LinkedIn post templates that do not read like templates

A good LinkedIn post template is a shape, a short sequence of slots you fill with something only you know. The ten below are grouped by the four kinds of post that hold up over a year of posting: frameworks, data, receipts and findings. Each one comes with a filled example from a believable small business, so you can see the slots with real material in them.

One warning before the templates. Readers have seen thousands of posts built from the same scaffolding, and they recognise it in a line. The template is for you, while you draft. By the time the post goes out, nobody should be able to see it.

How to use a template without sounding like one

• Fill every slot with a specific: a name, a number, a date, a place. A template filled with generalities is the post everyone has already scrolled past.
• Delete the connecting phrases once the draft works. 'Here is what I learned' and 'Let me explain' are scaffolding.
• Break the order when the material asks for it. If the result is the most interesting part, it goes first, whatever the template says.
• If you cannot fill a slot honestly, do not write the post yet. An empty slot means you need a fact, not better wording.

Framework templates

A framework is a method the reader can apply, in named steps, in an order that matters. It has to come from something you have done more than once. If the steps would fit any company, it is a listicle wearing a framework's clothes.

Template 1: the ordered method.

• Line 1: the task, and who it is for.
• Line 2: how many times you have done it, or for whom.
• Steps: three to five, each with a name and one sentence on why it comes in that order.
• Close: the step people skip, and what skipping it costs.

Filled: 'Four checks Harbour Bookkeeping runs before a client's first VAT return. Drawn from 60 first returns filed since 2023. Match the bank feed to the invoices first. Confirm the registration date. List every foreign supplier. Book a ten minute call before filing. Most clients want to skip the call. It is where the missing invoices turn up.'

Template 2: the three questions.

• Line 1: the decision the reader is about to make.
• Questions: three, each one something you ask clients, with the answer that should worry them.
• Close: what to do if two of the three answers are the worrying ones.

Filled: 'Three questions Northside Studio asks before quoting a website rebuild. Who updates the site today? If the answer is nobody, a new site will not change that. Which pages brought an enquiry last year? If nobody knows, measure first. What has to launch by a date? If everything does, the scope is wrong.'

Template 3: the checklist with a reason per line.

• Line 1: the moment the checklist is for.
• Items: five or six, each with a clause on what goes wrong without it.
• Close: the one item that caught the most problems.

Filled: 'The checklist Fernhill Physio uses before a new clinic opens online booking. Test the confirmation email on a phone. Set a buffer between appointments. Block bank holidays a year out. Name a person who reads the cancellations inbox. The buffer caught more problems than the other three combined.'

Data templates

A data post takes one fact from outside your business and says what it means for your reader. Name the source exactly: the organisation, the document, the year. If you cannot name it, do not write the post.

Template 4: the public number and its consequence.

• Line 1: the number, with its source and date.
• Line 2: who it affects.
• Body: what that person should do differently this month.
• Close: where to check the figure yourself.

Filled: 'The UK VAT registration threshold rose to 90,000 GBP on 1 April 2024, per HMRC. For a sole trader billing around 7,000 GBP a month, that is the difference between registering this year and next. Harbour Bookkeeping now checks rolling 12 month turnover at every quarter end instead of once a year. The threshold is on gov.uk.'

Template 5: the number that has not moved.

• Line 1: a figure people assume has changed, and the date it was last set.
• Body: what has changed around it.
• Close: the decision that follows for your reader.

Filled: 'The US federal minimum wage has been 7.25 USD an hour since July 2009, per the Department of Labor. Many states and cities set their own, higher rates. Shiftwise, a payroll service for restaurants with sites in several states, sets pay per location for that reason and never from the federal figure.'

Receipt templates

A receipt is a number from your own business. It is credible because it is yours, so the number must be real. If you do not have it yet, leave the slot empty and go and get it.

Template 6: before, change, after.

• Line 1: the after, as a number.
• Line 2: the before, same unit, same period length.
• Body: the one change in between, described closely enough to copy.
• Close: what the change cost, in time or money.

Filled: 'Northside Studio's proposals took 3 days to turn around in June. In August they took 1. The change: a fixed menu of four packages, so a proposal is a choice rather than a document. It cost two afternoons to write the menu and one client who wanted something off it.'

Template 7: the count.

• Line 1: how many of something it took.
• Body: what the first few looked like against the last few.
• Close: what you would do from number one if you started again.

Filled: 'It took Fernhill Physio 41 calls to local GP practices to get the first 5 referral agreements. The first 20 calls asked for referrals. The last 21 offered a free assessment slot each week. Starting again, the clinic would open with the slot.'

Template 8: the cost of a mistake.

• Line 1: what it cost, in a number.
• Line 2: what the decision was.
• Body: the signal that was visible at the time.
• Close: the rule the business follows now.

Filled: 'Shiftwise spent 4 months building a scheduling feature that 3 customers used. It was the most requested item on the roadmap. The signal was there: every request came from a sales call, none from a support ticket. The rule now is that nothing gets built from sales call requests alone.'

Finding templates

A finding is something you found out and can point to. It often contradicts what you expected, which is what makes it worth reading.

Template 9: expected, found.

• Line 1: what you expected, in one sentence.
• Line 2: what you found instead, and how you found it.
• Close: what you changed because of it.

Filled: 'Harbour Bookkeeping expected clients to leave over price. Reading the last 12 exit emails, 9 of them mentioned a missed deadline and none mentioned price. The firm now sends a deadline calendar in the first week of every engagement.'

Template 10: the pattern across clients.

• Line 1: how many cases you looked at.
• Line 2: the pattern.
• Body: one case that shows it clearly.
• Close: the exception, because there always is one.

Filled: 'Northside Studio looked at the last 15 site launches. The ones that went live on time all had final copy before design started. One launched on time without it, because the client wrote every page during the design review. That client was a copywriter.'

Templates to avoid

• The one-line opener followed by a blank line and 'Here's why.' Readers see the scaffolding before the subject.
• The humble brag framed as a lesson. 'I was nervous to share this, but we hit seven figures.'
• The list of ten tips with no source for any of them.

How GoodSocials handles this

GoodSocials decides each idea's kind, framework, data, receipt or finding, before any text is written, and most of each batch is frameworks, data and receipts. When a receipt needs a number only you have, the card names it and the draft leaves a bracketed gap until you supply it in a revise comment. A quality check holds any draft with an invented number before it can be scheduled.