Writing a LinkedIn article is a powerful way to share your expertise, engage your audience, and build your personal brand. Whether you're looking to showcase your passion and prowess or establish a reputation as a thought influencer, a Linkedin Article is a solid way to invest in your future.

Why would you write one compared to a post? An article will contribute to your weekly content goals just like a post, we recommend 3 posts/wk to maintain a good level of creator mode boost on Linkedin and generate profile growth. So having one be an article at least twice a month is great way to add more umph to your LI game. We explain why below!

**Only 1% of Linkedin users manage a post a week - so a huge advantage can be gained by being a high value contributor to the feed!

LinkedIn Articles vs. LinkedIn Posts: A Comparison

There are some clear visibility and strategic advantages to including articles in your content campaigns! Here are some comparative considerations that can delineate the extra wattage available when we produce high quality articles!

So with that understood here's a step-by-step guide to make your article stand out: 

Choose a Clear Purpose🎯 
Decide on the goal: Educate, inspire, entertain, or persuade (market or sell)? Focus on a topic relevant to your audience and aligned with your expertise. Or if you want to wade into an area of your won development for example, your upping your Sales game or developing your negotiation muscle then writing from the 'join me on my journey' angle can add real accessibility.

The tone and arc of the article has endless permutations but try and hold the classic story from start middle end structure to get technical the denouement is key, where all threads are brought together in the closing passages. With some clear actionable to takeaway too!

Craft a Strong Headline 📰 
Grab attention with a clear, concise, and compelling title. All content needs a punchy or mysterious title to get you to bite and setup the hook below! EXAMPLE - Use numbers, questions, or action words to intrigue readers (e.g., *"5 Tips to Boost Productivity Today!"*). 

Start with a Hook 🪝 
Open with a relatable story, surprising fact, powerful question or tease partially a solution to come! Aim to engage readers within the first two sentences we have seconds to catch someone into staying with us so start snappy and strong!

4. Structure Your Content 🧱  

5. Add Visuals 🎨 
Use images, charts, or videos to enhance your message. We can say so much with an image and add stacks more value with a video or even just break up long passages and text bodies with visuals for enhanced readability. 

6. Provide Value 💡 
Sharing you actionable insights, tips, or examples and positing them as industry or trade craft offerings. Solving a problem or answering a question your audience cares about ensures they will want to continue following you at the very least but if your goal is to convert them into prospects be sure to mention a simple HOW TO?!
- Follow me on, click the bell
- Visit my profile for xxxxxx
- The landing page can found in the comments
- Go to my website, button on profile (Secret double CTA)

7. Use Your Voice 🎙️ 
Write in a conversational tone that reflects your personality.  Be authentic and relatable to build trust use AI for editing  grammar and spelling and be sure to tel the AI thats exactly and only what you want. Don't lose followers due to cynicism about the IP!

8. Optimise for LinkedIn 🔍 
Keep sentences short and easy to read remember your talking to working people who are flashing you up during a tea break or between meetings so succinct offerings can get them hooked. Then they can comeback for more meaty content when they have time! Use hashtags (e.g., #Leadership, #Marketing) to increase visibility. 

9. End with a Call to Action 📣 
Invite readers to comment, share, or message you or ask a question to spark engagement.  be clear on the goal for the content - grow audience, increase influence, make sales and let the CTA be defined by where this article sits in the funnel! Then craft the post for the article to indicate that and pre-qualify readers.

EXAMPLE - if you're looking for any accountant who understand the implications of over suing coupons and vouchers in gifting then be sure to read this article and give me a call if it creates more questions!

10. Edit and Proofread ✏️ 
Check for grammar, spelling, and flow.  Use AI for editing by passage but ensure you stipulate minimal changes to verbiage to prevent losing your voice under the GPT's homogenising influence. I have terrible tendency to get pressured into late or rapid releases on article content and it has cut me some mistakes. I counsel you to take your time create in bulk then get an independent proofer. Ask them to do the basics but also - to check you answer the questions or problems outlined fully by the conclusion. Make sure theres no unwanted open threads by their estimation! **paradoxically a partial answer can prompt engagement so seeding one or two of these can be a useful tactic. If you don't have a proofer for your article read it out loud to ensure clarity and impact. 

