There's a kind of LinkedIn post that doesn't look like a LinkedIn post. No emoji. No bold first line. No "❌ Most founders" formatting. Just a few short paragraphs of someone talking about something that happened to them.
Those are the posts that get the most reach right now. Which is funny, because every guide tells you to do the opposite.
Why the boring posts win
LinkedIn's algorithm started punishing the over-formatted "broetry" posts about a year ago. Too many of them, all looking the same. The platform realized people were scrolling past.
So the algorithm started favoring posts that read like a person actually wrote them. A real story, in real sentences, with a small lesson at the end. The format that wins is the one that doesn't feel like a format.
The shape
A boring post has three parts.
The first part is a specific moment. Not "I learned a big lesson last year." Specific. "Last Tuesday at 4pm I got an email from a customer that made me want to throw my laptop in a river."
The second part is what happened. A few sentences. No bullet points, no bold. Just sentences.
The third part is the small honest takeaway. Not a grand truth. A small one, the size of the moment. "I think I underrate how much of running a company is just answering emails kindly."
What makes it work
The reader gets to the end and feels like they read something true. Most LinkedIn posts feel performed, even when they're sincere, because the format performs them. The unformatted post can't perform. So whatever's there has to be real.
This is why the format is hard to fake. You can't write a boring post about something you don't actually feel something about. The post will be flat and people will scroll past.
How to write one
Open notes. Write a paragraph about something that happened this week and made you feel something. Embarrassment, a small win, a moment you got something wrong. Don't edit yet.
Read it back the next morning. Cut anything that sounds like advice. Cut anything that sounds like a quote on a poster. What's left is your post.
Hit publish. Don't add emoji. Don't break it into one-line paragraphs. Don't ask a question at the end. Let it sit there, unfussy, and let the reader meet you instead of your formatting.