How to Study Your Top LinkedIn Posts

If you want to grow faster on LinkedIn, stop guessing — start studying.
Your best-performing posts are your content roadmap. They show you what tone, topics, and storytelling patterns actually resonate with your audience.

Learning from your top posts turns your content strategy from trial and error into data and precision.
Here’s exactly how to analyze them — and how Growth Terminal can automate most of it for you.

1. Collect the Right Data

Go to your LinkedIn analytics or export data via your content dashboard.
Track the following metrics for your last 30–60 posts:

Impressions: How many people saw it.
Reactions: Likes or emoji engagement.
Comments: Depth of discussion.
Reposts/Shares: Spread factor.
Profile visits or followers gained: Trust signal.

Sort by engagement rate (total engagement ÷ impressions).
That shows which posts actually connected, not just which ones got lucky reach.

With Growth Terminal:
It automatically pulls your engagement data and ranks your top-performing posts — highlighting which ones led to real audience growth, not just surface metrics.

2. Categorize Post Types

Not every post performs for the same reason. Group your top ones by format.

Common LinkedIn post types:

Story post (personal journey, failure, or insight)
List post (tips, lessons, or frameworks)
Opinion post (strong take or contrarian view)
Educational post (how-to or industry explainer)
Announcement post (launches, wins, updates)

Once categorized, you’ll start seeing patterns:

“7 of my top 10 posts are story-driven.”
“List-style posts generate 3x more shares.”

Growth Terminal automatically tags your top posts by structure, so you instantly see which formats your audience prefers.

3. Analyze Hooks and Openers

The first two lines decide whether someone reads or scrolls.
Study your openings carefully.

Ask:

Did I start with tension, emotion, or curiosity?
Did I lead with “I,” “you,” or “we”?
How long before I delivered value?

Examples of strong LinkedIn hooks:

“Last year, I almost quit my company.”
“Most advice about networking is wrong.”
“We grew 200% this quarter — here’s what actually worked.”

With Growth Terminal:
The AI breaks down your top hooks, ranks their engagement impact, and surfaces insights like:

“Hooks starting with vulnerability perform 2.2x better than question hooks.”
“Posts under 20 words in the opener drive 35% more reads.”

4. Study Your Story Flow

Your storytelling structure is what keeps readers reading.

Break your best-performing story posts into five parts:

Hook – Capture attention fast.
Setup – Introduce conflict or context.
Turning point – The decision or moment of truth.
Lesson – The insight gained.
CTA – End with reflection or question.

When you map 3–5 stories this way, patterns appear — like how long you spend setting context, or whether you include data vs. emotion.

Growth Terminal Insight Example:

“Posts with a personal turning point (‘I realized…’) maintain 40% higher average read time.”

This lets you design your next stories with precision.

5. Break Down Tone and Voice

Tone consistency builds trust.

Copy your top 5 posts into AI and ask:

What’s the emotional tone (inspirational, practical, reflective)?
How conversational or formal is the writing?
How much do I use “I” vs. “you”?

Example Findings:

“Your best posts sound 70% reflective, 30% instructive.”
“Average sentence length: 11 words. Readability: Grade 8.”

With Growth Terminal:
The AI automatically measures tone patterns across your top posts — showing which styles spark engagement (e.g., reflective vs. direct).

6. Identify Common Themes

Your top posts reveal your strongest content pillars.
Tag each post by theme, then count which ones appear most.

Example pillars:

Growth and leadership
AI and technology
Entrepreneurship and mindset
Marketing or storytelling
Career or hiring

You might discover:

“Posts about personal growth consistently outperform product updates.”
“Team stories create more comments than frameworks.”

Growth Terminal automatically clusters your posts by topic and then suggests new post ideas inside your top themes — feeding your future content directly from what’s already working.

7. Study Engagement Type

The kind of engagement matters.

Look for:

Likes: Fast validation, low intent.
Comments: Depth of interest.
Shares: Audience alignment.
Saves: Value and relevance.

Then ask:

Which topics get comments (conversation)?
Which get shares (agreement)?
Which get saves (utility)?

Example:

“Posts with frameworks get 3x saves.”
“Opinion pieces get fewer likes but deeper comments.”

With Growth Terminal:
Your dashboard labels each top post by dominant engagement type — helping you understand what your audience does with your content, not just how they react.

8. Measure Timing and Frequency

LinkedIn engagement has strong time windows.
Check what day and time your top posts went live.

You may find patterns like:

“Tuesdays and Thursdays between 8–10 AM PST drive 60% higher reach.”

Growth Terminal Optimization:
The system learns your best posting times automatically and schedules your next batch during those proven windows.
No more guesswork — just consistent visibility.

9. Compare Post Length and Structure

Test whether short or long posts resonate more.

Metrics to check:

Average word count of top 10 posts.
Use of bullet points or white space.
Story vs. framework ratio.

Example:

“Long-form posts (300+ words) outperform short updates by 45%.”
“Posts with 3–5 short paragraphs perform best.”

Growth Terminal tracks this automatically and shows you average structure metrics — helping you calibrate future posts without spreadsheets.

10. Extract Repeatable Templates

Your goal is to turn insight into systems.

Convert your findings into repeatable templates:

Story: Hook → Struggle → Realization → Lesson → CTA
Framework: Problem → Process → Result → Tip
Opinion: Popular belief → Reframe → Proof → Reflection

Use these as blueprints for daily or weekly content.

Growth Terminal lets you save these as AI writing templates so each new post starts from proven DNA.

11. Review Comments for Qualitative Feedback

The comment section is hidden market research.

Read through the most thoughtful replies on your top posts. Ask:

What resonated emotionally?
What parts did people quote or repeat?
What questions came up most?

Those are your next 10 post ideas.

Growth Terminal Feature:
The AI scans comment sections and extracts recurring themes or phrases your audience repeats — feeding them into your idea generator automatically.

12. Build a Monthly “LinkedIn Growth Report”

Summarize your learnings in one document.
Include:

Top 10 posts with screenshots or links
Best-performing format and tone
Highest-engagement themes
Optimal posting times
Lessons and next steps

Growth Terminal Auto-Report:
It generates this automatically — turning your monthly analytics into a one-page insight brief with actionable takeaways.

13. Feed Learnings Back Into Your Content OS

The point isn’t to admire your analytics — it’s to evolve your system.

Feed your learnings back into your creation workflow:

Focus more on high-performing topics.
Start posts with proven hook styles.
Reuse winning structures and tones.
Schedule at the times your data confirms work best.

Growth Terminal automates this entire feedback loop — using your own performance data to refine future AI drafts so each cycle gets smarter.

Final Thoughts

Studying your top LinkedIn posts is how you move from posting content to building a content system.

Each top post holds data about your voice, timing, and audience psychology.
When you analyze systematically — and let AI tools like Growth Terminal handle the pattern recognition — you turn your content into a living engine that learns, adapts, and compounds.

You’ll stop guessing what works.
You’ll know — and you’ll post with precision every single time.