Educators on LinkedIn: a plain playbook.

A growing part of our creative work is helping educators and education leaders show up well online — usually on LinkedIn, sometimes Instagram. The request often arrives apologetically ("I know I should be posting") and the fear underneath it is the same every time: sounding like an influencer. Good news. The educators people actually follow don't sound like influencers. They sound like educators who happen to be writing.

The playbook

• Decide what you're for. One sentence. "I write about making AI useful for teachers who don't have time for it" is a point of view. "Education thought leader" is not.
• One post a week, same day. Consistency beats volume, and a weekly rhythm is sustainable for someone with a real job.
• Write from the classroom, not about it. What happened, what you noticed, what you'd do differently. Specific beats profound.
• One idea, three hundred words, no hashtags in the body. A short line break after every sentence or two; people read on phones.
• Ask something at the end that you'd actually like answered. Comments from other educators are the whole value.
• Repurpose ruthlessly. A good post becomes a carousel becomes a sixty-second video. Same idea, three formats, one afternoon's work.

What to avoid

Engagement bait ("agree?"), fake vulnerability, and anything you wouldn't say to a colleague in the staffroom. Also: posting about students in a way they, or their parents, would recognise. If a story needs a child's detail to work, it isn't your story to tell.

Where we come in is usually not the writing — most educators write better than they think — but the shape: a visual system, a template for carousels, a video format that can be repeated without a film crew. Give a clear voice a consistent look and it starts to carry.