I create LinkedIn carousels every week, but I still don't think I've hit the ceiling on them.

So I did what my curious brain does with anything I want to get better at. I went deep.

This month, I spent 17 hours reverse-engineering 25 of my favorite carousels, the ones I keep saving because the people behind them know how to make the format work.

Sara Hart. Devin Reed. Amy Watts. A few others that made me stop the scroll.

I wanted to know what they all had in common.

Because if you've ever built one, you know a carousel is SUCH a heavy lift. If you're going to put in the hours, you want to know the juice is worth the squeeze.

Turns out it was. I came out with a system I could actually repeat, and it even led to a brand-sponsored carousel along the way.

A few patterns kept showing up. The one I kept circling back to was pacing.

Pacing is what gets someone to slide eight. The best carousels all ran on a system the reader picked up almost immediately. Once they had the system, they could focus on the idea.

Which is exactly why I wanted to talk to Amy Watts.

Amy's a B2B social strategist whose whole thing is "B2B marketing, but make it fun." She makes around ten carousels a week, all in Canva, for brands like Semrush and Slate. And she's refreshingly honest about her early ones.

She pulled one up. Something like "The five tools I'd use if I could only pick five." It looked fine. It just didn't work.

"What is this actually giving my audience? How many posts about someone's favourite tools have you already seen?"

That's the gap.

Most of us sit down and ask, "What do I want to say?"

A better question is, "What does the person scrolling need from me right now?"

That one question changes the carousel (and your content strategy).

Amy splits content into two buckets. I've started using the same language with clients.

Thin content is broad. Memes, relatable moments, quick takes, light commentary. It reaches a lot of people because almost anyone can see themselves in it. Most of those people will never buy from you.

Thick content is specific. Frameworks, real examples, niche lessons. The questions your buyers keep asking. It reaches fewer people. Those are the people who save it, trust it, and eventually reach out.

You don't have to pick one.

Know what job the post is doing before you make it.

Some posts are there to get seen. Others are there to build trust.

Fifty saves from the right people is a post doing real work.

Here's one of mine.

A client once asked me, "What kind of selfie should I use on LinkedIn?"

I'd never have put that on a content calendar. I spend so much time thinking about LinkedIn that it barely registered as a content idea.

For her, it was a real question.

So I built a carousel around it. What makes a good LinkedIn selfie, what to avoid, and which photos actually work in the feed.

Then I posted a version on my own page.

It became one of my best-performing carousels.

That's happened enough now that I pay attention when someone asks me a question that feels obvious.

Your best content usually isn't sitting in a brainstorm doc.

It's buried in the conversations you're already having.

Client calls. Sales calls. The question you've answered three times this month. The thing you explain so often you've forgotten other people don't know it yet.

That's usually where the carousel is.

After pulling apart those 25 carousels and talking to Amy, these are the five I keep coming back to.

1. Lock the system before you build the slides.

A carousel shouldn't feel like eight separate graphics. Keep the frame, type hierarchy, and rhythm consistent. The design gives the idea somewhere to run. If every slide introduces a new layout, the reader has to learn the interface all over again. That's usually where they leave.

2. Make the cover direct, not mysterious.

The cover has one job: make the promise obvious, fast. Clear beats clever.

Nobody's studying your carousel. They're skimming between meetings, notifications, and the next post. If they have to work out what they're getting, they'll keep scrolling.

3. Give every slide one job.

One idea. One visual anchor.

Most carousels fall apart because every slide is trying to do everything at once. A screenshot. A pull quote. A sticker. A transcript. A reaction bubble.

Leave some room.

White space is doing a job. It tells the reader where to look.

4. Add personality through annotation.

The best carousels have a human layer. Circle the important bit. Add a handwritten note. Point to the thing you want people to notice. Highlight key words.

That's usually enough.

More than that and it starts feeling busy.

5. Teach inside the carousel.

This was Amy's strongest point.

The reader should reach the last slide with the full idea. They shouldn't need to click somewhere else to understand it. Zero-click marketing.

You can still end with a CTA.

Just make sure you've earned it first.

The full conversation with Amy Watts is live on Marketers Do Coffee.

We get into:

👉 Watch the full episode.

Keep those ideas flowing,
Christine

P.S. This is the same system I use with clients at Orchard Strategy.

We start with real conversations. We work out what each piece of content needs to do.

Then we choose the format that gives the idea its best shot at the right kind of attention. The kind that turns into leads.

Sometimes that's a text post. A carousel. Or an infographic.

The format is the easy part.
Thinking is the job.

If your posts get engagement but the right people still aren't reaching out, there's usually a gap between the two.

I'd love to hear what you're working on. Just reply to this email.

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Amy Watts: “I always think of carousels as the perfect format for when you want to express a fully formed idea or if you want to express a story ... It's highly savable, it's highly shareable. ... carousels also ... they work really well for visual concepts. So if you want to go through and share some screenshots of great examples of content, or if you're telling a visual story ... it gives you so much more space to work with within the feed.”

Amy Watts: “I have realised that the carousels that perform best are always the ones that came from a real conversation or a real debate or someone leaving a comment in my comment section that annoyed me. ... those are the topics that are actually interesting. Those are the topics that people are genuinely thinking about and discussing and debating and that's usually what grabs attention in the feed.”

Amy Watts: “Probably the most important element is the hook. ... a lot of people fall into the trap of creating a hook that has a lot of mystery. ... When they're scrolling past it's like you have a second to convince them. And if you're not giving them enough, they're not going to stop to find out. ... the hooks that are very clear and direct, like this is what this carousel is about, but also done in a bold and attention grabbing way.”

Amy Watts: “Usually most of my carousels have a similar structure. ... the hook, then you have ... a bit of context setting, and then you go into a list of examples or a list of tips or telling the full story and then having the end, the CTA slide at the end. ... It's like you're telling a story, you need a beginning, middle and end and it needs to have narrative flow.”

Amy Watts: “I'm not a trained designer. ... I really don't think that carousels need to be these super complex, well put together things in order to work. If you look at most of my carousels, they're very simple. I have the same layout every time, same colors, same fonts. It's usually just the imagery that changes. ... Simplicity works best in my opinion. ... Just a very bold striking headline, an image that really adds that context, adds that visual cue.”

Amy Watts: “Canva. I do everything in Canva. ... Canva has everything that I need. They're always adding cool new features, just makes it easier to do edits, share with clients, they can leave comments directly and it's just a bit more accessible for someone who's making like, what, 10 carousels a week.”

Amy Watts: “I usually tend to stick to four by five just to keep things more standard. ... sometimes you have to be a little bit flexible with the layouts that you want. I think what's more important is that everything is readable, that it grabs you in feed and that it functions as a carousel. It's less about the dimensions, I would say.”

Amy Watts: “The point of a carousel isn't to funnel people into your lead magnet system. The point of a carousel is to entertain, to inform, to educate, to inspire. The whole point is that it should be a fully formed thing within that carousel. It should be the full experience. If you need to ship someone off somewhere else to read the rest of it, they're not gonna go.”

I'm Christine Orchard. I host Marketers Do Coffee to learn how LinkedIn actually works from the people who do each part best. I also run Orchard Strategy, a LinkedIn strategy and content agency. We handle the whole channel for B2B founders, executives, and consultants, from positioning through to publishing.