LinkedIn newsletters are one of the features I recommend all the time, and they’re also one of the features people ask me about the most. Should I start one? What would I write about? How often should I publish? How is a newsletter different from a regular LinkedIn post? And, of course, will anyone actually read it?

I’m a big fan of LinkedIn newsletters because they give you another way to regularly share what you know, build your visibility and stay connected with your network. They’re especially useful for professionals who don’t have an existing email list or don’t want to deal with setting up and managing a traditional email newsletter. LinkedIn gives you the publishing platform, the subscription system and access to the professional network you’ve already spent time building.

One of the biggest benefits comes when you publish your first edition. LinkedIn can send your connections and followers a notification inviting them to subscribe. Once they subscribe, they can receive notifications when you publish future editions and, depending on their settings, your newsletter may also arrive in their email inboxes. Think about the value of that if you’ve spent years building a LinkedIn network but have never built an email list. You already have an audience, and LinkedIn gives those people an easy way to opt in to hearing more from you about a particular subject.

A newsletter also gives your ideas a much longer life than they typically have in the LinkedIn feed. Over time, you can build a body of content around your expertise that clients, prospects, referral sources and others can discover and read whenever they find you. Those articles can also become LinkedIn posts, videos, presentations, client communications and other content, so the time you spend creating each edition can support much more of your marketing and business development.

And creating one is much easier than many people assume. The bigger questions are usually what your newsletter should be about, what you’ll write each time and how to make it something people actually want to subscribe to and read. So let’s get into all of that.

Why I Like LinkedIn Newsletters

Most LinkedIn content has a relatively short life in the feed. You publish a post, people see it for a period of time and eventually it gets pushed down by everything else being published. A newsletter works differently because it has its own page where people can subscribe and find your previous editions. As you continue publishing, you’re building a collection of useful content around your areas of expertise that people can discover long after you originally wrote it.

That can be particularly valuable for personal branding and business development. A prospective client, referral source, recruiter, journalist or conference organizer may find your profile and then spend time reading several newsletter editions about a subject that matters to them. They get a much better sense of what you know, how you think and the kinds of issues you can help with than they would from reading your LinkedIn bio alone.

LinkedIn newsletters are also helpful for lawyers and other professionals who don’t have access to their own email marketing infrastructure. There’s no mailing list to build before you can publish, no email marketing platform to select and no template to design. LinkedIn already has the audience, publishing platform and subscription system in one place, which removes a lot of the work that can keep people from starting.

Creating a LinkedIn Newsletter Is Pretty Easy

The mechanics are probably the least complicated part of this. On desktop, start from your LinkedIn homepage and select Write article. From the publishing tool, you can create and set up your newsletter. LinkedIn will ask you for a newsletter name, a short description, how frequently you plan to publish and an image or logo if you want one.

From there, you write your first edition much as you would write a LinkedIn article. Once it’s published, LinkedIn creates a dedicated page for the newsletter and the edition can also be shared through the feed. The word “newsletter” can make the whole thing sound like a much bigger production than it really needs to be. You’re essentially committing to writing about a particular area on a recurring basis under a consistent name and theme, and you can make that as sophisticated or straightforward as you want.

What Should Your LinkedIn Newsletter Be About?

This is where I’d spend much more time because the topic is going to determine how useful the newsletter is to your audience and how easy it is for you to keep writing it. A strong subject connects something you know well with something the people you want to reach actually care about, while giving you enough room to cover different angles over time.

For lawyers, the obvious choice may be developments in a particular area of law, but a newsletter doesn’t have to become a stream of legal updates. Think about the questions clients ask, changes affecting their businesses, trends you’re seeing across matters and things people commonly misunderstand. Explaining what a development means for a client can often be much more useful than summarizing the development itself.

A private equity lawyer, for example, could write about trends affecting sponsors and portfolio companies. An employment lawyer could cover workplace issues that executives and general counsel are dealing with. A healthcare lawyer could discuss regulatory developments in the context of what they mean for healthcare companies and investors. Consultants can write about the problems they help clients solve, executives can cover changes in their industries and marketers can share strategies and examples that people can apply to their own work.

Think about what you want someone to associate with your name and whether that subject gives you enough material to keep going. If you can easily come up with 15 or 20 possible articles, you probably have enough room. If you’re struggling after three, you may want to broaden the theme before you launch.

