Growth & Marketing

What are the biggest mistakes founders make when they first start posting on LinkedIn?

A starting point

The classic ones: posting resume-speak instead of talking like a human, chasing engagement bait that attracts strangers who'll never buy, deleting posts that flop, and quitting after three weeks of silence. LinkedIn rewards consistency and a clear point of view far more than polish. Pick a narrow lane, write like you'd talk to one specific person, and give it months, not days.

Go deeper

Hand-picked from around the web, each with a note on why it earns your time.

3 resources 3 link-checked Watch Read Use

Watch

▶️ Video
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

Why we picked it Justin Welsh built a large solo business almost entirely off LinkedIn, so this is tactical guidance from someone who posts for a living, not a theory deck. He breaks growth into a repeatable three step loop (find a lane, write in a clear format, engage in the comments) that a founder can copy without a content team. Watch it as one workable system to start from, then adapt the voice to your own company and market.

How to grow on LinkedIn with this 3 step system

On YouTube (Justin Welsh) by Justin Welsh

How to grow on LinkedIn with this 3 step system
  • Pick a narrow lane and post to it consistently. A scattered feed reads as noise and never compounds.
  • Format is a multiplier: a strong hook and scannable structure decide whether a good idea gets read at all.
  • Commenting on other people's posts is half the strategy, not an afterthought. Reach on LinkedIn is earned in the comments as much as in your own posts.
Watch on YouTube youtube.com →

Read

📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Beginner

Why we picked it This is a plain, numbered checklist of the exact errors most founders repeat in their first weeks of posting: pitching the product in every post, weak opening lines, pasting external links, and posting too rarely to build any momentum. It reads fast and you can self audit against it in ten minutes, which is what a beginner actually needs before their next post. It is a vendor blog, so treat the tool nudges at the end as a starting point, not gospel.

The 9 Most Common Content Mistakes on LinkedIn That Founders Should Avoid

From DotSimple by DotSimple

  • The first post rarely fails on the idea, it fails on the hook. A flat opening line means almost no one reads the rest.
  • Turning every post into a sales pitch or an external link dump is the fastest way to get buried, both by readers and by the algorithm.
  • Consistency beats one viral swing. Posting once and waiting for lift, then giving up, is the mistake underneath most of the others.
Open dotsimple.io →

Use

🛠️ Tool
✓ Link checked Freemium Beginner

Why we picked it Founders guess at what worked because LinkedIn's own numbers are thin and vanish quickly. AuthoredUp keeps a history of your posts and shows impressions, engagement, and which hooks and formats actually landed, so you can stop posting on vibes and repeat what works. We picked it over the better known Shield on purpose, since Shield is winding down after platform data limits, whereas AuthoredUp is live, has a free tier, and doubles as a writing and formatting editor.

AuthoredUp: LinkedIn post analytics and formatting for creators

From AuthoredUp by AuthoredUp

  • It archives your post history and surfaces per post impressions and engagement, so you can see patterns instead of guessing.
  • Hook and readability analysis tell you why a post landed or flopped, which is where most beginners are flying blind.
  • There is a free tier to start, and it combines analytics with a formatting editor so drafting and measuring live in one place.
Open authoredup.com →

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