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3 Tips for Creating Great Posts on LinkedIn and Facebook

by Jennifer Beever

Catch a GlimpseIt’s easy to add an update on LinkedIn and Facebook, right? Not so fast! The mechanics seem easy, but making your update effective (eye-catching, compelling, and engaging) is not as easy. Here’s how to do it right.

1. Include an image or photo with your update.

Facebook UpdateEverything is more visual on social media. The proof of this is in the explosion of Pinterest and Instagram. So, if the article, video, slidedeck or whatever link you are posting has a nice image, make sure it shows. If it doesn’t have an image – add one! Use photos you have taken or royalty-free photos from sites like Flickr.com (see my previous post about this).

Facebook can pose some challenges for display of photos on company pages. It’s not unusual for an  update to default to a partial view of an image or photo that is on the blog post or article page. If that happens, you can upload a custom size of the photo or image as I did in this example above of a Facebook update. For more details about getting the photo size right for Facebook posts, see this helpful blog post by David Coleman.

2. Make your message brief yet compelling.

Write something interesting or compelling about the link you are sharing. Tell the viewer why they should read more and click on the link. Is the article have a fun style of writing or topic? Is it controversial? I tend to be more factual on LinkedIn updates and more conversational on Facebook.

On LinkedIn Company pages you have 600 characters to describe your update, but keep it as brief and compelling as possible. On Facebook company page updates less text is more; studies have shown that you should definitely keep your update under 250 characters of text and if possible the ideal length is close to 100 characters.

Social Media Update

Tips: 1.) Include the name of the author of the blog post or other content you are sharing in your message – it’s a good practice and you are giving a shout out to a colleague rather than just sharing your own material. 2.) If possible, after you enter the URL to the link you want to share, you can go back and delete it! See the example above – typically you will cut and paste the URL for the link after your update message. Once the content properly populates below the update field, go back and delete the URL as shown.

3. Include a call to action.

As with all marketing, you should include a call to action such as “read the full article below,” “please add your comment,” “what other tips would you add?” “what do you think?” or “read the post now.” People are busy, and if you don’t give them something to act on or answer, they may not engage with your content at all.

Do you need help getting started or getting better results with your content marketing? Would your marketing staff benefit from how-to training or coaching? Contact New Incite today. We have worked with many B2B companies to create content marketing strategies and set up social media platforms for content distribution.

Photo by Christian Senger on Flickr, some rights reserved.

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