We’ve seen them before.
LinkedIn posts that begin with a single line to get your attention.
Like this.
Most of these posts continue with a paragraph or two explaining what the post is really about, but not all of them.
Many of them go on, sentence after sentence, one line at a time, as if the writer had never heard of the archaic “paragraph.”
They’re known as broems (bro poems), and they’re somehow even worse than Instagram poetry.
LinkedIn broetry, a term coined by Buzzfeed back in 2017, has become a go-to format for many LinkedIn users. But what led to this perplexing practice? LinkedIn doesn’t put a limit on post length, unlike, say, Twitter, meaning users can write to their heart’s content. All broets must feel some strong impulse to keep their sentences short and standalone, but in most cases, there’s no apparent impulse to keep the posts themselves short.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most successful broets are career coaches, motivational speakers, and marketers. Just search “#bestadvice” or “#leadership” on LinkedIn and you’ll find dozens upon dozens of broets giving advice on how to succeed, be a leader, or find meaning. While this practice has been going on for some time, more notable personalities, most with millions of followers, are now waxing broetic on the networking site.
Here are the 9 most popular LinkedIn broets.
1. Ian Bremmer
Followers: 3,712,884
Ian Bremmer is a political scientist, author, and founder of global political risk research and consulting firm Eurasia Group. Bremmer has more followers on LinkedIn than any other broet on this list, and while he doesn’t post much broetry, it seems he felt particularly inspired the day after Election Day.
2. Simon Sinek
Followers: 3,615,989
Simon Sinek, motivational speaker and broet extraordinaire, is better known for his TED talks and books like “The Infinite Game” and “Start With Why.” Sinek opts for a consistently short style, making his broems resemble couplets, or, in some cases, corporate haikus.
3. Adam Grant
Followers: 3,267,706
This quatrain comes courtesy of Adam Grant, a psychologist and professor at the Wharton School specializing in organizational psychology. While Grant has a great point on the nature of leadership, couldn’t he have taken the easy (and more readable) route of the paragraph?
4. JT O’Donnell
Followers: 2,669,374
JT O’Donnell is one of LinkedIn’s most popular career coaches, and one of its most prolific broets. O’Donnell’s style is decidedly lengthier than many broets on this list. The full broem is around twice as long as what’s pictured, but don’t worry: the end consists of O’Donnell offering her entire LinkedIn Accelerator Package for only $5!
5. Mohamed El-Erian
Followers: 2,382,179
Mohamed El-Erian is an Egyptian-American investor and chief economic adviser at Allianz. El-Erian routinely writes for Bloomberg and the Financial Times, and often posts his thoughts on the markets on LinkedIn. In this case, El-Erian’s thoughts on Wall Street just before Election Day come in broem form.
6. Marla Gottschalk
Followers: 2,233,006
Marla Gottschalk is an organizational psychologist, speaker, and career coach. Gottschalk must have been inspired by the typewriter ink-stained poetry of Instagram, judging by the font on this post. Occasionally Gottschalk will post actual poetry in addition to her own.
7. Daymond John
Followers: 1,977,104
Daymond John is best known as one of the sharks on Shark Tank, as well as the CEO of hip-hop apparel company FUBU. In this broem, John muses on the prospect of a FUBU documentary, one line at a time.
8. James Altucher
Followers: 1,261,327
James Altucher, an angel investor, entrepreneur, podcaster, and possible Malcolm Gladwell lookalike, tends to write in longer sentences than most broets, but tends to stick to the one-sentence-per-paragraph rule. In this broem, Altucher links to an even longer post in which he expounds the stock market on Election Day.
9. Amy Cuddy
Followers: 800,839
Amy Cuddy, the social psychologist behind the controversial “power posing” self-improvement technique, is also in the pantheon of celebrated broets. In this broem, Cuddy shares a Harvard Business Review article while sharing some of her broetic thoughts.
