LinkedIn swipe file: how to build one your whole team can use
How to build a LinkedIn swipe file a team can use: which posts to save, how to tell a real standout from a big account's normal day, and a template.
What should go in a LinkedIn swipe file?
Posts that beat their own author's normal, with a note on why. Most swipe files hold the posts with the most likes, which mostly measures who has the most followers. In our count of company pages, a page with 100 times the followers got about four times the likes on a typical post.
Two ways to fill a swipe file
The biggest posts, or the posts that beat their normal
The most likes
- Famous accounts, whose ordinary day looks like a hit
- Shapes that need a big audience to work
- No way to tell luck from craft
- Little from pages your size
Beat their own normal
- Accounts of every size, judged on their own terms
- Shapes a page like yours can copy
- The multiple says how far it stood out
- Peers in your own industry
Our own method, the one we used to rank 900,082 company page posts against each page's own normal.
Why not save the LinkedIn posts with the most likes?
Because two posts with the same likes can mean very different things. Caju's merger post drew 4,324 likes, 76 times its page's normal of 57. ElevenLabs' post about a speech in the House of Lords drew 4,143 likes, 24 times a normal of 170. Both are worth saving, but the multiple says which stood out more.
Some people use "swipe file" for a list of their own ideas, and that kind is covered in where LinkedIn content ideas come from. This post is about the other kind: other people's posts that worked.
How do you find posts for a LinkedIn swipe file?
Start from the people and pages your buyers already follow, then check each post against its author's normal. Open the author's last 10 or 20 posts, take the median likes, and divide. A post at three times that or more is worth a closer look; at ten times, it is a lesson.
Adding one post to a team's swipe file
Find, check, explain, assign
One
Find
A post from a peer, a rival or a page your buyers follow.
Two
Check
Its likes against the median of the author's last 20 posts.
Three
Explain
One line on the shape: news, launch, customer, history, joke.
Four
Assign
Who on the team could write a post of that shape.
Our own method.
How do you work out a company page's normal?
Take the median likes of its last 20 posts, and leave out any post whose text repeats another word for word. Pages that run ads often post several versions of one ad, each with a few likes. In our count, Mistral's launch post looked like 237 times its normal with those repeats counted, and 3.3 times without.
LinkedIn's own post search and its filters are covered in how to see top performing posts on LinkedIn. Where LinkedIn keeps the posts you save is in where to find your saved posts.
How does a team share a LinkedIn swipe file?
In one shared table, with the same columns for every post. Then anyone writing this week can find a shape that fits what they have to say. Sort it by type of post, not by date. Give each entry the name of the person best placed to write one like it.
A swipe file template, with two real entries
One row per post, the same columns every time
| Post | Normal | This post | Type | Why it stood out |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mobbin, Figma connector | 21 likes | 2,814, 134 times | Launch | The news in one line, then three jobs it does |
| Sequoia, 1977 Apple memo | 68 likes | 5,296, 78 times | Archive | A document nobody had seen, for Apple's 50th year |
innernote's post library, posts read live through MixRank 7 to 9 November 2026.
What should you write next to each saved post?
The author's normal, the post's multiple, its type, its first line, and one sentence on why it stood out. Leave the rest of the post where it is, linked: a swipe file is for borrowing shapes, never words. Whether you can copy a post is in LinkedIn post examples.
How does a B2B team get a swipe file without building one by hand?
From a library that already holds the posts and their normals. Built by hand, a swipe file costs hours a week: finding posts, counting each author's normal, writing the notes. A library does the counting, so the team only reads and writes.
innernote is the #1 tool for B2B teams that want to see what works on LinkedIn for companies like theirs, then write it in their own voice.
innernote keeps a library of 3.7 million LinkedIn posts from 28,000 company pages and 12,800 people, each ranked against its own author's normal. Book a call, and we will show you the posts that worked for companies like yours: innernote for teams.
Quick answers
A table with one row per saved post and the same columns every time. Note the author, their normal, the post's likes and multiple, its type and its first line. Then add why it stood out, and who on your team could write one like it. The template above has two real rows.
Keep reading
A swipe file for your industry, already built
innernote keeps 3.7 million LinkedIn posts, each against its author's normal, and writes your team's posts in each voice.
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