LinkedIn is unquestionably a top social media platform for B2B digital marketing from brand awareness to lead generation — 97% of B2B marketers post on LinkedIn as part of their content marketing efforts.
Whether you’re just establishing your company page or a seasoned LinkedIn vet, reviewing your LinkedIn post strategy is important to ensure you’re experimenting with different formats that can help you keep your content fresh and drive consistent growth.
In this article, we’ll cover the 12 different types of LinkedIn posts and how to master LinkedIn engagement with 12 essential best practices. Let’s get started!
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As a business owner, it’s essential to vary the content formats you’re using on your LinkedIn page.
Your content strategy should take advantage of each post type to create a personal story around your brand that appeals to the types of LinkedIn users and businesses you want to connect with.
Below are the different content types, with LinkedIn posts with examples to show you how to use each type of content.
Reach your audience through text-only posts.
Share valuable ideas, advice, or insights in written long-form content that speaks to your audience and encourages them to engage in dialog. Be cautious of creating a meaningless rant post — it could be classed as sensationalist rather than professional.
Photos speak louder than words. Add a photo with a quick caption to show your company’s personality.
Add behind-the-scenes footage, action shots, group photos, and product progress to show how your team creates the brand voice behind your product or service.
Switch up your static image posts with graphics.
Design LinkedIn posts that give your audience insightful and valuable content, such as tips, facts, or statistics.
You could also use a screenshot, meme, joke, or quote to entertain your audience and create a connection through shared humor.
Carousel posts let you share multiple images simultaneously so that you can create a series.
Use this format to post step-by-step instructions and listicle-style tips or recommendations.
Celebrate internal and external achievements. Not only does this show your appreciation to your team, but it demonstrates your progress forward as a company.
Tag any people, companies, or organizations that are related to the announcement. That way, you continue to establish connections.
With video, it’s one way or the other — short or long.
Create videos shorter than 30 seconds to demonstrate your product, give advice, or show your team in action.
Alternatively, film podcasts, keynote speeches, and lecture-style footage can be used to deliver conversations, interviews, and speeches.
Live videos are best used for stimulating real-time engagement.
Host question-and-answer sessions, interviews, and webinars where participants can interact.
Polls are a great way to vary content and facilitate easy interaction with your audience.
Post a poll to collect feedback and ask questions. Consider how you can use your audience to understand industry trends, product preferences, and customer service needs.
Published an insightful report? Got a whitepaper you’d like to share? Post it as a Document on LinkedIn.
You can share slide decks, sales pitches, surveys, reports, spreadsheets, and more. This helps you showcase your expertise.
Use event posts to show what you’re hosting and where you’re going to be. This generates interest and encourages other people who’ll be attending to interact with you both online and in real life.
Use this type of post to show events you’re hosting or attending, such as parties, trade shows, conferences, keynotes, training courses, festivals, etc.
Remember to create a call-to-action (CTA) if you’re posting your own event. If it’s not your event, offer a CTA in the form of a discount code or promotion.
A quick way to post regular content without having to create it is to post news, blogs, and industry-related content that encourages professional connections and interactions from your target audience.
Mention anyone related to the article in your post to widen your network.
If you’re using LinkedIn for talent, post job vacancies to connect with potential team members.
Use the different sections to create an effective post that showcases your position and company in a brief and informative way. Use the ‘Easy Apply’ feature to streamline the application process.
Your LinkedIn success story doesn’t just rely on clever content ideas. It’s about posting quality content regularly to engage with your audience on relevant topics.
Consider scheduling time, content topics, and factors boosting connection requests. Follow these best practices to create LinkedIn posts that drive engagement.
The first thing you should do before you get into regular posting is to understand who your audience is.
Use LinkedIn’s Website Demographics tool to get an idea of what kind of people are visiting your page.
Now that you know your target audience, search for trending posts that meet these demographics and behaviors.
Try to understand what kind of content engages this audience. Look at the tone, engagement habits, post timing and regularity, and post type.
