A year ago, another LinkedIn Expert introduced me to the idea of contrarian and regenerative posts. It truly opened my mind on how I was structuring and writing new posts. Before that meeting, I would just focus on topics, and themes and supervise the current LinkedIn trends. There was a flimsy structure holding my LinkedIn content together but it worked. 

After that meeting, I went ahead and tried to classify my own posts into those two boxes.

Most of them did not fit either one, because I was focusing on ‘sharing expertise’ a bit more than needed and I also had a few personal stories which didn’t fit into either criteria. So I created a third category and called it Reflection posts.

Which means the framework I am about to walk you through is part borrowed and part built to accommodate my own habits. 

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As mentioned before there are three types of posts that I use on LinkedIn: Contrarian, Regenerative and Reflection. Why three? Two reasons. First, they evoke an emotion from your audience: shock, surprise, disbelief, joy, fear etc. Second, they help you further your key positioning and content pillars. Memes are nice, but they don't help create an imprint in your target audience’s mind about the positioning you have (unless meme-creation is your key value proposition.)

Reflection posts are based on your personal experiences and learnings, the ones nobody else can copy. They give your audience a sneak peek into your life, your process and your way of being. You can be as candid or as superficial as you want, but make sure to share something of value with your audience, either about who you are or your process of working.

These are my favorite type of posts as it is the best way to create curiosity about you and what you do professionally.

Contrarian content is when you take a strong (sometimes controversial) stand against the wave of commonly believed truths. "LinkedIn is going to die in 2027." "SEO is dead." "Web Development is dead." This is followed by either an elaboration of the strong opinion itself or a nuanced take of the original point made.

They have been very effective at grabbing attention and have been a key part of what a lot of LinkedIn creators have used in the past to attract eyeballs and engagement. As you must already know, they are also EXTREMELY overused.

LinkedIn had this phase where everything was ‘dead’. I think now we have had enough of the murders. If there is one thing I would ask of anyone writing contrarian content today, it is to stop the killing of industry norms to grab eyeballs. It is exhausting.

Contrarian posts that work today are much more subtle and nuanced. They talk about the shortcomings of a certain process or the displeasure of a certain situation rather than something being outdated. There is still a place for these posts, but you need to be more clever now.

Regenerative posts are generally those that communicate tips, tricks, information or industry updates - basically anything that people would like to reshare. The other format in this family is the "Comment 'Claude' to get my list of Claude prompts" post. Basically posts where you have to engage or act to get something of value in exchange.

A tiny caveat here: regenerative posts may do exceedingly well or they may do extremely poorly depending on your industry. There is no universal formula for them yet. In some industries they are still the mode, in others they have gone stale (unless you are really inventive). Experiment and watch.

And a confession, since I am the one putting them in a framework: I was never a fan of the comment-to-get version, tbh. It feels a bit manipulative. And yet it sits in my list of formats that work, which says something about the difference between what works and what I would happily put my name to.

This list is definitely not exhaustive. There are memes. There are vlog-style posts that focus on relatability. These are fun, but they are not exactly the type of post you want to do all the time. The three above help further your brand and positioning, which is why I see them as the main categories.

Then there is rage-bait, and I have to own this one personally. Rage-bait is great for attention. My Sam Altman post got 11k impressions - the highest number of impressions I have ever got. But, it was all from people who would never in a lifetime be interested in my service or offering.

Impressions ≠ Clients

You can definitely use rage-bait in moments where you want to enhance visibility, but the risk you run is attracting the wrong people to your profile. Anytime you are tempted to make a rage-bait post, pause and think about why you are doing it. I say this as someone who did not pause.

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So which of the three post types do I recommend? Honestly? I don't recommend one over the other. Your choice of post type depends on the industry you are in, your audience and the kind of content you feel comfortable talking about. One size fits all is definitely not the mantra here. 

For example, one of my clients, a VP at a large company, just refused to use anything that is not reflection. And it makes sense for him. His brand is about gaining visibility on his story and the work that he has done. He doesn't have to sell a service or a product; his goal is to gain more visibility for his profile and CV and gain credibility among C-Suite in his domain. And this approach worked for him, by just using reflection content, we grew his followers by 50% in 4 months.

Additionally, with AI flooding our feeds, all three of these post types are struggling in their own way. Contrarian posts were really terrible a few months ago, but they have definitely mellowed down. Reflection posts, are having their moment of being cringe-worthy in some sections (read: r/LinkedInLunatics) and heavily AI-written in others. The type nobody else can copy is now the type everyone is trying to copy.

What the future holds, I don't know. Although, with AI available, people have an easier pathway to express themselves, but using it responsibly and understanding how LinkedIn evolves is absolutely crucial to growing effectively.

I built this taxonomy by sorting my own posts. I suspect that a year from now I will sort them again and find that none of the three boxes fits. Whether that means a fourth category or no categories at all, I can't tell you yet. I'll report back.

Grow-th Architect is where I (Shreya Vaidya) think out loud about brand-building, positioning, and surviving on LinkedIn. If this resonated, subscribe, or share it with someone who needs to hear it.