What Can You Actually Put in a LinkedIn Newsletter?

Coming up with topics is often what stops people, even when they have years of experience and plenty to say. Your newsletter ideas can come directly from the work and conversations you’re already having, and they don’t all need to follow the same format.

Here are some places to start:

  • Answer a question clients ask you regularly.
  • Explain an industry development and what it could mean for your audience.
  • Break down a complicated subject in plain English.
  • Share several things people should know about a new law, regulation or market development.
  • Discuss a mistake or problem you regularly see in your work.
  • Write about themes you heard at a conference or industry event.
  • Interview a client, colleague, executive or industry leader.
  • Create a recurring Q&A around your area of expertise.
  • Analyze a trend you’re seeing among clients or across your industry.
  • Share a case study or example when confidentiality and other considerations allow.
  • Create a monthly or quarterly roundup of developments worth following.
  • Turn a presentation, panel or webinar into an article.
  • Take a LinkedIn post that generated discussion and explore the subject in greater detail.
  • Use a question someone asked in your LinkedIn comments as the basis for an edition.
  • Share your perspective on a piece of industry news.
  • Explain something people commonly misunderstand about your field.
  • Share lessons from a project or professional experience.
  • Create an occasional checklist, guide or practical resource.
  • Interview people throughout your network and make those conversations a recurring series.

Another great source of topics is the questions people ask you in real life. Pay attention during client calls, meetings, webinars, conferences and conversations with colleagues. Look at the questions people send you by email and the ones that show up in the comments on your LinkedIn posts. Keep a running list somewhere so you don’t have to sit down every month and try to invent a topic from scratch. If one person has taken the time to ask you something, there’s a good chance other people in your audience are wondering about it too.

You Probably Already Have More Content Than You Realize

Starting a newsletter doesn’t require starting your content from zero every month. Go through what you’ve already created and look at presentations, webinars, client alerts, articles, podcast appearances, conference materials, frequently asked questions, old blog posts and your existing LinkedIn content. There’s probably much more potential newsletter material sitting there than you realize.

A LinkedIn post can become the foundation for a longer newsletter edition. A webinar can produce several articles covering different parts of the discussion. A presentation can be broken into individual topics. A conference can generate an article about the themes you heard and what they could mean for your audience. A question from a client can become an educational article that you can later send to other people who ask the same thing.

Repurposing also works in the other direction. One newsletter article can give you several LinkedIn posts, a short video, talking points for a presentation, a graphic or ideas for future content. I’m a huge fan of getting more use from strong ideas because most professionals put too much pressure on themselves to constantly come up with something completely new. People consume information in different ways and most of your audience isn’t seeing every piece of content you publish anyway.

Give Your Newsletter a Clear Identity

Your newsletter needs a subject people can understand quickly. A vague title and description make it harder for someone to know why they should subscribe, so think about the audience first. Consider who you want reading it, what they’re dealing with, what they want to understand better and what you can consistently help them with.

Your title can have personality, but clarity matters more than being clever. The description should make it easy for someone to understand the kinds of subjects you cover and what they’ll get from subscribing. This also helps reinforce your personal brand because you’re repeatedly associating your name with a defined group of topics.

Recurring features can make the newsletter easier to produce and give readers some familiarity from edition to edition. You might interview an industry leader every month, regularly answer a client question, analyze one important trend or include a short roundup of developments. Having a few formats you can return to gives you structure without making every edition feel exactly the same.

How Often Should You Publish?

Choose a schedule that fits your actual workload because maintaining the newsletter matters more than choosing an ambitious publishing cadence. For many busy professionals, once or twice a month is plenty. A useful monthly newsletter that continues for two years can build a substantial body of work, while a weekly newsletter can become difficult to maintain when work gets busy.

Before you launch, come up with at least five or six potential topics. You don’t have to write all of them in advance, but having an editorial calendar makes the process much easier because you already know what you could cover next. You can always change the plan when something timely happens in your industry or a better idea comes along.

Consistency also doesn’t require publishing on exactly the same date every month. Give yourself enough flexibility that the newsletter remains manageable. The whole point is to create something you can continue doing while handling everything else in your professional life.

