadsheet in a job interview, politely and correctly.
He'll work across every desk, starting with schools, where we have three years of test data nobody has had time to study properly.
If you have a dataset that deserves a reporter's attention, tell Dele.
Why it works. A welcome post should make the new person look good, not the manager. One real accomplishment, one human detail and a first assignment do that, and the last line gives readers a reason to connect with him.
Company and project news
Company news reads like an ad unless a person tells it. Say what changed for the customer, be honest about the limits, and give credit by name.
Today we launched recurring invoices in Brookbill, after 14 months of customers asking for it and four months of building it.
What it does: set up an invoice once, choose how often it repeats, and Brookbill sends it on schedule, with a reminder to you two days before in case anything changed.
What it doesn't do yet: split one invoice across several clients. That's next, and the 212 of you who asked will get an email from me when it ships.
Thank you to the 40 customers who tested it and found 61 bugs, including one that briefly decided February was in 1970.
Why it works. The feature is explained in one sentence of plain use, not marketing. Saying what it doesn't do yet earns trust, and the bug joke tells technical readers the team tested properly.
Three things I'm bringing back from this week's technical writing conference:
- A medical device team cut its translation costs by a fifth by keeping sentences under 20 words across its manuals. Their before-and-after invoices got the biggest reaction of the week.
- Nobody reads release notes until something breaks, so the best ones are written for the person searching at 2 a.m.
- The most useful session was 40 minutes on deleting old docs. Not glamorous, and the reason that team's search results finally work.
What I'm trying first: a 20-word sentence limit on our quick-start guides from the next release. I'll share what it does to our support tickets.
Thanks to the organizers, and to Renée Dubois for the best talk on release notes I've heard.
Why it works. Most recap posts list sessions attended. This one lists ideas, says which one the writer will try, and promises a follow-up with results, which is a reason to follow the writer.
Our biggest renewal this year happened because of someone most of our customers have never met.
In March, a hospital network's scheduling system failed during a snowstorm, on a Sunday. Kenji Watanabe on our support team was on call. He stayed on the line with their IT lead for six hours, found the cause (a certificate that had expired overnight), and wrote up the incident before he went to bed.
Last week that network renewed for three years. Their IT lead told us why in one word: “Kenji.”
Sales rings the bell. Support often earns it. Thank you, Kenji.
Why it works. The company gets credit by giving it away. The story is specific enough to be believed, and the one-word quote does more than a paragraph of praise could.
Executive and ghostwritten posts
Executives are the people most likely to have their posts written for them. The good ones still sound like a person, because the material is theirs: their decisions, their numbers, their words from an interview.
On Monday we told our customers we're raising prices for the first time in five years. I want to explain the decision here too, because I'd rather you hear the reasons from me.
Since 2021 what we pay for stainless steel has risen 38%, and our service technicians' wages, rightly, 27%. We absorbed most of it. We can't absorb all of it and keep same-day repairs, the one thing our restaurant customers tell us they can't live without.
So list prices rise 6% on January 1. Two things won't change: orders placed before then ship at today's price, and every service contract renews at its current rate for one more year.
If you're a customer and this puts you in a hard spot, call your account manager or email me. I read every one.
Why it works. Bad news first, then the reasons with numbers, then what doesn't change. “Rightly” is a single word that tells employees whose side she is on. The ghostwriter's job here was structure and cutting; every fact and the “I read every one” promise came from the CEO.
Five years ago today we signed the lease on a 600-square-foot kitchen in Tacoma with two ovens, one of which worked.
Some numbers from the five years since, good and bad:
- 3 locations, 41 employees
- 1 location we opened and closed within a year
- About 2.1 million pastries, give or take a tray I dropped
- 0 days when I was sure I knew what I was doing
What I'd tell myself in that first kitchen: hire your first manager six months before you think you can afford to, and write your recipes down properly before you have to teach them at 4 a.m.
And thank you, Mr. Hargrove, for buying a croissant every Saturday since week one.
Why it works. Including the failed location turns a brag into an honest account. The advice is specific enough to use, and thanking one regular by name is a thank-you every other regular can recognize.
Post text: Most job descriptions are written for the people already in the job. Here's the eight-page checklist we use to write ones that make sense to outsiders. Page 5 is the one most teams skip.
- Write the job description for a stranger
- Start with what the person will do in the first 90 days
- Translate every internal term (“GBS,” “L3,” “the Q4 motion”)
- List five requirements, not fifteen
- Say what the hard part of the job is
- Give the pay range in the first screen
- Describe the team in two sentences: size, manager, how they work
- Ask someone outside the team to read it and explain the job back to you
Why it works. LinkedIn lets you attach a document, such as a PDF, to a post, and the format suits a checklist with one idea per page. The post text gives a reason to open it, and pointing to page 5 sets up a small mystery that pays off.
Eight ways to open a post
The first line decides whether anyone reads the second, but it doesn't have to be a short, punchy fragment. These eight openings each make a different move, at different lengths. The number in brackets points to the post above that uses it; the last one is new. For openings in other forms, see headline examples.
- “In my second year as a controller, I approved the same $38,000 invoice twice.” (2) — A confession, with the role, the amount and the mistake in one plain sentence.
- “The best question I've been asked on a job site came from a drywall foreman named Luis, on a Tuesday, at 6:40 in the morning.” (1) — A long sentence that earns its length: every phrase puts the reader closer to the scene.
