Article, post, newsletter or document?
LinkedIn gives you four ways to publish an idea. The right one depends on how much room the idea needs and how people will read it.
| If you want to… | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Share one idea people can read right in the feed | A post | No click needed, quick to react to |
| Explain something in depth, with headings, links and images | An article | Room for structure, its own page |
| Publish a series on a schedule for subscribers | A newsletter | Subscribers are told about each new issue |
| Walk through steps visually, one idea per page | A document post | Swipeable pages in the feed |
Most people who publish regularly use posts every week and save articles for the occasional piece that needs depth: a detailed how-to, a case study with several parts, or an argument that does not fit in a few paragraphs.
How an article works
You write it in LinkedIn’s article editor. It gets a headline, a cover image and a body that can include headings, links, images and embedded media. Once published, it has its own web page and shows up in the activity section of your profile.
LinkedIn also shares it to your network as a feed item, with the title and cover image as the preview. Because each article has a public page, it can appear in search engine results too, which a regular post is less likely to do.
The trade-off is the click
A post is read in the feed. An article asks people to click through first, and many feed browsers do not. That is the main reason an article rarely spreads on its own. It needs a companion post that gives readers a reason to open it.
A companion post might look like this (an example, not a real article):
Most onboarding docs are written for the company, not the new hire.
We rewrote ours from scratch. The article has the three documents we kept, the seven we cut, and the first-week schedule we use now.
If you only read one section, make it the schedule.
The post makes one point on its own and tells readers exactly what the article adds.
Writing an article people finish
- Pick a topic that needs depth. If you can say it well in a post, write a post.
- Write a headline that promises one specific thing. Specific beats clever.
- Open with the problem or the answer. Readers decide in the first paragraph whether to stay.
- Use headings and short paragraphs so people can skim before they commit.
- Choose a cover image that fits the topic, since it is the main visual in the feed preview.
Articles stay attached to your profile, so a strong one keeps working as a sample of your thinking for recruiters and potential clients long after the feed has moved on. The LinkedIn personal branding guide shows how they fit a wider plan.
For the companion post, start with a strong first line from the free Hook Generator, then draft the rest with the Post Generator or follow how to write a LinkedIn post.