Keep Marketing the Newsletter After You Publish It

Publishing the article is only part of what you can do with it. You’ve already spent the time developing the idea and writing the piece, so think about how you can continue using it after the initial publication.

Create a LinkedIn post introducing the subject and directing people to the newsletter. Pull another idea from the article and turn it into a separate post later. Create a graphic around one of the concepts or talk about the topic in a short video. Feature the newsletter on your LinkedIn profile and share individual editions elsewhere when they’re relevant.

For lawyers and other professionals using LinkedIn for business development, individual newsletter editions can also create natural reasons to stay in touch. If you write something relevant to a client or prospect, send it to them with a personal note explaining why you thought it might be useful. If you meet someone at a conference and later realize you wrote about an issue you discussed, send them the article as part of your follow-up.

This is where a newsletter can become much more connected to business development. You’re creating useful material that can support real conversations and relationships instead of publishing something once and hoping people happen to see it.

Why LinkedIn Newsletters Are Especially Helpful Without an Email List

Traditional email newsletters can be incredibly valuable, but there’s infrastructure behind them. You need a list, an email marketing platform and a way to continue adding subscribers. Depending on where you work, you may also need marketing resources to manage the process.

LinkedIn removes much of that initial work because you can begin with the professional network you’ve already built. LinkedIn hosts the content, manages subscriptions and can notify subscribers when you publish, allowing you to begin creating a recurring publication without first spending months building an email database.

There’s also a cumulative benefit as you continue publishing. Someone can discover your newsletter through your profile, one of your articles, something another person shared or one of your LinkedIn posts and then go through your previous editions. If you publish monthly for a year, you’ll have 12 substantial pieces demonstrating what you know about a particular area, and those articles can continue being found, shared and sent directly to clients and prospects.

A Newsletter Can Support Much More of Your LinkedIn Strategy

Once you’ve been publishing for a while, your newsletter can become an important part of a larger content program. The subjects people respond to can inform future LinkedIn posts, webinars, speaking topics, client programs, videos and other content. Your newsletter also gives you room to explore ideas in more depth than you usually can in a standard LinkedIn post.

Pay attention to what happens after you publish. Look at which editions generate engagement, which topics lead to comments or messages and what questions people ask after reading something. That information can help you understand what your audience cares about and which subjects are worth exploring further.

Publishing consistently around a defined area also helps people understand what you know. Someone who sees one article may remember it. Someone who sees useful content from you about the same general subject over the course of months has many more opportunities to associate your name with that expertise. That can matter when a client has a need, someone is looking for a referral, an organization needs a speaker or a journalist is looking for someone who understands a particular issue.

You also don’t need an enormous subscriber base for a LinkedIn newsletter to be worthwhile. Having the right clients, prospects, referral sources, colleagues and other people in your professional network reading what you write can be much more useful than attracting a large audience that has little connection to your work.

What I really like about LinkedIn newsletters is how much they can grow with you. You might start with a handful of subscribers and a few ideas you want to share, but over time you’re building a body of work that shows what you know and gives people a reason to keep coming back to you. Your newsletter can lead to conversations with people you haven’t heard from in years, introductions, speaking opportunities, new relationships and business opportunities you never could have predicted when you published that first edition.

And you already have most of what you need to create one. You have the experience, the ideas and probably far more potential topics than you realize. You also have a LinkedIn network filled with people who chose to connect with or follow you. A newsletter gives you another way to stay connected with those people and continue showing them what you know over time. That’s a pretty good return for sitting down once or twice a month and sharing something useful.

Frequently Asked Questions About LinkedIn Newsletters

What is a LinkedIn newsletter?

A LinkedIn newsletter is a recurring publication that you create and publish directly on LinkedIn. People can subscribe to your newsletter and receive notifications when you publish new editions. Each newsletter also has its own page where readers can find previous editions and subscribe. This makes it useful for professionals who want to regularly publish content around a particular topic and build an audience for their expertise.

How do you create a LinkedIn newsletter?

To create a LinkedIn newsletter, go to LinkedIn on desktop and select Write article from the homepage. From LinkedIn’s publishing tool, you can create a newsletter and choose its name, description, publishing frequency and image. You can then write and publish your first edition. LinkedIn creates a dedicated page for the newsletter where people can subscribe and read previous editions.