- “38%.” (7) — The shortest opening there is. It works only because the next line explains it at once.
- “We stopped giving take-home assignments to engineering candidates last year, and our hires got better.” (6) — A claim with a result, which a reader is free to dispute.
- “People ask why our stories take so long. Here's what went into Thursday's 900-word piece…” (3) — Two sentences: the readers' question, then a promise to answer it with a list.
- “Question for people who manage teams across time zones:” (9) — Names the readers who should answer before asking anything.
- “On Monday we told our customers we're raising prices for the first time in five years.” (18) — The news people care about, with no warm-up.
- “Two years ago our support queue had 900 open tickets. Today it has 40.” — A before and after in two short sentences, leaving the middle for the post to explain.
How to format a LinkedIn post
Most of the posts above run 95 to 135 words. Length matters less than whether each line earns the next, but these habits make any post easier to read in a feed.
| Habit | Why it helps |
|---|---|
| HabitOpen with one or two strong lines | Why it helpsThe feed folds a longer post after its first lines, behind a “more” link |
| HabitParagraphs of one to three sentences | Why it helpsEasier on a phone; a block of text gets scrolled past |
| HabitOne point per post | Why it helpsTwo ideas make two posts, and each gets a better first line |
| HabitNumbered lists for steps, bullets for findings | Why it helpsReaders save and forward lists they can use |
| HabitEnd with an ask or a real question | Why it helpsIt tells readers what to do next, and invites better replies |
| HabitTag only people in the story, and ask first | Why it helpsA tag is a public mention; tagging a crowd reads as a bid for attention |
| HabitA few relevant hashtags, or none | Why it helpsLinkedIn's guide for company Pages suggests picking three to five that matter and adding them when relevant |
| HabitSay what's behind a link | Why it helpsThe post should make sense to readers who don't click |
Readability on LinkedIn means what it means everywhere: short sentences, familiar words, and the important part first. The last line deserves as much care as the first: one clear ask, or a question you actually want answered.
Writing posts for an executive
Ghostwritten LinkedIn posts are common, and a reasonable arrangement when the ideas and the approval belong to the person whose name is on them. The writing goes better with a routine.
- Interview once a month
Thirty to sixty minutes, recorded with permission. Ask for stories, numbers, decisions and mistakes: “What surprised you this month?” gets more than “What should we post about?”
- Keep a voice file
Phrases they use, words they never use, topics they won't touch, how they sign off. Note the length of their sentences. A terse engineer and an expansive founder need different drafts.
- Draft only from their material
Never invent a story, a quote or a number. If a post needs a detail you don't have, ask. A manufactured anecdote puts the executive's name on something that didn't happen, and the colleagues who were there will know.
- Get approval on every post
Send drafts in batches, with the facts flagged for checking. The executive approves the words before anything goes up.
- Agree who answers comments
Replies are where readers expect the real person, so many executives answer their own. Decide in advance which comments, if any, the writer drafts replies for.
To find the material, you can attach the interview transcript to the Strokes Assistant and ask for the three moments in it that would make the strongest stories, then draft from the executive's own words.
Plan the month in a content calendar so every post has a date and an approval step, and keep the executive's profile as current as the posts; the executive bio examples show the third-person versions. For the business side of the work, see how to become a ghostwriter.
LinkedIn post mistakes
- Engagement bait. “Agree?” and “Comment YES if…” ask for a reaction without offering anything to react to. A real question about a real problem gets better replies.
- One sentence per line, all the way down. A few short lines make a strong opening. Thirty of them make a list of slogans, a style some readers have learned to scroll past.
- The humblebrag. “Humbled and honored to announce” is neither. Say the news plainly and thank people for specific things.
- A lesson with no story. “Consistency beats talent” means nothing until it is attached to a person, a number or a moment.
- A wall of hashtags or tags. Ten hashtags and fifteen tagged names bury the post's first lines in noise.
- Invented anecdotes. The taxi driver who taught you everything about leadership did not exist, and many readers can tell. Use what really happened, even if it is smaller.
- The same post every week. If last week's post and this week's could swap first lines, one of them wasn't needed.
Frequently asked questions
What should I post on LinkedIn?
Things only you can say: a lesson from a specific moment at work, a how-to from your field, an opinion you can back with evidence, news about your job or your team, or credit for someone else's good work. A small table of those post types, with the real story or number you have for each, shows you which one to write this week.
How long should a LinkedIn post be?
Long enough to make one point with one example. Most of the posts on this page run 95 to 135 words, and a good story can run longer if every line earns the next. The opening matters more than the total, because the feed folds a longer post behind a “more” link after its first lines.
How often should I post on LinkedIn?
Often enough to be consistent, and rarely enough that every post has something in it. LinkedIn's best-practices page for company Pages says companies that post weekly see a 2x lift in engagement with their content (as of November 2026). For a person, one good post a week is a sustainable place to start, and an empty week is better than a filler post.
Is it OK to have a ghostwriter write my LinkedIn posts?
Yes, as long as the substance is yours. Many executives work with writers who interview them, draft posts from their stories and opinions, and send every draft for approval. Problems start when a writer invents anecdotes or opinions the executive doesn't hold, so agree that every fact comes from you and every post gets your sign-off.
