Having a strong presence on LinkedIn is critical for building your personal brand and driving engagement in 2023. With over 850 million members worldwide, LinkedIn is the largest professional networking platform and an incredibly valuable tool for establishing connections, showcasing expertise, generating leads, and promoting your business.
To maximize your impact on LinkedIn, you need an effective posting strategy. But with so many options and opinions out there, what is ultimately the best approach? Below I will walk through key factors to consider and provide actionable tips to help refine your LinkedIn posting strategy.
Why does your LinkedIn posting strategy matter?
Your LinkedIn posting strategy directly impacts how well you are able to connect with your target audience and achieve your goals on the platform. Here are some of the main reasons why your LinkedIn posting strategy matters:
- Increases reach and engagement – A thoughtful posting strategy helps get your content in front of more of your target connections and motivates them to actively engage through likes, comments, and shares.
- Establishes expertise and thought leadership – Consistent, valuable posting shows you are knowledgeable in your field and elevates your profile as an industry leader or source of insight.
- Generates leads and sales – Posting valuable content is a soft sales technique that builds awareness and trust, nurturing prospects in order to convert them into customers.
- Supports SEO and branding – Posting high-quality, relevant content boosts your LinkedIn SEO rankings and search visibility while also strengthening your personal or company brand.
- Grows your network and community – Posting consistently gives you more opportunities to connect with a wider range of professionals and build relationships over time.
In summary, a strategic approach to posting on LinkedIn enables you to maximize your reach, establish credibility, generate leads, and build your brand in ways that lead directly to your business and career goals.
How often should you post?
One of the most common LinkedIn posting strategy questions is around frequency: how often should you post? Here are some guidelines:
- Individual profiles – 1-2 times per week is ideal for most individual profiles. You want to post frequently enough to stay top of mind without overwhelming your connections.
- Company pages – 2-3 times per week is typically best for company pages. More frequent posting is expected to share company news, content, and participation.
- During special events/crises – Increase frequency to post 3-5 times per week or daily when timely responses are required, like during conferences, special events, or PR crises.
- Maximum – Do not exceed 5-6 posts per week even during high-response periods. Too much activity can be perceived as spammy.
Also consider your capacity for creating content. It is better to post less frequently than overextend yourself and be unable to maintain consistency. Monitor engagement levels and see if greater or less frequency may be beneficial.
What content types perform best?
Certain types of content tend to perform exceptionally well on LinkedIn and are worth incorporating into your strategy. Top performing content types include:
- Industry news and insights – Commentary on recent developments in your industry or niche.
- List-based articles – Tips, steps, guidelines, or lists of recommendations around a topic.
- Q&A articles – Sharing expertise by addressing key questions people in your niche have.
- Case studies – Demonstrations of your products/services solving real customer problems.
- Videos – Short videos (<10 minutes) focused on education or thought leadership.
- Infographics – Visual representations of statistics, data, or concepts.
These content types tend to be scannable yet substantive. They provide value and insight to connections while being easy to quickly consume in LinkedIn feeds.
How can you optimize content for LinkedIn?
To maximize the impact of your LinkedIn content, be sure to optimize it specifically for the platform:
- Personalize – Use a conversational tone suited for networking versus hard selling.
- Show personality – Let your content reflect your own experiences and style vs overly formal language.
- Add visuals – Photos, videos, and graphics add engagement. Feature your team, work, events, etc.
- Use analytics – Study your past posts to see what content and topics resonated best.
- Align to interests – Tailor your posts based on your target audience’s preferences and pain points.
- Leverage hashtags – Include relevant hashtags to help the right people discover your content.
Also be sure to incorporate keywords and phrases your audience is likely using in searches. This boosts your discoverability and SEO impact.
When should you post?
Posting at optimal times can help your LinkedIn content get maximum visibility. The best times to post tend to be:
- Early to mid-week – Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are peak posting days.
- Early morning or late afternoon – Post either between 8-10 AM or 1-3 PM when engagement is highest.
- Around mealtimes – Posts often gain traction during lunch hours or early dinner times.
- After work hours – Posts between 5-6 PM tend to get engagement from professionals unwinding after work.
