How to turn YouTube videos into LinkedIn posts and slides

A YouTube video and a LinkedIn post are different objects. The video is long, spoken, and hosted on YouTube. The post is a few short paragraphs on a personal profile. The slides are a third object: a PDF LinkedIn paginates so people can swipe. Turning the video into both means deciding which sentence is the post, which sentences are allowed onto slides, and which artifact LinkedIn should actually receive.

Boykli does that as two passes. Create posts, YouTube mode, takes a public video URL and writes one teaser, about 800 to 1,200 characters, from the captions or from a watch of the opening. The carousel page does not read that URL. You paste an outline of the lesson, up to 2,000 characters, and it designs a new PDF of 2 to 8 slides. Publish or queue each file on the personal profile you connect. The map of every write mode is LinkedIn post generator. The map of topic, idea, and file starts for decks is LinkedIn carousel generator. This page is only the video path. A podcast episode that was also uploaded as a public YouTube video uses this path for the teaser, then a separate outline for the PDF. An RSS feed, a Spotify or Apple page, and a show-notes article are a different source, in repurposing a podcast episode into a LinkedIn PDF carousel.

What you are actually publishing

LinkedIn will not host the YouTube file because you pasted a watch link into Boykli. The app publishes text, an optional image, or a PDF document, through the personal profile connected with LinkedIn OAuth. It does not upload the video, and it does not publish a company page.

That leaves three feed shapes, and only two of them come out of this workflow:

1. A text post. The draft is the commentary. If you want people to press play, the watch URL has to be in that text. You add it. The writer is told not to emit markdown links.
2. A text post with the YouTube still attached. The thumbnail switch uploads a cover image. That still is not the player. People see a picture, then your sentences.
3. A document post. The PDF from the carousel page. The first page is the card in the feed. The caption is separate from the teaser you wrote on Create posts.

A native YouTube card, the one LinkedIn builds when you paste a watch URL into LinkedIn's own composer and attach nothing else, is a fourth shape. Boykli's publish call does not ask LinkedIn to build that card. If that card is the object you want, copy the finished sentences into LinkedIn and paste the URL there, with no image attached.

The product was scoped so the cut stays with the person whose name is on the post. The longer version of that choice is building Boykli.

Four ways people move a video onto LinkedIn

The last row is the workflow below. The first row is the right row when all you wanted was LinkedIn's link card and a sentence you already wrote.

What YouTube mode can read

Create posts accepts a URL that contains an 11-character video id. The patterns are a normal watch link, youtu.be, an embed link, a Short, and a live link. Anything else stops on the page before a request goes out: "Please enter a valid YouTube video URL." The server normalizes the id to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= plus that id.

The load order is fixed.

Captions first. The app asks for an English track, then en-US, then en-GB, then whatever track the caption library returns first. The joined text is capped at 15,000 characters. A long video therefore contributes its opening captions, not a chapter index of the ending. When that text exists, the post is written with Grok 4.6, the same post model as the other Create posts modes. There is no model picker on this page. The instruction is to mine one insight, one surprising point, and the question the video is answering, and to leave the rest on YouTube.

No captions. The app does not write the post from the title. It asks Gemini 3.5 Flash to watch the public URL, the first 20 minutes, at low media resolution. Managed seats use Boykli's Vertex key for that watch. BYOK seats use your Google AI Studio key and no one else's. If the watch fails, the API returns an error and tells you to try a captioned video or try again. A title and a description are loaded for context. They are not a quiet substitute for a failed watch.

A private video, a members-only video, or a link the server cannot open fails in that same place. Age gates and regions do the same. The fix is a public video, or captions the server can read.

Two limits follow from the caps, and both show up in the draft if you ignore them.

• A 45-minute talk with captions is judged on the first 15,000 characters of caption text. A payoff that arrives at minute 40 is invisible. Put that payoff in your own edit, or do not claim it.
• A 45-minute talk with no captions is judged on the first 20 minutes. The watch prompt tells the model not to pretend it saw the rest. If the draft describes a chart from the last third, delete the sentence.

Shorts pass the parser. A 30-second Short is a thin source for an 800-character teaser. Read the draft for stretch: a framework, a number, or a quote that the clip never contained.

