Write like you talk, format so it's read

Write like you talk, format so it's read

LinkedIn is not a place for the corporate voice. The posts that land sound like a smart person talking to one other person across a table. The moment your writing puts on a suit, readers feel the distance and scroll past. Authority on this platform is built in a human voice, not a brand voice.

Write the way you would explain the idea to a colleague you respect. Short sentences when the point is sharp. A longer one when you are walking someone through a nuance. Contractions, opinions, the occasional aside. The goal is that a reader hears a person, because people trust people and tune out institutions.

Format matters as much as voice, because the feed is brutal. A wall of text gets skipped on sight. The first line decides whether anyone reads the rest, so it has to earn the click on "see more" without being a cheap cliffhanger. Then short paragraphs, generous white space, and one idea per line of thought, so a reader on a phone can move through it without friction.

This is not about gimmicks. The broetry style of one-line-per-paragraph with a hook and a payoff has been copied to death, and readers now smell the formula. The durable version is simpler: be genuinely interesting, then format so the interesting thing is easy to read. Substance first, layout second, formula never.

Read every post aloud before you publish. If it sounds like a person you would want to listen to, it will read like one. If it sounds like a press release, rewrite it until it does not.

INTERVIEW EWOUD: What is your own writing process for a LinkedIn post, from raw idea to published? Any specific rule of thumb you use on hooks or first lines?