How to Build a Winning LinkedIn Content Strategy
A Proven Guide for 2025
Welcome to all of this week's new subscribers to The Link Tank®️newsletter; my newsletter always focuses on the practical: Real, implementable strategies to increase your LinkedIn ROI, sometimes focusing on the what but always focusing on the how.
Throughout my years helping businesses develop their LinkedIn presence, I've seen firsthand how a well-structured content creation strategy transforms engagement rates and lead generation. After training as a lawyer and later handling business development for an international law firm, I discovered that LinkedIn success isn't random- it's methodical.
In this guide, I'll share the exact content strategies that have worked for my clients, from FTSE 100 companies to growing startups. You'll learn how to create a LinkedIn approach that actually delivers results, without wasting time on tactics that don't work.
No mysterious marketing jargon about pillars and matrices - I'm all about practical implementable strategies.
Start with a Clear Strategy
LinkedIn stands apart from other social media platforms, requiring its own distinct approach. Starting a LinkedIn content strategy without clear direction is like sailing without a compass. You might move, but you won't know if you're headed the right way. Setting a clear strategy first ensures every post serves your broader business objectives.
Unlike Instagram or TikTok where visual content dominates, LinkedIn is where suit-and-tie content thrives. The platform drives 80% of B2B social media leads because users are actively seeking professional content when they log in. Furthermore, more than 55% of decision-makers use LinkedIn content to vet organisations they want to work with.
This professional context demands content that demonstrates expertise, builds credibility, and establishes thought leadership, not just entertaining posts that might work elsewhere
Content marketing without goals is ineffective. Your objectives will vary depending on your business needs, industry, and target audience.
First, consider what you want to achieve:
Brand awareness: Increase recognition among your target audience
Lead generation: Attract potential customers interested in your services
Customer engagement: Encourage active interaction from your audience
Thought leadership: Establish your brand as an authority in your industry
Sales conversion: Drive direct sales through content
For early-stage businesses, focus on brand awareness and building credibility. For established companies, lead generation and nurturing existing relationships might take priority.
Always make your goals SMART = Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Rather than vague objectives like "increase engagement," aim for specific metrics such as "gain 500 new followers in a quarter" or "generate 100 monthly clicks to your website".
Decide on personal vs company-led content
One of the most crucial strategic decisions is whether to focus on building your personal brand or your company page, or finding the right balance between both.
The data is clear: personal profiles typically outperform company pages significantly. LinkedIn posts from personal profiles receive an average of 3x more engagement than identical content posted from company pages. Some studies show personal profiles can drive 2.75x more impressions and 5x more engagement compared to company pages.
This difference exists because humans naturally connect with other humans, not corporate entities. Your personal journey as a founder, with all its challenges and victories, creates connections that a company page simply cannot replicate.
However, company pages remain essential in specific scenarios:
When you have multiple founders or team members creating content
If you're planning significant LinkedIn advertising campaigns
The most effective approach for most businesses is a thoughtful hybrid strategy: start with your personal brand to generate initial traction, cross-post strategic content to your company page, and gradually shift the balance as your company grows.
Know Who You’re Talking To
After establishing your strategy, the next critical step is identifying exactly who you're talking to. Even the most brilliant content fails if it doesn't reach the right people. Let's break down how to define and understand your LinkedIn audience properly.
Build audience personas using LinkedIn data
Creating accurate audience personas is the foundation of successful content. LinkedIn offers rich data that helps build these profiles precisely.
Start by examining your current LinkedIn connections and followers. Look at their:
Job titles and seniority levels
Industries and company sizes
Skills and interests
Geographic locations
Education backgrounds
LinkedIn's Page Analytics provides valuable insights about who's already engaging with your content. For instance, you can see that 64% of your audience might be senior decision-makers or that 45% work in specific industries.
To build comprehensive personas, combine this data with information from:
Your CRM system (existing clients and prospects)
Website analytics showing LinkedIn traffic
Competitor audience analysis
Industry reports relevant to your sector
The goal is to create 2-4 detailed personas that represent your ideal audience segments. Name each persona and write a brief description covering their professional challenges, goals, and how your expertise helps them.
Understand what your audience wants to see
Once you've identified who your audience is, you need to understand what content resonates with them.
Most LinkedIn users seek content that helps them solve problems, develop skills, or stay informed about their industry. Additionally, professionals spend an average of just 10 minutes daily on LinkedIn, typically during commutes or breaks.
To determine what your specific audience values:
Look at your highest-performing posts from the past six months. Identify patterns in topics, formats, and posting times that generated engagement.
Review comments on your posts to spot recurring questions or feedback. These reveal content gaps you can fill.
