When should you post a promotion on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 722 million members worldwide. With its huge reach and engaged user base, LinkedIn presents a major opportunity for brands to promote their products and services. However, in order to maximize the impact of LinkedIn promotions, it’s important to understand when the optimal times are to post.

Some key questions around LinkedIn promotion strategy include:

– What days of the week tend to see the highest engagement?
– What times of day tend to perform best?
– How can you align promotions with trends and events happening in your industry?
– How frequently should you post promos without overwhelming your audience?

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore research and tips to help inform the best practices around when to post LinkedIn promotions.

Optimal Days of the Week

When considering which days to post LinkedIn promotions, keep in mind that usage patterns on the platform follow a weekday/weekend pattern. Engagement tends to be significantly higher Monday through Friday when people are browsing LinkedIn more actively at work.

Several studies have broken down the highest performing days:

Key takeaway: Prioritize Tuesdays and Wednesdays for LinkedIn promotions, followed by Thursdays and Mondays. Weekends tend to see lower traffic and response rates.

Why Tuesdays and Wednesdays Tend to Perform Best

There are a few key factors contributing to Tuesdays and Wednesdays emerging as the best days to post LinkedIn promotions:

– On Mondays, people are often catching up on email and getting oriented for the week ahead. Attention spans may be more limited.
– By Tuesday and Wednesday, professionals are settled into the weekly workflow and have more time allocate to browsing LinkedIn.
– Thursdays and Fridays tend to see people winding down and becoming more distractable in anticipation of the weekend.
– Tuesdays and Wednesdays are strategically placed in the heart of the work week when engagement is typically highest.

Keep these dynamics in mind as you think about when your target audience is most likely to be active and responsive on LinkedIn. Plot your promotions during their peak days on the platform.

Best Times of Day

Within each day, there are also optimal times to post LinkedIn promotions when engagement rates tend to see spikes.

These patterns largely correlate with periods when people are most active on LinkedIn during their work days:

The early morning window aligns with people checking LinkedIn when they arrive at work and getting caught up on news and content. Noon is when usage spikes around lunch breaks. And the late afternoon period coincides with people checking LinkedIn more actively again as they prepare to wrap up their workdays.

One thing to note – these are general patterns based on aggregate data, but each audience will have its own nuanced usage cycles. Track engagement analytics for your own followers to detect any variations in peak times when your audience is most active. Adjust your posting schedule accordingly.

Also keep time zones in mind if you are targeting a global audience. Mid-day for you may align with evening downtime on the other side of the world. Tailor timing based on each core geography.

Avoid In-Between Times

When plotting your LinkedIn promotions schedule, the in-between times tend to see significant dips in engagement:

– Early morning before 7 am when few people are logged in
– Mid-morning around 10 am as people focus on work tasks
– Mid-afternoon around 2-3 pm when energy levels lag
– Evening after 6 pm when usage declines for the day

Stay clear of these lulls where possible. They represent openings in user attention that are best filled with your meaningful, vibrant content.

Alignment With Industry Events and Trends

Beyond day of week and time of day, also look at how you can align LinkedIn promotions with major events, trends, and themes happening in your target industry.

Being timely and relevant with your messaging can boost resonance. But you have to be strategic – simply piggybacking on every topic du jour without a purpose can backfire.

Here are some effective ways to synergize with what’s bubbling up in your niche:

Leverage Keyword Opportunities

Use keyword tracking to detect when certain industry terms and themes are spiking in search volume and usage. Then strategically work those words and phrases into your promotions for amplified visibility.

But avoid force fitting keywords or you risk coming across as spammy. Make sure they flow naturally.

Support Trending Topics and Hashtags

Keep tabs on powerful hashtags and trending topics gaining steam in your sector. If there’s a meaningful way to incorporate these into your promotions, it can help strike the iron while hot.

But Never use hashtags that don’t authentically relate to your brand. The goal is to contribute to the conversation, not interject tangentially into something unrelated.

Connect Promos to Upcoming Events

Major conferences, product releases, awareness days, and other calendar events all present opportunities. Time promotions and messaging to build anticipation and excitement around these happenings in your space.

This helps you participate in the collective focus rather than trying to compete with it.

Commemorate Notable Occasions

Moments like anniversaries, milestones, observances, and remembrances give powerful premises for promotions, especially if they relate significantly to your industry.

These emotional cultural moments often see heightened engagement – capitalize on them with care and consideration.

Post Frequency Best Practices

When executing your LinkedIn promotions strategy, it’s essential to strike the right balance between regular posting and oversaturation.

Post too infrequently, and you miss out on opportunities to connect with audiences. Too often, and followers get overwhelmed.

Here are some frequency best practices to follow:

Individual Promo Posts

In general, limit yourself to 1-2 dedicated promotional posts per week. Any more quickly becomes perception of spam.

And make sure support content and value-focused posts surround promotions. You don’t want your profile to look like a pure advertising feed.

Repurpose and Recycle Strategically

While you want to avoid spamming followers, you can typically get away with posting the same promotion 2-3 times total while still coming across as fresh.

For example, you could post on Tuesday morning, re-promote on Thursday afternoon to capture different groups, and share one last time the following Monday.

Just make sure each repeat feels purposeful rather than gratuitous. And mix it up with unique copy and visuals.

Watch Feedback and Engagement Metrics

Keep close tabs on how followers are reacting to your promotion posts – likes, comments, clicks, and other engagement metrics.

If you see these declining rapidly, it’s a signal to change up your frequency or reevaluate your positioning. Followers will let you know through their actions if you’ve hit saturation.

Consider Paid Amplification Strategically

If you have the budget, paid LinkedIn ads can help increase promotion frequency beyond organic limits. They also allow you to target users outside your immediate follower base.

Just take care not to go overboard. Even paid ads have their threshold before wear-out sets in. Monitor performance carefully.

Conclusion

Optimizing when you post LinkedIn promotions takes research, planning and constant tuning. But aligning your timing with audience usage patterns and industry moments can have a big impact on engagement and conversions.

Keep the tips covered here in mind as you plot your promotions calendar:

– Prioritize Tuesdays and Wednesdays, followed by other peak midweek days.
– Target morning, noontime, and late afternoon for highest response rates.
– Synergize promotions with trends, events, and observances in your niche.
– Maintain 1-2x per week organic frequency, supplemented strategically with paid ads.

With the right schedule, your LinkedIn promotions will reach engaged professionals at exactly the moments they’re most receptive. That unlocks huge value from the platform.

So be thoughtful and strategic with your timing – results will follow.