If you start creating content on a regular basis without understanding your audience, you risk missing the mark completely. It’s a lot easier to come up with content ideas, topics, and themes when you know who you are talking to.
You can limit who sees your posts using the following attributes:
You should also build a community for yourself.
Follow thought leaders, get involved in like-minded conversations, and comment on industry-related posts to increase visibility. Join relevant groups and follow the hashtags that speak to your brand image.
Don’t get overwhelmed by others. Get started by testing out ideas on a small scale.
Try taking the framework of posts you like and creating similar posts to see if they spark engagement.
Vary your content to see which kinds of posts work best.
For example, try employee posts, such as new starters, birthdays, and work anniversaries. Mention any important work that employees have done and any awards you’ve been nominated for — celebrate the wins.
You could also try educational posts related to your business expertise. Expert posts, infographics, and charts can be especially beneficial if you are in the B2B space.
Education is a great tool to engage with potential customers and your wider LinkedIn network. Don’t bore your audience, though; use data to demonstrate your credibility, but make your educational content entertaining and easy to read.
Remember that it’s important for your audience to know you’re human and that your business cares about its staff and customers. They want to see you doing something positive.
Create fun and engaging CTAs so people who wish to can get in touch or learn more about the company.
This highlights company culture, framing your brand as an expert thought leader and making sure that potential employees or clients are aware of your business and how you interact as an organization.
Create authentic and genuine LinkedIn posts and use the automation tool to schedule them to post at relevant, active times.
It all leads back to thought leadership, making a community that you want to help. LinkedIn has its own educational series on how to make the most out of LinkedIn, depending on how you want to use it, whether it’s to advertise better, drive more leads, or build your brand.
Authenticity is predicted to be the most important factor for brands in the near future. Research shows that customers trust brands that showcase real customers, and they find these brands through personal recommendations.
Instead of relying on self-promotional content, show the humans building the brand. Avoid the trap of the faceless corporate facade. This will go a long way in creating a target audience that’ll engage and react to your posts because they align with your values and practices.
Self-promotion is fine, but make sure it is in small doses. If you do post self-promotional posts, make sure your call-to-action is targeted at those that need your help — avoid “salesy” pitches.
While LinkedIn posts can be 3,000 characters long, you must stop people at the caption. If people are flicking through their feeds, they need something encouraging them to pause before they consider engaging.
To capture someone quickly, give your information clearly and concisely.
For example, try screenshotting a short tweet. The contrast of black on white, coupled with the familiar Twitter style, cues the audience to stop for an informative or funny post.
Always remember to research. Don’t just rely on your own mind to generate content from scratch. See what works for others, what your audience likes, and what’s viable for you to create right now.
Share content created by others.
Not only does it save you content creation time, but it also gives you a jumping-off point to connect with others.
By sharing news, blogs, videos, and content by like-minded organizations, you can deliver regular content to your audience without making it yourself.
Sharing content from various sources also allows you to provide your audience a more diverse range of perspectives and insights. It demonstrates that you are well-informed about different aspects of your industry and interested in various viewpoints.
Remember to tag relevant content creators, reporters, and participants to evolve your LinkedIn network.
Make your content easy to read. Prioritizing readability in your LinkedIn posts is crucial for improving the overall audience experience.
A well-structured and readable post enhances engagement, comprehension, and the likelihood that your message will resonate with your audience.
Bullet points or smaller, one-sentence paragraphs appeal to readers. Remember, many people read on their phones, so one sentence can take up three lines.
Create a short, snappy intro line that gets people interested, formatted in a way that’ll want people to click on the “read more” button. By doing this, you create a little suspense if it makes sense to do so.
Be especially conscious of cutting off essential sentences mid-line. The copy seems disjointed and doesn’t read well. A line break seems to denote a period, so it can read like you’ve put periods in the middle of sentences, which makes no sense.
Finally, don’t underestimate the power of whitespace. It helps prevent visual clutter, making your content appealing and less overwhelming. Adequate spacing between paragraphs, emojis, and around images enhances overall readability.
