LinkedIn has added several new content options in the last year or so and there are so many more ways to post on LinkedIn than there used to be. Each one has advantages in helping you reach a specific audience. Once you know how to post on LinkedIn, you can choose the options that will bring the most value to your business or career.
Why Post on LinkedIn in the First Place?
LinkedIn is often seen as the introverted studious older brother of the social media world. But don’t let that unassuming exterior fool you! When people ask me why bother with LinkedIn, rather than the “shinier” platforms like Instagram, all I have to do is start telling stories from my own client acquisitions:
At least 60% of my revenue each year is directly or indirectly due to LinkedIn connections. It is the single platform that has the biggest impact on my bottom line.
And my results are not just luck. You have a higher chance of connecting with a decision maker on LinkedIn. In fact, 50% of college graduates use LinkedIn and tend to bring in a higher income than users of other social media platforms.
What about posting content specifically? Many LinkedIn users are there searching for relevant business information. In fact, for B2B content, LinkedIn delivers more than 50% of all total traffic. And since fewer active users post content, and more of them are there looking specifically to make business happen, your odds of getting an interested business prospect is much higher overall.
Even for more traditional brands, Forbes is predicting that LinkedIn will continue to grow as the no-nonsense social media platform to go to!
Personal LinkedIn Profiles
The most familiar area on LinkedIn is probably the personal posts. Just like your newsfeed on Facebook or Twitter, you can post updates and content here. There are some differences between LinkedIn and these other platforms though. Experiment and try all the different post types to see what works best for you!
Text based posts
First of all, you can write a lot more in a post – up to 3000 characters. Don’t feel like you have to fill that up (that is as long as many blog posts), but you can take the time to explain a point fully and in detail.
This is true both for posts that you write natively, as well as ones that you schedule.
Be especially sure to take the time to proof-read and spellcheck your longer posts. I use Grammarly for this, but you could also write the post in a word processing tool and then copy and paste it into LinkedIn. Another option would be to write it in a spreadsheet and then bulk import it.
You might also want to experiment with using hashtags for your posts to help your content be found by the right people. Put these at the end of the post so that they help search without making a worse reading experience.
Photo posts on LinkedIn
You can also post photos on LinkedIn. Designed to work best with an image that is wider than it is high, the ideal image size is 1200 x 627 pixels. Remember that posts on LinkedIn need to stay professional. You want to stick with images that are:
High quality
Professional in nature
Clearly relevant
Video posts on LinkedIn
Not as many people post videos on LinkedIn as some other social media platforms, so this is a good opportunity for you to stand out.
Before you take the time to create something though, make sure that it fits in LinkedIn’s guidelines for video posts:
ASF, AVI, FLV, MPEG-1, MPEG-4, MKV, QuickTime, and WebM formats only
Minimum size 75KB and maximum size 5GB
Minimum length 3 seconds and maximum length 10 minutes
As with all LinkedIn posts, focus on quality content rather than gimmicks. That is why people are on LinkedIn in the first place.
You can schedule all three post types using a social media management tool like Agorapulse. This can save you time and make it easier to track your results.
Best practices for posting
There can be a real benefit to posting your best content on LinkedIn more than once to get the best reach. But you want to make sure the type of content is appropriate for the business-oriented nature of LinkedIn.
Giving ‘kudos’ on LinkedIn
The one other type of post that you can try on LinkedIn is “Kudos.” Unlike traditional post types, this is the one thing that you will have to publish organically as you can’t schedule it.
Basically, this type of post gives you the ability to give a specific shout-out to recognize someone that you have worked with for going above and beyond, innovation, and other traits. If you are an employer, this could be a meaningful way to recognize employees. You can also use it to thank partners or collaborators. Because this tags the person that you are connected to, it is a good relationship building tool, and something fun to throw into your content mix from time to time.
Company Pages on LinkedIn
If you don’t have a company page on LinkedIn, you can follow this step-by-step guide to get one started.
Posting content to your LinkedIn company page is the same as on a personal page – you still have 3,000 characters available, and you can also post video and images.
Take the time to get creative with your company page and understand your primary goals for your page. On LinkedIn particularly, some business use their page primarily for talent acquisition and hiring, rather than marketing.
LinkedIn Publishing
While scheduling your content on LinkedIn (especially the creative use of content queues to feature your evergreen content) can be a critical part of staying engaged on LinkedIn, you might want to also look at one other feature that can’t be scheduled – publishing.
Did you know that only 1 million users on LinkedIn have EVER posted a publishing piece? This type of content still has a lot of room for growth!
The LinkedIn Publishing platform gives you a way to establish expertise and also to grow your following outside of those who are already connected with you. LinkedIn may show your longer-form content in Publishing to other people on the platform who are interested in that content area, regardless of whether or not you have a personal connection with them. When you publish an article on LinkedIn it has the potential to reach a wide audience.
LinkedIn Publishing allows you to write a blog-style post that lives on LinkedIn. You can view analytics to see who is reading the content, as well as interact with comments and the people who like and share your content.
If you already blog, consider recreating those posts on your LinkedIn profile with a link back to the original source. This can help drive traffic to your site, as well as being useful on LinkedIn itself.
How Are You Posting on LinkedIn?
Is LinkedIn a platform that you are actively using? Which post types do you use most often? Are you going to start scheduling more content there? Trying videos? Post your ideas in the comments!
Read more: agorapulse.com
