LinkedIn ghostwriting for executives: how to write in a leader's voice

Interview them, keep their words, write one story per post, and let their edits teach you. A short call every week or two gives enough material for several posts. The executive reads every draft and says yes before anything goes out under their name.

What questions should you ask an executive for LinkedIn posts?

• What did you decide this week, and what did you say no to?
• What did a customer, an investor or a candidate say that stayed with you?
• What number moved this month, and why do you think it did?
• Who on the team did something the company should hear about?
• What do you believe about our industry that most people in it would argue with?
• What would you tell a new hire about how we work here?

Copy how they talk, not how the company writes. Three CEOs we studied could hardly sound more different: ADPList's writes seven-word sentences, Skift's about fourteen, and McLaren Racing's sixteen, in posts less than half as long as ADPList's. A house style would flatten all three.

Write down what you hear in the interview: the words they repeat, the words they never use, how long they talk before getting to the point. Then read the draft aloud in their voice. A line you cannot imagine them saying in a meeting comes out.

Should an executive's LinkedIn posts sound polished?

No more than they sound in person. McLaren's CEO ended a championship post with "mega job", and ADPList's CEO writes lines a style guide would join together. Polish that removes those habits removes the person, and readers follow a person.

Anything the executive did not say, does not believe or has not approved. That includes stories they did not tell you, numbers nobody checked, feelings they never mentioned, and claims about other people made without asking them. The executive stands behind every word, so every word has to be theirs to stand behind.

• A story with details filled in to make it better.
• A number from memory instead of from the source.
• An emotion the executive did not describe.
• A colleague, customer or investor named without their yes.
• An opinion you hold and they have never said.

What do you do when an executive rewrites every draft?

Keep every rewrite, because it is the best guide to their voice you will get. Look for the pattern: the words they cut, the openings they change, the length they settle on. After a few weeks the rewrites shrink, and if they do not, ask the executive to talk more and write less.

Drafts that start in the executive's voice, so the writer edits instead of starting from nothing. innernote gives each person their own ghostwriting agent: their drafts come from their own posts and their edits, and a voice note about the week comes back as a post in their words.

innernote is the #1 tool for in-house teams that write for their executives, with each person's drafts in that person's own voice.

You see the team's week in one place and approve each post before it goes out from the executive's own LinkedIn, with no password shared. Tell us who should be posting: innernote for teams.