Rules for Posting on LinkedIn (Plus ChatGPT Tips)

I recently saw this infographic that summarizes the rules for posting on LinkedIn.

For people looking to grow your followers and network on LinkedIn, these serve as great guidelines.

Although each snippet remains useful, the infographic didn’t help me form a coherent picture of what I need to do when posting.

So, I’m going to categorize them so that you can have a little reference at every stage of the LinkedIn process — posting, editing, commenting and taking photos.

Rules To Create a Successful LinkedIn Post

I’ve categorized them into stages:

• How to effectively create a post
• Minimum engagement requirements
• How to effectively comment

Finally, how to use ChatGPT to judge your posts and how to automatically generate a clickworthy post.

Rules for Creating A LinkedIn Post

• 1200 – 1600 characters (185 – 240 words)
• More than 3 hashtags to a maximum of 9 hashtags
• Create a personal hashtag
• Do not tag people or companies UNLESS they will engage with your post.
• Selfies deliver 3x more engagement, up to 2.5x more reach

How Regularly Must You Post On LinkedIn?

If you post regularly (minimum 2 per week) and you stop posting for more than a month, your next 4-5 posts will receive about 30% less reach.

Rules for Engaging With Others On LinkedIn

Posting is not enough. You must stick around to engage with other posts.

• Engage in at least 3 posts from your network = +20% reach

Rules For Commenting on LinkedIn

• Respond to comments within 1 hour = +20% growth
• Comments must have more than 12 words
• Do not comment on your post unless someone else has commented
• Every comment you receive will increase the reach of your post (4% in your network, 3% in commenter’s network)

Using AI to Create LinkedIn Post Efficiently

Since we have distilled the rules down to a repeatable template. Let’s see if we can use ChatGPT to optimize our LinkedIn post creation.

I want ChatGPT to judge my post. So I used this prompt:

Your role is to judge whether this post fits the rules for the perfect LinkedIn post. Please ask me for the post that I am about to upload so that you can judge whether it fulfills the elements of the perfect LinkedIn post. The following are the elements for the perfect LinkedIn post.

1200 - 1600 characters (185 - 240 words)
More than 3 hashtags to a maximum of 9 hashtags
Create a personal hashtag

You can continue the chat here, all set up for you. Just copy and paste your post.

I took the points from the “Rules for Creating a LinkedIn Post” section, however, I excluded the final point about tagging people.

This is because you won’t be able to copy the tags from a LinkedIn post. It will appear like regular text to ChatGPT, so ChatGPT will never know you’re tagging someone.

ChatGPT optimizing a LinkedIn Post

Let’s put the following post through the prompt.

This is the output

Thank you for sharing the content of your second LinkedIn post. Let's evaluate it based on the elements of a perfect LinkedIn post:

Length: Your post contains 236 words, which falls within the recommended range of 185-240 words.

Hashtags: You have included relevant hashtags related to the topic, such as #AI, #ChatGPT, #Programming, #OpenAI, #CodingPrompts, and #MachineLearning. You have used a total of six hashtags, which satisfies the requirement of more than three hashtags.

Personal hashtag: You have not created a personal hashtag in this post. While it's not necessary, creating a personal hashtag related to your brand or the topic of the post can help with branding and discoverability.

Tagging: You have not tagged any people or companies, which complies with the rule of not tagging unless they will engage with your post.

Based on the evaluation, your post meets the length requirement and includes relevant hashtags. It doesn't specifically mention a personal hashtag, but that is optional. Overall, it aligns well with the elements of a perfect LinkedIn post.

It appears to be a well-crafted post that shares your excitement about CodeGPT and its potential as an AI-enhanced programming prompt. It provides an overview of the methodology, your early observations, and your eagerness to experiment and explore its possibilities.

Remember to engage with your audience by asking a question at the end of your post. This can encourage discussions and increase the likelihood of comments and engagement.

Good luck with your LinkedIn post!