The writer is also told what the post is for. It is a teaser, not a transcript. Shape: a hook of one or two lines, a value bridge of two or three lines, one concrete detail that stops short of the whole answer, then an optional close. Tones are Teach & Explain, Step-by-Step, Analytical, Thought Leader, and Personal Story. Humor is not on this mode. Hashtags and emoji are banned. The post must not start with "I". Banned openings include "Here's the thing", "Let that sink in", "Unpopular opinion", "Hot take", "The truth is", and "Just dropped a new video". Banned closers include "Agree?", "Thoughts?", "Comment below", and "Follow for more", unless the CTA line you typed asks for that. Quotes, stats, and names have to be in the source. Two refinements on that draft. A third pass is a new write.

Hooks are a switch. Off, the post opens on its own. On, you get one to five variations, default three. If you type a hook idea, every variation has to use that angle. Selecting one replaces the first line. The CTA switch is separate. On, the ending is split from the body with a === CTA === line so the app can show it as the close. Put the watch instruction in the CTA idea if you want the close to send people to the video. Then paste the actual URL into the body yourself.

The thumbnail is a still

The YouTube panel has a switch labeled Video thumbnail: attach the YouTube cover instead of creating a visual. It is mutually exclusive with an AI image. Turning it on clears a generated image. Turning on image generation is the other cover, and it is a metaphor, a flat illustration, a photo, or a comic. It is not a frame from the video.

When the switch is on, the server picks a still that actually exists. It tries maxresdefault, then sddefault, then hqdefault, then mqdefault, and it skips a file of 2,000 bytes or fewer, because a missing max-resolution thumbnail is often a tiny placeholder. Publish and the queue upload that file as a LinkedIn image. The post is then an image post. The still does not become a player, and it does not deep-link into a timestamp.

Leave the switch off when the sentences are the whole post and you will add the watch URL as text. Attach the still when the cover is the thing you want in the feed and you accept that people must read the URL in the copy.

Slides are neither of those covers. A carousel PDF is a document post. The dimensions, the type ramp, and the 220 pixel safe zone are LinkedIn carousel dimensions.

Why the teaser is the wrong paste for slides

The YouTube prompt says never summarize the full video. The point of the post is desire to watch. A faithful teaser hides the mechanism.

The carousel form has no YouTube field. It has a topic box. If you paste the teaser, the deck is designed from a paragraph that was ordered to stop early. The slides come out as atmosphere: a cover, a vague promise, a close that tells people to watch. That can be a trailer deck. It is a bad teaching deck.

For slides, write the outline from what you know is true in the video, including the part the teaser withheld. Name the steps. Name the numbers you heard. Say what must not be added. That outline, not the teaser, goes in the topic box. The same cut is how a text PDF becomes a deck on PDF to LinkedIn carousel: one lesson, then a new file written as slides.

The carousel page will not import frames from the video. Charts on screen do not become charts on the PDF. If a number matters, it has to be in the outline you typed.

A worked teardown

Source: a public 14-minute demo, captions on, titled as a deploy-time change. The spoken claim in the first two minutes: the pipeline went from 11 minutes to 90 seconds after one queue rule was removed. Minute 9 shows the YAML. Minute 12 is a pricing aside that is not the point.

Pass 1, the teaser, on Create posts:

1. YouTube mode. Paste the watch URL. The id parses. Captions load, so this write uses Grok 4.6 and the transcript, capped well above a 14-minute talk.
2. Thumbnail off. The post should carry the watch URL as text, and an attached still would make the publish an image post.
3. Tone: Step-by-Step. The useful shape is the sequence, not a tour of the channel.
4. Hooks on, three variations. Hook idea: the two times, 11 minutes and 90 seconds. If a variation drops either number, it is the wrong line.
5. CTA on. CTA idea: watch the deploy section. After the draft returns, paste the watch URL on its own line under the close. The model was told not to invent a markdown link.
6. Read the draft against the captions. If 90 seconds became "about a minute," or if the pricing aside from minute 12 became the point, refine once: "Keep 11 minutes and 90 seconds. Drop pricing. Do not describe the YAML." You have two refinements.
7. The accepted post is a teaser. It may name the before and after. It should not walk through the YAML. That walk is the deck, or it stays in the video.

