LinkedIn carousels are an effective way to showcase your brand, products, services, content, and more on LinkedIn. Carousels allow you to tell a story across multiple slides, combining text, images, and videos into a visually compelling post. When used strategically, LinkedIn carousels can boost engagement, increase visibility, drive traffic, and support your overall content marketing efforts on the platform. But what tool should you use to actually create these carousels? There are a few options available, each with their own pros and cons. In this article, we’ll explore the top tools for creating LinkedIn carousels so you can determine the best option for your needs.
LinkedIn’s Built-In Carousel Creator
The easiest way to create LinkedIn carousels is to use LinkedIn’s built-in carousel creator directly within your LinkedIn Company Page or personal profile. To access the carousel creator, simply start a new post and look for the “carousel” option. This will allow you to add up to 10 slides, with each slide able to contain text, images, video, and buttons.
The main benefits of using LinkedIn’s built-in carousel creator are that it’s simple, integrated directly into the platform, and requires no additional tools or software. You don’t need any design experience to quickly put together an effective, polished-looking carousel. It also allows you to preview exactly how your carousel will look within the LinkedIn feed.
However, there are some limitations to be aware of. You have less control over custom design elements. All carousels created with LinkedIn’s tool will look largely the same, adhering closely to LinkedIn’s default templates and specifications. There are limited options for customizing fonts, colors, layouts, animations, and more. So for brands that want a highly customized, branded carousel that stands out, LinkedIn’s creator may leave something to be desired.
Pros
- Easy and intuitive to use
- Integrated directly into LinkedIn – no additional tools needed
- Allows previewing within the LinkedIn feed
- Requires no design experience
Cons
- Limited customization options for branding and design
- Carousels have a somewhat generic, templated look
- Less control over specific design elements
Design Software
For greater creative control over the look and feel of your LinkedIn carousels, many brands turn to design software like Canva or Adobe Creative Cloud. Tools like Photoshop and Illustrator allow you to completely customize carousel layouts, typography, color palettes, animations, and more. You can craft carousels that align seamlessly with your brand style guide. The end result is an eye-catching, branded carousel that looks polished and professional.
Using design software does require more effort, time, and skill than LinkedIn’s built-in tool. You’ll need proficiency in programs like Canva or Photoshop to create the graphics, layouts, and visual elements that bring your carousel to life. You’ll also need to review LinkedIn’s carousel specs and requirements to ensure your design adheres to the right dimensions and file sizes.
And while you can certainly preview your carousel designs, you won’t be able to see exactly how it looks within the live LinkedIn feed until you upload and publish the final version. There’s less opportunity to iteratively tweak and adjust within the LinkedIn interface.
Pros
- Complete creative control over branding and visual design
- Make carousels that align perfectly with brand style
- More customization of fonts, colors, graphics, animations
- Higher quality visual assets
Cons
- Requires design skills and proficiency in software
- More time intensive to create customized graphics
- Harder to preview natively within LinkedIn
- Steeper learning curve
LinkedIn Carousel Creation Services
If you want fully customized, high-converting LinkedIn carousels but don’t have the in-house design expertise, you can turn to professional LinkedIn carousel creation services. These services have designers well-versed in creating eye-catching carousels tailored specifically for the LinkedIn platform.
These services typically offer several carousel design packages to meet varying needs. Entry-level packages provide branded templates you can use to produce carousels yourself. More comprehensive packages will handle the entire carousel creation process for you, delivering visually stunning, strategically optimized carousels for your approval.
The benefits of using a carousel creation service are saving time, accessing design expertise, and getting carousels proven to engage the LinkedIn audience. However, it does require an investment that may not suit smaller budgets. And you’ll still need to provide all the raw materials, like copy, images, videos, and brand assets.
Pros
- Saves time spent designing carousels
- Leverages outside design expertise
- Gain access to proven, high-converting carousel templates
- Frees in-house resources to focus elsewhere
Cons
- Requires monetary investment
- Need to provide raw materials like images and copy
- Less control over creation process
- Quality level depends on service provider
LinkedIn Carousel Software
There are also dedicated software tools available for creating optimized LinkedIn carousels at scale. For example,ohippus is a suite of tools that makes it simple to batch produce customized LinkedIn videos, articles, and carousels. It provides templates, design elements, and automation to streamline carousel creation.
Carousel software is ideal for teams that need to produce multiple carousels on an ongoing basis. It makes the process much more efficient with templates and automation, while still maintaining a high level of customization. These tools also pull in analytics so you can see which types of carousels perform best and continuously optimize.
The catch is that carousel software requires an investment and learning curve. It may be overkill for individuals or small teams planning to only create carousels sporadically. For larger companies committed to carousels as an ongoing pillar of their LinkedIn strategy, the time savings and efficiency gains justify the investment.
Pros
- Automates and streamlines carousel creation
- Batch produce customized carousels efficiently
- Leverage templates and analytics
- Powerful capabilities for carousel-focused strategies
Cons
- Requires monetary investment in software
- Potentially overkill for sporadic carousel needs
- Learning curve to use tool effectively
- Need in-house design resources
Key Decision Criteria
When evaluating the options for creating LinkedIn carousels, here are some key criteria to consider:
Branding and Customization Requirements
If you want a highly branded, customized carousel, LinkedIn’s built-in tool will be limiting. Opt for design software or creation services instead.
In-House Skill and Resources
If you don’t have design skills on your team, leverage creation services or software with templates.
Volume and Frequency
For frequent, high-volume carousel needs, carousel software makes the most sense based on efficiency.
Budget
Factor in whether you can afford the investments needed for software, services, or design tools.
Previewing and Iterating
LinkedIn’s built-in tool makes previewing and iterating easiest before publishing.
Drive Toward Consistency
Templates via services or software promote consistency for ongoing carousel initiatives.
Performance Analytics
Software tools provide the best analytics on carousel performance over time.
Conclusion
There are several effective options for creating custom LinkedIn carousels:
- LinkedIn’s built-in carousel creator: The simplest, most integrated option but limited customization capabilities.
- Design software like Canva or Creative Cloud: Enables complete creative control for branded, customized carousels.
- LinkedIn carousel creation services: Leverage outside experts to design high-quality, high-converting carousels for you.
- LinkedIn carousel software: Tools like hippovideo streamline and automate production of multiple carousels.
The best approach depends on your specific brand needs, audience, resources, and capabilities. Ideally, do testing across a few options to determine which allows you to most efficiently create customized, high-performing carousels that engage your target audience on LinkedIn. With the right tool and strategy, LinkedIn carousels can become a core pillar within your content marketing mix.