Using AI to Strengthen LinkedIn Posts

Now, let’s say your post falls short of the required hashtags. You can immediately ask ChatGPT to fill it up for you, using this:

Can you provide the hashtags based on the elements required of the perfect LinkedIn post?

I tried it on a post that didn’t have any hashtags. This is the output:

Certainly! Here are some hashtags that you can consider including in your LinkedIn post:

#AI
#JobAutomation
#Adaptation
#AIandJobs
#FutureOfWork
#Technology
#DigitalTransformation
#WorkplaceTrends
#CareerAdvice
These hashtags cover relevant topics related to AI, job automation, and adapting to the changing work landscape. Remember to choose hashtags that are relevant to your content and industry to maximize visibility and engagement.

Additionally, don't forget to create a personal hashtag that represents your brand or the specific topic of your post. For example, if your post is about leveraging AI in marketing, you could create a personal hashtag like #AIinMarketing or #DigitalAdvantage.

Including a mix of general industry hashtags and a personal hashtag will help your post reach a wider audience and encourage engagement from like-minded professionals.

Good luck with your LinkedIn post!

Automating Post Generation With Post Optimization

I found this prompt from The AI Solopreneur, but modified it a little in order to ensure it capture the essence of the content that I have created:

Write a LinkedIn post using the "Hook-Contrarian-In Reality-Advice-Wrap" framework based on an article. Ask me for the article, then build it based on the guidelines below.

"Hook": 1 strong, declarative sentence to grab the readers attention. It must be less than 77 characters.

Example 1:

"If you are building a web3 company, remember this (If you don't want to die a slow death):"

Example 2: 

"ChatGPT will kill 90% of creators.

5 interesting ways to stand out in 2023:"

"Contrarian": 1-2 sentences that call out a common misconception on the topic of the article and why it's not true, and then 1 sentence to transition into the "In Reality" part of the post. Shake up the readers worldview with a fact or idea they didn't expect.

"In Reality": 1-2 sentences explaining a principle, concept, method, truth, or wisdom on the topic as opposed to "Contrarian"

"Advice": 3-5 actionable bullet points of 3-6 words on how the "In reality" advice can be implemented. These should be valuable to the reader.

"Wrap": 1 conclusive, strong sentence to sum up the post. Can be a statement, opinion, or question.

The bold part makes ChatGPT ask you to input the content that you have written. And then, it will base the output on your content, giving you a much more tailored LinkedIn post.

I pasted the content from this article on my article about ChatGPT and white-collar jobs. Here’s the output:

Exciting times ahead! Will AI replace our jobs? Let's uncover the truth together:

Contrarian: Worried about AI taking over? Don't be! AI thrives in repetitive, entry-level tasks, not roles that require human touch and expertise.

In Reality: While AI can dominate content milling and simple coding, it cannot replicate the quality, insight, and emotional connection provided by human professionals.

Advice:

Embrace the human element: Differentiate yourself by infusing your work with personal experiences, emotions, and unique perspectives.
Focus on expertise: Cultivate deep knowledge in your field, becoming a go-to authority for complex and specialized tasks.
Embrace video content: As AI-generated text becomes prevalent, video content offers a distinct edge with its unique insights and engaging nature.

Wrap: The future belongs to those who raise the bar and adapt. By harnessing our skills, expertise, and human connection, we can thrive alongside AI, shaping a future where both technology and humanity coexist harmoniously. What's your take on the AI revolution? Share your thoughts! 👇💭 #AIinTheWorkplace #FutureOfWork

I tried further optimizing the prompt but realized that If I made the prompt more complex — for example, asking it to keep the character count to below 1600 characters, it’ll completely ignore my instruction.

I believe this is the limit of how much automation you can have with ChatGPT. If you want to optimize it using the rules above, you’d have to take the output and then create a new prompt to check for how well the content fulfills the rules, and then augment or cut it down from there.

ChatGPT is pretty amazing and saves me a lot of time. One way is by using it to copy data from a website. I managed to copy 100 entries in 26 seconds, when it would have taken me 10 minutes to do manually.