Pass 2, the slides, on the carousel page:

1. Topic, written as an outline, not as the teaser. "Cover: deploy went from 11 minutes to 90 seconds. Slide 2: the queue rule we removed. Slide 3: what the YAML changed. Slide 4: what we still wait on. Close: the one rule to copy. Do not add other numbers. Do not mention pricing."
2. Tone: Normal. Humor would treat the demo as a joke.
3. Slide count: 5, matching the outline. The form allows 2 through 8. Default is 5.
4. Shape: Square, 1080 by 1080, because each step is a short card. Portrait, 1080 by 1350, when a step needs two lines plus a label.
5. Design: Neo-Brutalist unless brand-kit colors are on. With those colors on, the only design available is Normal. The other seven stay disabled until brand colors are off. How those colors, the logo, and the handle apply is LinkedIn brand kit.
6. Model: Grok 4.6 is the default. The picker also offers Gemini 3.5 Flash, Claude Sonnet 5, and GPT-5.6 Terra. This picker is not the post model. The teaser and the deck can come from different models on purpose.
7. Create. Read every slide against the outline. A number that was not in the topic does not get to stay because the layout looked empty. Edit the title and the caption. The caption is the document post's text. It can point at the video. It is not a second copy of the teaser unless you paste it there.

Pass 3, leaving the building:

1. Save the teaser to the Library if you are not posting it now.
2. Connect the personal profile. Publish the text post, or add it to the queue. The queue uses the weekdays, the one time of day, and the timezone you save. Company pages are not a destination. The calendar behavior is LinkedIn scheduling tool.
3. Download the PDF or publish the document as its own post. Scheduling that PDF is a different queue item. The steps for a document on a personal profile are how to schedule a PDF on LinkedIn.
4. Read both on a phone before the slot. Boykli does not draw the LinkedIn column. The teaser is plain text. The carousel page previews the slides. The feed then shows the first PDF page as a card. What that test looks like is LinkedIn post preview.

If the same video should also become three text posts instead of one teaser, that is Series, and Series does not take a YouTube URL. Paste the source you trust, set the count from 2 to 8, and edit each part. Series is the wrong control when the second artifact is a PDF.

What to check before you queue either file

• The id in the URL is the video you watched. A playlist link with no video id does not parse.
• Every number in the teaser and on the slides was spoken or written on screen, and you saw it in the draft.
• The teaser does not spoil the deck, and the deck does not depend on a sentence the teaser hid and you forgot to put in the outline.
• The thumbnail switch matches the feed shape you want. Image post, or text that contains the URL.
• The caption on the document post can stand alone. People swipe a PDF without opening YouTube.
• You would say the teaser out loud. A line you would not say is a refinement, while you still have one left, or an edit in the text.

Price and caps

A cancelled seat keeps access until the period end. An on_hold seat and a cancel that has already expired do not. AppSumo lifetime BYOK is a code at boykli.com/redeem, one code per account. An existing paid seat blocks redeem. BYOK never uses platform keys. Managed never uses your OpenRouter key.

FAQ

Does one button turn the video into posts and slides?

No. YouTube mode returns one teaser. The carousel page returns a PDF from a topic you paste. They are two creates, two edits, and two publishes if you want both in the feed.

Will the post include the YouTube link?

Only if you put it there. The writer is told to create a reason to watch and is told not to emit markdown links. Type the URL into the draft. With the thumbnail on, publish uploads a still, so the URL is text next to an image, not a player.

What if the video has no captions?

Gemini 3.5 Flash watches the public URL, the first 20 minutes. Managed uses Vertex. BYOK requires your Google AI Studio key in Settings. A failed watch returns an error. It does not write from the title.

Can I use a private or unlisted video?

The server has to load a public watch page and either captions or a watchable URL. A private or members-only video fails that load. Use a public link, or write the post from notes in short, medium, or long mode.

How long can the video be?

Any public video whose id parses. Captions contribute at most the first 15,000 characters. A watch without captions covers the first 20 minutes. Later material has to be added by you, in the edit or in the carousel outline.

Do Shorts and live URLs work?

Yes, when the URL contains an 11-character id. A Short can be too thin for an 800-character teaser. A live URL is accepted. A stream with no captions yet takes the watch path, and only the opening portion.

Can the slides use frames from the video?

No. The carousel page builds HTML slides and prints a PDF. It does not import the thumbnail, the frames, or on-screen charts. Put the words and the numbers in the topic.

Can I schedule the post and the PDF together?

They are separate queue items on the personal profile. The teaser uses the post queue. The PDF uses the document queue. Same weekdays, one time of day, one timezone. The app does not attach a first comment and does not post to a company page.

Will it invent a statistic to make the teaser sound specific?

The prompt forbids quotes, stats, and names that are not in the captions or the watched portion. If one appears, delete it or spend a refinement on that sentence. Do not treat the prompt as a claim that every draft is clean.