LinkedIn surveyed more than 9,000 members around the world to learn how people engage with content to further their careers, find jobs, or make purchasing decisions. Here are the four main takeaways from the study:

• Every generation prefers different types of content
• Thought leadership and company culture insights boost talent brand
• Short, inspirational content is most engaging
• Professionals look to their peers for recommendations

• Relevant information – the basis of your content strategy. Find out what your audience wants to read, and cover those topics in order to capture their attention. Don’t stop with industry insights. Be opinionated, provoke debate, ask challenging questions, be human!
• Teach your audience how to do something – practical tips are a valuable content type. It's a good way to be perceived as selfless and provide value to your audience
• Inspire others – people want to be inspired. What could be better than helping someone to reach their potential and be great in what they do
• Entertain people – use a mix of original and curated content to entertain your audience, but keep in mind that your ‘fun’ content should not contradict your values or brand DNA
• Present your content in a visually attractive way - like it or not, books are still judged by their covers. It’s even more true in the digital world where people will skip your content if it doesn’t catch their eye

DO

• Spark emotion - publish articles on LinkedIn that make people feel something! (Studies reveal that emotional campaigns can outperform rational ones by a whopping 100%)
• Make a genuine effort to bring value to the connections you already have on LinkedIn - like any social setting, listening to and supporting others is the key to connecting with them
• Build professional relationships - spend a few minutes each day reading and commenting on other people’s content. (Share posts you like to your feed).
• Respond to people who comment on your posts!
• Add hashtags - this will helps surface your article to members who may find it relevant. Hashtags act as keywords that help people know what kind of article you've written. (You can add hashtags to the commentary about your article before you publish)

DON'T

• Make posts too formal and impersonal - Your audience consists of individuals, not institutions
• Ignore people who comment on your posts!
• Post on weekends
• Forget to include a clear call-to-action
• Forget that short, inspirational content can sometimes be the most engaging
• Try and talk to everyone - know your audience and speak directly to them
• Let great content expire - sparingly re-share your top performing posts from the past. Due to social media algorithms, it’s likely that only a very small percentage  of your followers have seen your posts in their LinkedIn feed

This is just a snippet of LinkedIn learning but hopefully it's a helpful reference. There's more on our free guides page and if you're on LinkedIn, we'd love to connect via the Brandable & Co. company page

If you would like to optimise your LinkedIn profile, check out our 3-part 'Improve your LinkedIn profile' series of free guides which will give you 30 tips that can each be done in under 5 minutes a day