Avoid early Mondays, Fridays, weekends, and nighttime which see lower LinkedIn traffic and activity. Use LinkedIn’s analytics to assess what posting times work best for your audience. You can customize based on their peak activity patterns.
How can you engage your network?
Simply broadcasting content is unlikely to fuel much engagement. You need to actively participate in your LinkedIn community. Ways to spark engagement include:
- Share others’ posts – Comment on and share posts from those in your network to reciprocate value.
- Give praise and advice – Comment with congratulations, thanks, praise, and useful tips on connections’ posts.
- Ask questions – Pose relevant questions to prompt discussions in your posts and communities.
- Respond to comments – Actively reply to any comments your posts receive for ongoing dialogue.
- Send personalized invites – Proactively connect with key contacts through personalized invitation notes.
The more you engage directly with your connections, the more likely they will be to reciprocate. This builds relationships and boosts how people respond to the content you share.
Should you use hashtags?
Hashtags can be highly beneficial for expanding your LinkedIn content’s reach, particularly when using widely followed hashtags aligned to your industry or topic. However, there are some best practices for hashtag usage:
- Use up to 2-3 per post – Too many hashtags looks spammy and desperate.
- Align hashtags to content – Ensure hashtags directly relate to your post’s focus for relevance.
- Mix niche and popular tags – Include both specialized and broadly popular hashtags to increase visibility.
- Research useful hashtags – Study hashtags competitors or industry leaders are using that make sense for you.
- Create branded hashtags – Develop 1-2 branded hashtags unique to your company to build recognition.
Monitor which hashtags consistently generate engagement and trim any that are underperforming to optimize their use.
Should you use images or video?
Visually enriched content tends to achieve higher engagement on LinkedIn. The platform’s algorithm favors posts that include relevant images and video.
Images
- Use eye-catching photos – Opt for authentic pictures over stock imagery.
- Show real work examples – Product photos, event pics, infographics, and more.
- Feature your team – Helps humanize your brand and build familiarity.
- Industry-related – How-to diagrams, concepts, flowcharts, etc.
Video
- Educational tutorials – “How to” videos, expert tips, etc.
- Thought leadership – Sharing insights, perspectives, and advice.
- Promotional – Product or service spotlights, company culture, etc.
- Keep videos short – Under 5 minutes performs best, aim for 2-3 minutes.
Visually rich posts create more varied, dynamic feeds that catch the eye and more deeply engage viewers.
How can your network help spread your reach?
Beyond your own connections, leverage your network to significantly expand the reach of your LinkedIn content. Ways to tap into your extended network include:
- Request shares – Directly ask your close connections to share your posts when relevant.
- Share to groups – Post your content into LinkedIn Groups, especially those where you are an active member.
- @mention partners – Tag relevant companies, clients, or brands to help spread the word.
- Post at events – Share content while at conferences or industry events where it will be visible to many.
- Offer guest posting – Contribute content to partners’ LinkedIn pages to access their follower base.
This taps into the viral potential of LinkedIn by getting your content in front of secondary connections for exponential reach.
How can you track and improve performance?
Consistently analyzing your LinkedIn posting performance using available metrics is key for optimizing your strategy and results over time. Metrics to track include:
- Post reach – How many people your content reaches.
- Engagements – Total reactions, comments, shares, clicks, follows.
- Amplification rate – The percentage of people that engaged versus just viewed.
- Clicks – The total clicks on your posts or through to your profile.
- New followers – How many new followers you gained.
- Shares – The number of times your posts were shared.
- Top performing content – Which specific posts drove the most engagement.
Review these metrics regularly, aim to improve them over time, and double down on what proves successful. This allows data-driven refinement of your LinkedIn strategy.
Conclusion
An effective LinkedIn strategy requires carefully considering your posting frequency, content types, optimization tactics, scheduling, audience engagement, reach expansion, and performance tracking. But ultimately, the most important factors are providing consistent value and actively participating in your community.
The above best practices will help maximize your impact. But regularly testing different approaches tailored to your audience insights is key to long-term LinkedIn success. With a strategic, focused effort, you can build an authoritative LinkedIn presence that substantially elevates your brand and achieves your professional goals.