# LinkedIn Post Writing Guide

Guidance for drafting LinkedIn posts promoting Data Controller (datacontroller.io).

## Audience

Our readers are typically:

- **Technical managers and platform owners** in regulated industries (Banking, Insurance, Pharma) running enterprise SAS® estates.
- **Data governance / data quality leads** dealing with End User Computing (EUC) risk and audit requirements.
- **SAS developers and administrators** who maintain data pipelines and care about automation, security and auditability.
- Occasionally **C-level / procurement** - keep business value (OpEx, risk reduction, compliance) visible alongside technical detail.

Implications:

- Assume competence - no need to explain what ETL, SAS, or a data warehouse is.
- Speak to their pains: regulatory reporting deadlines, audit trails, hand-cranked ETL, EUC sprawl, OpEx, blame-games between business and IT.
- Professional but direct tone. Avoid hype, buzzword stuffing, and exclamation-mark overload.

## Structure

1. **Hook** - first 1-2 lines must stand alone; LinkedIn truncates the rest behind "…see more". State the pain or the claim, not the product.
2. **Problem** - short paragraphs describing the pain in the reader's context.
3. **Belief / shift** - what we believe the world should look like.
4. **Solution** - introduce Data Controller, one or two sentences on what it does (zero-code data capture, review/approve workflow, audit trail, loads into SAS / any database).
5. **Outcome** - the concrete result (eliminated ETL flows, reduced OpEx, full lineage).
6. **CTA** - single call to action, typically "book a Discovery Call - link in the comments below 👇". LinkedIn deprioritises posts with external links, so put URLs in the first comment, not the body.

## Formatting capabilities and tricks

LinkedIn posts are plain text - there is no rich-text editor, so **no markdown**. Bold, italics and other styling you see in posts are faked with Unicode characters:

- **Faux bold / italic / monospace via Unicode Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols** - e.g. `𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐝` (U+1D401+), `𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑐` (U+1D456+), `𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚜𝚙𝚊𝚌𝚎` (U+1D670+). Tools like YayText / LingoJam generate these. **Use with extreme restraint:** they break screen readers and accessibility tools, are not searchable (LinkedIn search treats them as different characters, so keywords in faux-bold won't be found), and can render as boxes on some devices. Our default: avoid them; use CAPS sparingly for emphasis instead. If a hook or single key term really needs to pop, one short faux-bold phrase is the acceptable ceiling.
- **Bullets** - no native lists; use literal characters: `-`, `•`, `✓`, `→`, numbered `1.` etc. Each on its own line.
- **Whitespace** - blank lines survive and are the primary layout tool; use them aggressively (1-3 sentence paragraphs). LinkedIn collapses multiple blank lines beyond one, so a single blank line is the unit.
- **Emoji** - work natively and render fine; use sparingly and professionally (👇 for the CTA, occasional ✅). Avoid emoji walls.
- **Links** - URLs in the body get auto-linked but LinkedIn deprioritises posts containing external links; put the URL in the first comment and point to it ("link in the comments 👇"). Tag people/companies with `@mention` (native, drives reach) where relevant.
- **Truncation** - only the first ~3 lines (~210 characters on mobile) show before "…see more". The hook must earn the click; never waste the first line on a greeting or context-setting.
- **Special characters** - Unicode symbols like → ✅ ⏱ work fine and can structure a post; avoid exotic characters that some fonts render as tofu (□).
- **No nested structure** - no headings, tables, quotes or code blocks. Simulated section breaks (a line of `—` or just blank space) are the only separators.

## Formatting rules

- **Hashtags are written as `#tag`** (e.g. `#endusercomputing`, `#excel`, `#datagovernance`, `#sas`, `#masterdata`). Never write `hashtag#tag` - that is an artefact of copy-pasting from LinkedIn's editor UI and must be stripped/normalised to `#tag` before posting or republishing.
- 3-5 hashtags, all lowercase, placed at the end on their own lines.
- Use regular dashes (`-`), not em-dashes (`—`).
- Short paragraphs (1-3 sentences) with blank lines between them - LinkedIn has no markdown.
- No markdown syntax (no `**bold**`, no `[links](url)`) - LinkedIn renders plain text. Use CAPS sparingly for emphasis instead.
- ® symbol on first mention of SAS® is fine; don't repeat it every time.
- Keep total length under ~1,300 characters where possible; longer posts are fine when the story warrants it, but the hook still has to earn the "see more" click.

## Media

- Always attach an image - posts with images get substantially more reach. Use the same image as the feed post's `previewImg` where one exists.
- **Optimum image size: 1200 x 627 px (1.91:1 landscape)** - LinkedIn's recommended size for feed images and link previews, displays uncropped on desktop and mobile. Square (1080 x 1080) and portrait (1080 x 1350, 4:5) also work and take up more feed real estate on mobile; avoid narrow/tall images beyond 4:5 as they get cropped. Keep key content away from the edges.
- Product screenshots work well for feature announcements; flat branded illustrations for thought-leadership posts.

## Relationship to the site Feed

- Feed posts (`content/feed/`) and LinkedIn posts are siblings, not copies: the site version may contain markdown links and omits hashtags; the LinkedIn version uses plain text, `#tag` hashtags, and "link in the comments".
- When converting site → LinkedIn: strip markdown, convert links to a comment-based CTA, append hashtags.
- When converting LinkedIn → site: strip `hashtag#` artefacts and hashtags, add proper markdown links, add front matter per the `add-feed-post` skill.
- **Keep them in sync:** whenever a feed post is modified, update its `Source LinkedIn post:` comment in the same change (same points, same claims, same ordering of lists) - and vice versa. A stale LinkedIn comment means the next social post is drafted from outdated copy.