Who can create a LinkedIn newsletter?

LinkedIn has expanded newsletter publishing so that members with access to LinkedIn’s article publishing tools can create newsletters. If you see the option to create a newsletter when you open the article publishing tool, you can set one up directly from your account.

What is the difference between a LinkedIn newsletter and a LinkedIn post?

A LinkedIn post appears primarily in the feed and is generally designed for shorter-form content and conversation. A LinkedIn newsletter is built around longer-form content published on a recurring basis. People can subscribe to the newsletter, receive notifications about new editions and visit the newsletter page to read previous articles. I use the two together because a newsletter gives you room to explore a topic in more depth, while regular LinkedIn posts can help introduce and promote the ideas in each edition.

What is the difference between a LinkedIn newsletter and a LinkedIn article?

A LinkedIn article is an individual long-form piece of content published on LinkedIn. A LinkedIn newsletter is a recurring series of articles organized under one newsletter name and topic. Readers can subscribe to the newsletter so they can be notified about future editions. If you plan to write regularly about a defined subject, creating a newsletter can help connect those articles and build a recurring audience around them.

What should I write about in a LinkedIn newsletter?

Choose topics that connect your expertise with the questions, problems and interests of the people you want to reach. Good LinkedIn newsletter ideas include answering common client questions, explaining industry developments, analyzing trends, interviewing industry leaders, sharing lessons from conferences, discussing changes in your field and turning presentations, webinars or successful LinkedIn posts into longer articles. Pay close attention to the questions clients and prospects already ask you because those conversations can become some of your best newsletter topics.

How often should I publish a LinkedIn newsletter?

There’s no single publishing schedule that works for everyone. For many busy professionals, publishing once or twice a month is realistic and gives you enough time to create something useful. Choose a frequency you can maintain and create a short editorial calendar before you begin so you already have several future topics in mind.

How do people subscribe to a LinkedIn newsletter?

People can subscribe from the newsletter page or when they encounter an edition on LinkedIn. LinkedIn can also invite your connections and followers to subscribe when you launch a new newsletter. Subscribers can receive notifications when new editions are published and may also receive newsletter updates by email depending on their LinkedIn notification settings.

Do I need a large LinkedIn following to start a newsletter?

A large following isn’t necessary for a LinkedIn newsletter to be useful. For business development and personal branding, the relevance of the audience matters much more than the size of the subscriber count. A smaller audience that includes clients, prospects, referral sources and people in your industry can be extremely valuable.

Can a LinkedIn newsletter help with personal branding?

Yes. Publishing regularly around a defined area of expertise helps people understand what you know and what subjects they should associate with you. Over time, your newsletter also becomes a collection of articles that someone can read when they visit your LinkedIn presence and want to learn more about your expertise and perspective.

Can a LinkedIn newsletter help generate business?

A LinkedIn newsletter can support business development by helping you stay visible to clients, prospects and referral sources and by giving you useful content to share in individual conversations. An article can also create a natural reason to reconnect with someone. If you publish something that relates directly to a client’s business or a conversation you recently had, you can send it to them with a personal note.

Are LinkedIn newsletters useful for lawyers?

LinkedIn newsletters can be particularly useful for lawyers because they provide space to explain legal and industry developments in a way that is relevant to clients. Lawyers can use newsletters to answer common client questions, discuss regulatory changes, analyze industry trends, share perspectives from conferences and explore issues affecting the businesses and industries they serve. A newsletter can also support a lawyer’s broader thought leadership, personal branding and business development efforts.

Can I repurpose LinkedIn newsletter content?

Absolutely. A LinkedIn newsletter article can become several LinkedIn posts, short videos, graphics, presentation material, webinar topics, client communications or talking points for other content. Existing content can also become newsletter material. Presentations, webinars, client alerts, podcasts and previous LinkedIn posts are all good places to look for ideas that can be developed into longer newsletter articles.

Is a LinkedIn newsletter worth starting?

For professionals who already spend time on LinkedIn and have knowledge they want to share, a newsletter can be a very useful addition to their content strategy. LinkedIn provides the publishing and subscription infrastructure, while each edition adds to a growing body of content around your expertise. The biggest benefit comes from publishing useful content consistently and then using that content to support your relationships, visibility and broader marketing and business development efforts.

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