Regular posting is one of the most challenging aspects of social media for a business. You’ll get lost in the LinkedIn algorithm if you don’t post regularly.
Consistency is key because frequent, regular content nurtures your existing audience while providing opportunities for a wider reach. There’s no point doing all of the research regarding target audiences, hashtags, content, etc., if your audience isn’t seeing posts regularly.
LinkedIn recommends posting once a day, even on weekends, but if you’re a small business, aim for a couple of times a week. You’ll also get better engagement if you post during the weekday — engagement tails off after 5 pm.
While personal posts can help to paint a picture of your brand, try to incorporate posts that provide free value to the people you’re trying to connect with. Giving away “free knowledge” is a powerful strategy to showcase your expertise, build credibility, and demonstrate your worth to your professional network.
Use infographics, documentation, videos, and guides to educate your audience and demonstrate your expertise. This boosts your credibility and gives a sample of the kind of value that you bring customers.
Also, consider regularly posting practical tips and advice that others can apply in their professional lives. This could involve sharing productivity hacks, career development tips, or strategies for overcoming common challenges. LinkedIn users appreciate practical, actionable advice.
Emojis can sometimes be a powerful visual tool for describing complex or abstract concepts. However, LinkedIn isn’t the most emoji-friendly platform. Professionals simply don’t use these characters often.
Consider your personal or corporate brand. If your brand voice is more casual or creative, emojis may align well with your overall communication strategy. On the other hand, if your brand is more formal, it’s essential to be mindful of how emojis may be perceived in that context.
In general, try to limit your emojis to signposting, like bullet-pointed numbers or fingers that point to CTAs.
Your LinkedIn dashboard is your cheat sheet for understanding your audience. The analytics on this dashboard will show you the following:
With this information in your back pocket, you can start to see patterns that help you create posts that appeal to your ideal audience.
Revisit your analytics regularly to check if your post ideas are working.
If you follow these best practices, chances are you’ll find the sweet spot of how the posts on your LinkedIn page should be. But you still may want a straightforward answer.
The short answer is that the length of your LinkedIn posts can vary.
The optimal post length depends on your specific objectives. For instance, if your aim is to maintain audience engagement on LinkedIn, consider trying out longer-form captions. On the other hand, if you intend to capture your audience’s attention quickly, prompting actions like comments or website visits and experimenting with concise and compelling captions are recommended.
Video posts and graphics also work well to catch your audience’s eye. These posts will likely be very short–just enough to draw their attention to the video or image.
Finally, remember that, like other social media platforms, LinkedIn imposes a character limit. You’re allowed a 3,000-character limit on LinkedIn posts. But after 140 characters, a “See More” link will appear, allowing viewers to click and read the rest of your post.
Don’t just follow thought leaders. Become one. Many successful business owners and marketers leverage LinkedIn as a dynamic platform for cultivating and disseminating their thought leadership.
This is important because 65% of buyers say thought leadership can significantly change the perception of a company.
LinkedIn provides an opportunity to transcend mere trend-spotting within your industry. The scope of thought leadership on LinkedIn extends beyond industry-specific matters. Esteemed leaders, such as CEOs and COOs, frequently share valuable insights on business management, team leadership, industry shifts, and broader perspectives on the evolving job market.
There are also a number of leaders who produce content around work-life balance, particularly in our post-pandemic world.
Sales professionals and marketing specialists also contribute by offering their unique perspectives on workplace dynamics. They may post on industry trends and personal narratives of success and failure. LinkedIn serves as a versatile platform where professionals from various sectors can contribute to a rich tapestry of thought leadership, fostering meaningful conversations and connections.
Posting on LinkedIn doesn’t need to be difficult. Research target audience preferences, test different content types, and analyze what works.
Remember that LinkedIn is for creating connections. You need to interact with your community to capture their attention. Share content, tag other users, connect with professionals, and reply to comments to open conversation.
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