Best Social Media Marketing Practices for LinkedIn

Linkedin is mostly used for building a professional network and staying in touch with business contacts, but that’s not all. LinkedIn can also be leveraged as a great marketing tool, particularly for those in the B2B industry. 

LinkedIn is the best channel for B2B marketing because it's where professionals go for professional interests. It’s a great place for entrepreneurs to establish thought leadership and stay top of mind for potential clients. Not to mention that LinkedIn has 303 million active monthly users.

So, how can that be accomplished? Check out the guide below.

Content guidelines:

• Perfect your profile

  • Whether you’re posting from your personal profile or your company page (or both), your profile should portray a positive insight into who you are and what you do. This begins with having a good headshot (or logo for a company page) and a relevant banner image. The ‘About’ section is crucial and you’d be shocked at how many people actually navigate to that page. Keep the info concise yet thorough, and be sure to eliminate all grammatical errors and typos. 

• Turn on ‘Creator Mode’

  • Creator Mode is a somewhat new LinkedIn feature that helps accounts gain exposure to a new audience. Expanding your reach is always one of the top goals when it comes to marketing, so this feature is a must. When you turn on Creator Mode, be sure to carefully select the hashtags that best represent your business, because these will determine what sort of audience you attract.

• Make your posts informational

  • People on LinkedIn mean business, and they don’t want to see junky content cluttering their feed. Make sure that what you post is intellectual and going to be of interest to your audience. Articles with a brief takeaway in the caption are great. You can also include podcasts and TedTalks in your feed, but be sure to write a little description of why people should take the time to watch/listen. As far as photos go, they don’t perform as well as other more text-heavy content, but they do perform well when used in combination with an informative caption or link to article.

• Write articles

  • Writing articles on LinkedIn is the best way to establish thought leadership. Having a repertoire of well-written, informational articles can also help establish credibility and reach a wider audience.

• Keep hashtags to a minimum

  • When it comes to LinkedIn posts, three hashtags tends to be the sweet spot. In fact, this is a direct tip from LinkedIn itself, and so clearly is favorited by the algorithm. Since three is a good limit, be sure to choose very carefully and include a mix of super trending, mid-range, and less popular hashtags.

Engagement:

• Utilize Polls

  • LinkedIn polls are usually pretty successful at generating engagement, plus they can help you glean valuable information. For example, if you post a poll asking what type of content people want to see, then you can use the results to adjust your strategy accordingly. Another way they can be used is to understand what pain points your audience is experiencing, so that you can address them. 

• Ask questions

  • If you’re posting an article you can ask if people have ever experienced what’s being described in the article. If you’re sending a text-only post, ask if your audience can provide any additional insights on the topic at hand.

Optimal posting practices:

• Day of week: Tuesdays and Wednesdays

  • Social platforms algorithms prioritize content that’s posted when users are actively online, so you should aim to time your posts accordingly. However for LinkedIn, this is less important than quality and relevancy of the actual content.

• Time of day: 8am to 2pm

  • The above info also applies here. These times represent when the largest amount of people tend to be on LinkedIn. Each audience is different, so it could be helpful to A/B test different post times and how that impacts post performance among your specific audience. Whatever you do, avoid posting on weekends or outside of regular business hours.

• Post Frequency

  • When it comes to post frequency on LinkedIn, there are a lot of mixed opinions. We recommend posting an average of 2x/week, so that you stay in people’s feeds without coming off as too spammy.

• Maintain consistency

  • Like most social platforms, LinkedIn rewards posts that go out in a regular cadence, providing extra reach to those accounts that post consistently. Develop a content calendar and consider relying on a scheduling platform such as Sendible or SmarterQueue.