LinkedIn hides everything after the first two or three lines behind “see more,” and the click to expand is a real decision people make in about a second. That makes the opening line the entire post as far as reach is concerned. Everything else is for people who already decided to stay.
The other thing worth knowing: LinkedIn is a professional feed, so the honest specific line beats the inspirational one. People can tell when a post is a story invented to carry a lesson.
Openers for lessons and mistakes
- I got this wrong for three years and nobody corrected me.
- We lost a client last month. Here is what actually happened.
- The advice I keep giving juniors is the advice I ignored.
- I was the bottleneck. It took me too long to see it.
- Our first version of this was bad in a specific, fixable way.
- The mistake was not the decision, it was how long we defended it.
- I said yes to too much and the work got worse.
Hiring and jobs
- We are hiring a designer, and here is what the first 90 days looks like.
- The role is remote, the salary is in the ad, and the process is three steps.
- I have read 200 applications this month. Two things stood out.
- If you were laid off this week, send me your CV and I will read it properly.
- We closed the role. Thank you to everyone who applied, all of you got a reply.
- Starting Monday at a new company, and I am going to say why I chose it.
Launches and company news
- We shipped the thing we have been quiet about since March.
- Small update, big consequence for anyone using the API.
- Two years, four rewrites, one launch.
- We raised, and here is what changes and what does not.
- Opened the second office this week, which felt further away than it was.
- The feature customers asked for most is live today.
Industry opinion
- The standard advice here is wrong for small teams.
- Everyone benchmarks this metric and almost nobody acts on it.
- I disagree with the popular take, and I have run this both ways.
- We tried the thing everyone recommends. It cost us six weeks.
- This tool is fine. The process around it is the problem.
Personal news and milestones
- Ten years at the same company, which was not the plan.
- I left a job I liked, on purpose, and it was the right call.
- Finished the qualification I started before my daughter was born.
- Today is my last day. Here is what I am taking with me.
- First week in a new industry and I understand nothing yet.
Data and results
- We changed one thing in onboarding and support tickets dropped noticeably.
- Here are the actual numbers behind that case study.
- Six months of testing, and the boring option won.
- The experiment failed. Publishing it anyway.
Short openers that earn the expand
- Short post, unpopular opinion.
- This is going to annoy some people.
- I have been sitting on this for a month.
- Three sentences, one point.
- No lesson at the end of this one.
- I do not have a tidy conclusion.
- Something I only just understood.
- One number, and what it means.
Asking your network for something
- I am looking for an introduction to anyone working in this field.
- We need a supplier for this and I would rather ask people than search.
- If you have hired for this role, I would like ten minutes of your time.
- Recommendations wanted: who does this well and is worth the money.
- I am writing about this topic and want to talk to five practitioners.
Writing your own
Write the post, then delete the first paragraph. The real opening is almost always the second thing you wrote, because the first is throat clearing. Put a specific fact in the first line: a number, a name, a timeframe. Vague opinions do not earn an expand and specifics do. Keep the paragraphs to one or two sentences with line breaks between them, since LinkedIn renders dense text badly on mobile. End with a question only when you will reply to every comment for the first hour, because that hour is where most of the reach is decided. Avoid the manufactured story with a business lesson stapled on; people recognize the shape now and it reads as performance. A LinkedIn post generator is useful for getting a draft you can then cut down.
For checking where the see more line falls on a long post, the caption length checker gives you the cut point.