Imagine for a moment, you are a prospect or business looking for a new provider. You’re trawling LinkedIn looking for someone that fits your requirements. You’ve found a few people who look promising, but the problem is you don’t know whether or not you can trust them. One of your options is producing content on a regular basis, but none of it really shows their depth of knowledge. The other has a selection of documents that showcase their expertise. Who do you go for? Unless you have a personal relationship with option one, you’ll probably choose option two. Why is this? What does two have that one does not, and why is it so important on LinkedIn?
Documents and positioning
Option 2 is the better choice for one reason: positioning. The right positioning can extend your reach, and connect you with more of the right people. This can then, in turn, generate more revenue. Positioning is achieved through sharing the right content in the right way.
This content needs to demonstrate your knowledge and credibility, and make it clear to your prospects why they should chose you over your competitors. Even though option one was sharing content, it was all surface level. None of it served as a showcase of expertise.
Option two, on the other hand, had a roster of documents to demonstrate their depth of knowledge. These documents help to build trust between you and your prospects, and position you as a credible source of information. But what should you share as a document that will build credibility?
What makes a good document post?
The beauty of document posts is that you can share anything you like, as long as it’s in PDF form. This means that they’re an incredibly versatile content type, and you can tailor your strategy to your industry.
Let’s say you want to share some information on the latest industry trends or best practices. This information by itself could be a little dry, so a document post could be an excellent way to present it in a more engaging medium. Maybe you want to share the salient points from a recent blog post, but you know that sharing external links on LinkedIn leads to low engagement. A document is a great way around this.
Let’s take a look at a few examples.
In the above document, we’ve taken all the most important points of this blog post, and repackaged them in a more engaging way. The document has been structured and designed to support the information in the text, whilst minimizing the amount of text your prospect has to read. This makes the key actionable points easier to access, and thusly easier to implement.
This document accomplishes something similar, taking the key learnings from a list in another blog post, and presenting them in an easier to digest format.
The great thing about documents is the versatility. You can post a variety of content. Take this example from Gary V. It takes a completely different approach to the previous documents, whilst maintaining high levels of engagement.
Document making tools
There are a number of excellent free online services that you can use to create engaging documents. The one that we use at Yenox most often is Canva. You can also use any of the Microsoft office suite, and just save your document as a PDF.
How to post a document
Posting a document on LinkedIn is as easy as making a text or image post. Just click start a post.
Then click the document icon.
The document icon is right next to the video icon in the above image.
Click choose file to select a document from your computer. Select the file that you want to upload (choose one), then add a title to your document.
Add a description to the post with relevant hashtags and mentions, and then that’s it. Your document will be out there, and you’ll be on your way to building credibility, and positioning yourself as the go-to authority in your industry.
The compound effect
Documents are a great way to build authority and credibility on LinkedIn. Using a free service such as Canva, or even Microsoft Office, you can design engaging documents that make your value proposition clear, and demonstrate why you should be chosen over your competitors. Over time, building a repository of knowledge in document form will showcase your expertise to any prospects who may be looking for new partners and suppliers. With this you’ll be able to position yourself as the leader in your industry, connect with more prospects, and generate more revenue!