Examine what your audience engages with beyond your content. Which thought leaders do they follow? What articles do they share?
Consider also that 57% of LinkedIn users access the platform on mobile devices, requiring content that's easily digestible on smaller screens.
Segment content by job role or industry
Not all content works for everyone. Segmenting your approach ensures relevance to different audience groups.
For C-suite executives, focus on gaining strategic insights and staying informed about industry trends. These time-poor individuals typically value concise, high-level content that helps them make better decisions.
Middle managers often seek practical guidance and tools they can implement immediately. Content addressing team leadership challenges or efficiency improvements performs well with this group.
Individual contributors generally respond to skills development content and career advancement advice. They typically engage more with educational posts that offer clear takeaways.
Industry-specific segmentation is equally important. Financial services professionals have different content needs than those in healthcare or technology.
To implement segmentation effectively:
Tag posts with relevant industry terms
Mention specific job roles in headlines when appropriate
Create content series targeting different audience segments
Use LinkedIn's targeting options for sponsored content
Remember that your most engaged followers will see most of your content regardless of segmentation. Consequently, maintain a balanced approach that provides value across segments while still addressing specific audience needs.
Create a Content Plan That Works
Pick content formats that perform well
I have attached a sample content plan for you to use above ☝🏻
Not all LinkedIn content formats deliver equal results. According to recent analysis of over one million LinkedIn posts by
, certain formats consistently outperform others and the algorithm prefers particular way of writing to others:LinkedIn interprets excessive emojis as noise rather than nuance. A sprinkling of symbols can add personality, but a string of grinning faces or celebratory icons suggests low-value clickbait to the algorithm, prompting it to dial back your reach 😉😁🚫
Double-spacing or dropping several empty lines was once a readability hack; now it is seen as an artificial attempt to game attention. When the system detects consecutive blank rows, it throttles impressions, assuming the creator is stretching the content rather than enriching it.
Jump-starting the comments section with your own contribution seems like proactive engagement, yet it often backfires. LinkedIn favours genuine back-and-forth; when it sees the author talking to themself, it marks the post as less compelling and curbs distribution.
List posts (or listicles) remain popular, but scale matters. Too short, and the list feels superficial; too long, and readers abandon it before finishing. Either extreme weakens dwell time, a key performance signal, so aim for a mid-range that balances depth with digestibilit
Variety is also critical. Serving the same content format on consecutive days - whether polls, text-only updates, or multi-page documents - tells the algorithm you are on autopilot. Alternating formats keeps both audience curiosity and machine-learning interest alive. This isn't just algorithm hacking, it's sensible! Would youwant tob read the same types of posts over and over again?
Stylised fonts from external generators bring visual flair but cause technical friction. Screen readers stumble, metadata gets muddled, and LinkedIn quietly bumps the post down the feed. Reserve bold or italic gimmicks for a headline or two rather than the body of your update.
Heavy editing after publication is a red flag. Minor typo corrections are ignored, but a wholesale rewrite suggests the original post underperformed. Instead of overhauling live content, remove and repost to give the algorithm a clean slate.
Carousel posts (also called document posts) generate the most engagement on company pages, followed closely by video content. Meanwhile, polls drive the highest impressions, making them ideal for increasing visibility.
For my clients, I've found these formats work particularly well:
Document posts - These PDF slideshows (10-12 slides) work brilliantly for educational content like how-to guides
Video posts - Keep these under 2 minutes for optimal engagement, with the first 8 seconds crucial for grabbing attention
Text + image posts - Still effective when you use 4-5 authentic images rather than stock photos
First, experiment with different formats to see what resonates with your specific audience. Then, create a rotation of formats to keep your content fresh.
Use a mix of thought leadership and value posts
A winning content plan strikes a balance between showcasing expertise and providing practical value. Thought leadership establishes your authority while value-focused content keeps your audience engaged.
For thought leadership content, focus on sharing unique perspectives rather than simply reporting industry news. Personal experiences and lessons learned tend to perform particularly well.
Although you might feel pressure to appear perfect, authenticity builds stronger connections. Share both successes and challenges. This approach humanises your brand and makes your content more relatable.
Value posts should address specific problems your audience faces. According to LinkedIn engagement data, how-to guides, industry insights, and practical tips consistently perform better than promotional content.
Plan content around key dates and campaigns
A calendar-based approach prevents the dreaded "what should I post today?" dilemma. Start by mapping out:
Industry events and conferences relevant to your sector
Company milestones and product launches
Awareness days that align with your brand values
Lesser-known awareness days often perform exceptionally well because they're less saturated. For instance, a recent VE Day tea party post generated over 1,000 video views in under 15 hours for one company.
