# 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 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.
- 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.