11. Post and Promote 🚀  
Make sure you message connections and make 5-10 comments before a big article drop you can reply boost visibility and engagement by doing so! Share your article on your profile, in Linkedin groups, with your network and to the NOW Group feed, don't be scared to ask for some support.  Always respond to comments and engage with readers ASAP this builds relationships but the speed maximise leverage via LI visibility!  

LinkedIn loves creators who inspire interaction, so crafting articles that spark conversation will help you get noticed and promoted! But don't forget the CTA, directly invite readers to engage by asking questions, seeking opinions, or encouraging them to share experiences. Promptly responding to comments is a strategic move, it builds community and strengthens connections. Another good tactic is to tag relevant individuals or companies expanding your article’s reach!

Remember in articles the principles of marketing still apply so you can use our 5 P's framework as a set and forget blueprint that will always land: 

Remember stories will always map onto minds quicker than lists and facts so using them within the article to illustrate key elements is a good option for inclusion. So wrapping the P's in a story can be another great way to think of structure for article or sections within:
Story forms (SCR)

EXAMPLE
So last week I set out to compile my understanding on writing articles. I had been writing them for years and with mixed but mostly postive outcomes. I felt I could draw out the fundamental tropes with ease with a score of articles behind me. However when I began putting together an 'Article' on 'Articles' I realised I was lacking in structure, specific focus and proper grounding of content. I had done an ok job of allowing my intuition to guide me in the flow but hadn't necessarily kept myself true to the goal of the writing and had lost impact along the way! 

A terrible shock ensued!

So I reflected and set out to pull together structures and insights across marketing, writing and story telling to produce a comprehensive but accessible read on the art and science of Linkedin article creation. I went back to my source material, the first principles if you will. I engaged with a marketing class on story forms and found new ways to interpret the key psychological phases required to manifest meaningful arcs. Delving into hours of my favoured business gurus material on content structure for conversion and found a strangely familiar and self-evidently recurrent pattern.... of course I did for stories are the original record of all learning! 

Then pulling this information together and with a boost in my verve that I could extrapolate the pertinent and potent into something that would make article writing wholly more rewarding and valuable for our members I  synthesised the knowledge into a guide!

Now we have folks churning out high brow, coherent and catchy articles meaning the whole community is building a foundation for excellence on Linkedin, myself included among them! 

As the saying goes, if you want to learn do if you want to yes your learning - teach! 

Now on to the next content adventure 

Of course using story structure doesn't require the dramatic or prose that feels more akin to a Disney plot then business Networking but it's understanding the phases that our psychology needs to process information inline with our inherent neural structures and chemistry. Another way of expressing the above is SOAR a well known pitching content structure:

This can feel more appropriate for some when thinking about story structures in professional writing, so go with what resonates!  

So there you have it, your NOW armed with some great ways to build an article piece by piece! 

At their best LinkedIn articles deliver value, share insights, experiences, and expertise, ultimately positioning you as a credible resource. You can strengthen your arguments with data, stories,
Offering walkthrough solutions to common challenges, offering actionable pathways to overcome common obstacles will leave your readers satiated but keen to come back for more! It's also profoundly important to be authentic - a little transparency about your successes and the lessons learned (fails) from challenges will help people connect with you and actually highlights your rich experience to the audience. 

LinkedIn loves creators who inspire interaction, so crafting articles that spark conversation will help you get noticed and promoted! But don't forget the CTA, directly iInvite readers to engage by asking questions, seeking opinions, or encouraging them to share experiences. Promptly responding to comments is a strategic move, it builds community and strengthens connections. Another good tactic is to tag relevant individuals or companies expanding your article’s reach!

Thanks for reading we hope this makes the article writing process more accessible and you feel confident to produce some quality content!