How to format a LinkedIn post

The five rules that matter

1. Write the hook last. Once the post is written you know the single most interesting thing in it. Put that first, in under 70 characters. Stuck? Try the hook generator.
2. Break after the hook. A line break after the first line makes it stand alone above the fold. Check where yours lands in the post preview.
3. One idea per paragraph. On a phone, a four-line paragraph fills the screen. Aim for one to three lines and a blank line between.
4. Use formatting as signposts. Bold a key phrase or list label, not sentences. Lists work for three to seven parallel items.
5. End with a real question. Ask about the reader’s experience, not for “thoughts”. Comments early in a post’s life help it travel.

Line breaks, spacing and pasting

LinkedIn keeps the line breaks you type in its composer. Problems happen when you paste from Word, Google Docs or Notion: they can add trailing spaces, non-breaking spaces or extra paragraph gaps. Paste your draft into the formatter, press “Tidy spacing” (it trims line ends and collapses runs of blank lines to one), then copy the clean text.

Bold, italic and lists

Posts are plain text, so bold and italic are made with Unicode look-alike characters — see the bold text generator for how and when. For lists, start lines with a symbol; the bullet points page has copyable symbols that render on every device.

Length

The hard limit is 3,000 characters. Our formatter shows the count and a reading time. Most well-performing text posts are a one-to-two-minute read; if yours is longer, check that each paragraph earns its place. Full limits for headlines, About sections and comments are on the character limit page.

Hashtags and mentions

Put three to five specific hashtags at the end rather than inside sentences. Tag people only when they are part of the story — tagging for reach tends to annoy them. The hashtag generator suggests a mix of broad and niche tags.