LinkedIn shared some best practices for CEOs writing online recently with a group of content creators including myself.

The session was part of a series of webinars that they hope will help people be more effective writing online. It was hosted by Devin Banerjee and Alexander Besant and included a presentation by Ian Cutler from the global communications team at PepsiCo.

Four pieces of advice the LinkedIn team shared about writing posts:

Be consistent
Skip the polish
Explain the “why”
Don’t wait for perfection

They are looking for “authentic” content, not highly produced or glossy pieces. It’s good to post consistently. Maybe not every day, but once or twice a week. They want insight ie “explaining the why” of what you are writing.

They encouraged executives to post more often about breaking news, such as earnings, but discouraged reposting the corporate release.

Instead, they are looking for executives to write their own posts that focus on the larger, strategic picture, not the specifics you tend to find in press releases or government filings. The posts should not feel promotional.

The best example of that genre I have seen lately was a post by Microsoft’s Satya Nadella. He wrote about earnings, but did so in a way that felt appropriate to a LinkedIn audience.

The other big learning for me was that LinkedIn are looking for executives to “stay in their lane” of expertise when contributing to the conversation.

Ian Cutler at PepsiCo provided a good example. When the company unveiled its first new logo in 25 years last October, a number of executives wrote about the event. But they did so from different perspectives. The CEO wrote about the big picture strategy while other executives wrote about the logo from the point of view of marketing, design and sustainability.

The lesson: LinkedIn doesn’t want lots of people saying the same thing.

It makes sense because the oft-employed corporate strategy of having a spate of employees “amplify” the same message is not interesting to readers.

LinkedIn is saying that everyone writing about an event should bring their own angle and perspective.

That’s going to be hard for some companies, many of which would rather distribute “talking points.”

But anytime something is hard it’s also an opportunity.

Feel free to reach out if you want help writing effectively online.