Carousels perform for me but take ages. This drafts the slides so I just design.
The workflow
- Paste the article
- Ask for 8 slides with a hook and a payoff
- Keep each slide to one idea
- Design in your template
Result: A ready-to-design carousel from existing content.
The prompt
Turn this article into an 8 slide LinkedIn carousel. Slide 1 is a hook, slide 8 is a CTA, one idea per slide. Article:
[PASTE]A note on what follows. The workflow, the prompt and the result above come from the member. The notes below (why the prompt works, what to watch for, how to adapt it) were written with AI help.
Why this prompt works
One idea per slide. That constraint is the whole thing. Without it I got eight slides that each contained a small essay, which is unreadable at phone size and defeats the format. Fixing slide 1 as the hook and slide 8 as the CTA came after a carousel that opened with a definition, and definitions do not stop a thumb. Honestly the eight is not sacred, I have run six and ten, but naming the first and last slots keeps the shape. The part I still do manually is choosing which article to feed it. A post that argues one point turns into a decent carousel. A roundup turns into a list of headlines with no through-line, and no prompt tweak has fixed that for me.
What to watch for
- Slide 1 comes back as a question almost every time. "Struggling with X?" is the default hook and it is exhausted.
- Text overflow. It writes 40 words for a slide that fits 15, and you only find out in the design tool.
- The middle slides repeat each other with different verbs, especially slides 4 to 6.
- Numbers from the article get rounded or reworded, so check any stat you put on a slide against the original.
How to adapt it
- Kill the default hook with
Slide 1 must be a statement or a number, never a question. - For design handoff, add
Maximum 15 words per slide, and give each slide a 4 word title. - If you post as a company rather than yourself, add
Write in first person plural, no emoji, no hashtags.
What good output looks like
Read only the eight titles in order. If they tell a coherent story on their own, the carousel works, because that is roughly what most people will actually take in. Each slide should be cuttable without breaking the next one. If slide 5 only makes sense after slide 4, the argument is being split rather than paced. And the CTA should ask for one thing, not point at a link and a comment and a follow.