When planning your calendar, batch similar content together into campaigns. This approach creates thematic consistency and saves time on content creation.
Finally, leave some flexibility in your calendar for responding to trending topics. The most successful LinkedIn strategies balance planned content with timely, responsive posts.
Use a content calendar to stay on track
A content calendar transforms random posting into a structured approach. Initially, establish a sustainable posting frequency - whether that's daily, weekly or monthly. The key is consistency rather than volume.
Tools like Google Sheets, Trello VN , or LinkedIn's native scheduler can simplify this process. For my clients, I typically recommend creating monthly themes with weekly content batching to save time.
Write posts that are easy to read on mobile
Given that 70% of LinkedIn users access the platform on mobile devices, optimising for small screens is essential.
To create mobile-friendly content:
Use short paragraphs (2-3 sentences maximum)
Break up text with line spaces between paragraphs
Keep your sentences concise and direct
Front-load important information
Remember that professionals typically spend just 10 minutes daily on LinkedIn, often during commutes or breaks. Therefore, staggering your sentence length improves readability and keeps readers engaged even when they're quickly scanning through their feed.
Include strong CTAs
Every post should include a clear call-to-action that tells readers exactly what to do next. Effective CTAs are specific, action-oriented, and compelling.
Instead of generic "learn more" buttons, try:
"Download our free guide now"
"Share your experience in the comments"
"Book a 15-minute consultation"
Track, Learn and Improve
Creating content without measuring results is like flying blind. A data-driven approach separates successful LinkedIn strategies from those that simply fade away.
Use LinkedIn analytics to measure success: LinkedIn analytics offers powerful insights into how your content performs. Undoubtedly, the most effective LinkedIn strategies rely on regularly reviewing key metrics.
When tracking performance, focus on:
Engagement rate – LinkedIn calculates this by adding interactions, clicks, and new followers acquired, divided by impressions. Above 3% was considered good performance in 2024, with industry averages sitting at 3.85%.
Visitor demographics – Understanding the job roles, company sizes, industries, and seniority of your visitors helps refine your content strategy. This data reveals not only who is viewing your content, but also who is most likely to convert.
Content performance – Analyse which posts generate the most reactions, comments and shares. This reveals what truly resonates with your audience.
LinkedIn's native analytics lets you export detailed reports on content, visitors, followers, leads, and competitors. These reports provide valuable benchmarks to measure progress against your goals.
Test different formats and posting times
Different content formats yield dramatically different results. In fact, carousel posts (document posts) tend to get 278% more engagement than video posts, 303% more than image posts, and 596% more than text-only posts.
For posting times, LinkedIn generally sees peak activity between:
8:00-11:00 AM on weekdays
10:00 AM-1:00 PM on Mondays
10:00 AM-Noon on Tuesdays and Wednesdays
9:00 AM-1:00 PM on Thursdays
Industry-specific timing also matters. For instance, financial services companies see best results on Wednesdays (10:00 AM-Noon) and Thursdays (11:00 AM and 1:00 PM).
To test effectively, I recommend changing just one variable at a time – either format or timing – and then tracking results for at least two weeks.
Everyone will have their own "best time", eg, mine is Saturday mornings - that's when I've had all my 100,000+ impression posts.
Adjust based on engagement and feedback
The most successful LinkedIn strategies evolve based on data. Essentially, every post provides valuable feedback if you're willing to listen.
Firstly, monitor comments for direct audience feedback. These conversations often reveal content gaps or topics your audience wants to see more of.
Additionally, competitor analysis can uncover opportunities. Look at which competitor posts perform well and identify patterns you can adapt to your strategy.
In my experience, regular quarterly reviews work best for refining your LinkedIn strategy. This timing provides enough data to spot meaningful trends without getting lost in day-to-day fluctuations.
Remember that LinkedIn's algorithm frequently changes. Staying informed about platform updates ensures your strategy remains effective.
My years working with businesses of all sizes have shown that LinkedIn success comes from this systematic approach, not from occasional viral posts or flashy tactics.
Ready to transform your LinkedIn presence in 2025?
Start by implementing just one section of this guide each week. After a month, you'll have built a complete LinkedIn content strategy that delivers genuine business results.
Take action today: Review your current LinkedIn approach against the framework outlined in this guide: Identify your biggest opportunity area; set one specific goal for the next 30 days; schedule time to create your first batch of strategic content
It may sound trite, but it's the truth: LinkedIn success isn't about overnight results but consistent application of proven principles. The businesses that commit to this approach will find themselves with a significant competitive advantage as we move through to the second half of 2025.
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I hope that these LinkedIn tips and strategies are helpful to you. If so, please bookmark this article for future reference and click on the 🔔 on my profile to be notified of my new posts.
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