Your LinkedIn Page is a destination where people can really get to know your brand – and it's key to driving growth in 2023 and beyond.
Sure, people can get an overview of your products and services, but the key function of a LinkedIn Page is to attract and interact with your audience. If you treat the page as a dynamic marketing tool (rather than a static “About Us” page), you can establish thought leadership, build brand awareness, and move your audience to take action.
LinkedIn Pages Best Practices
There are a few basic best practices to follow when curating your LinkedIn Page:
- Establish a trusted, consistent voice by posting one to two times a day
- Use rich, eye-catching visuals
- Ask thoughtful questions that encourage comments
- Present a complete Page, taking advantage of all available tabs and fields, as Pages with complete information get 30% more weekly views
If you’re just getting started, check out our LinkedIn Pages best practices for more solid advice and examples. If your Page is already up and running, check out these 12 tips to earn audience attention and encourage your followers to interact.
How to Increase Engagement on Your LinkedIn Page
1. Use Rich Media
At CES a couple of years ago, Instagram’s Lila King said, “We’re moving from a text-based communication style to one that is almost completely visual.” While I’m not sure we should throw out our keyboards just yet, she was right that images and video can grab attention better than the most finely-crafted headline.
You can upload native video onto your LinkedIn Page. Try testing different lengths of video for different objectives, so readers can catch a glimpse of what they're about to consume, should they choose to click through.
Make your LinkedIn Page visually compelling by adding engaging, unique images to all your updates. We recommend images that are 1200x627 for Sponsored Content and organic updates. You can explore options for “non-stocky” images and be sure they’re diverse, use your own in-house photos, or create graphics with sites like Canva and Pixlr.
To add more visual interest, create an eye-catching cover image and replace it at least every six months.
Think of your cover image as an extension of your brand. You can use it to highlight different teams in your company, promote upcoming events, or announce seasonal campaigns. For example, we changed our header image to promote the launch of our Make B2B Everything It Can Be campaign.
2. Keep Your Updates Short, Sweet, and Spicy
You only have a few seconds to entice your followers to click on an update. Don’t be coy: tell your audience exactly what’s in it for them in as few characters as possible. We recommend 150 characters or fewer.
Use those characters to add spice to the update. Ask a thought-provoking question, point out a feature of the content you’re linking to, or even stir up a little controversy. Make it personal: Call out your audience, i.e., “Tech marketers, do you think VR is going to be a thing? Is it already?”
3. Use the 4-1-1 Rule
Most marketers are familiar with the 4-1-1 rule: If you grew up in the ‘90s, you must ask “What’s the 4-1-1?” when seeking information.
Okay, actually the 4-1-1 rule says that for every single piece of content you share about yourself (or your organization), you should share an update from another source and, most importantly, share four pieces of content written by others.
This rule helps keep your feed centered on your audience’s needs, rather than making it a place for your organization to talk about itself. For every post you link to from the company blog, share multiple helpful, valuable posts from around the web.
4. Use Tracking Links
As I mentioned in the introduction, your LinkedIn Page is a marketing tool in its own right. It comes equipped with analytics tools you can use to measure each post’s popularity and level of interaction. But you don’t have to stop at analyzing the activity your updates generate on LinkedIn.
Insert a tracking code on the end of your links. That way, you can properly attribute traffic to your site that originates from each update. You may find your LinkedIn Page becomes a substantial source of inbound traffic.
5. Don’t Use Links (Sometimes!)
As a general rule, we encourage marketers to use links in their updates. In fact, we have found that posts with links tend to see 45% higher engagement than those without. However, we also have seen that the occasional post without a link can get a great response, too. If you use linkless posts sparingly, they will stand out. Posts that feature thought-provoking or inspirational content tend to get high engagement, even without a link.
6. Use Showcase Pages to Highlight Your Brands, Business Units, or Initiatives
We recommend creating Showcase Pages whenever you have a brand, business unit, or initiative that offers unique value to specific segments of your audience. This way, you give followers the option to follow the aspect(s) of your company they’re most interested in.
Showcase Pages allow you to target each update to the most relevant audience to create a customized feed for each segment. To help you monitor and grow your unique audiences, Showcase Pages have the same posting options and analytics as your Linkedin Page.
We recently launched the LinkedIn Collective as a Showcase Page specifically focused on exploring the evolving world of work in B2B marketing from an expert perspective.
7. Take Advantage of the Content Suggestions Tool
The Content Suggestions tool allows you to quickly discover the topics and articles your target audience currently cares about. The tool bases these suggestions on factors like location, industry, job function, and seniority.
The Content Suggestions tool comes in handy when planning content, particularly when deciding which conversations you’d like to start or contribute to. When looking through the suggestions, consider questions you could ask to advance the conversation surrounding a specific topic.
8. Add Hashtags to Associate Your Content with Ongoing Conversations and Existing Communities
Part of the magic that is social media is the potential for any given post to be found and further amplified. Using hashtags doesn’t just increase the findability of your content; it also shows your audience which topics your post will address.
If you want to add followers from existing communities, using the same hashtags those communities use is a good way to go about it. You should also consider using hashtags for themed content initiatives to give followers an easy way to locate everything else you’ve published related to that initiative.
9. Respond to Comments
Asking questions that encourage comments can do wonders for amplification. Engaging with those comments can do wonders for trust and loyalty.
Engaging with comments shows audience members that your Page is a dynamic, people-powered destination, not just an unmonitored message board. You may not have time to respond to all comments. If that’s the case, focus on those where your response adds value for the responder or for other audience members who may be viewing the thread. Entertainment value counts, too.
Thanks to a recent update, admins now also have the ability to respond to comments as the LinkedIn Page on other content outside of the Page itself.
10. Engage Employees Outside Your Marketing Team
Speaking of people-powered, many of the top-performing LinkedIn Pages have achieved their success thanks to a team-centric approach. Marketers are only part of the team. Executives, subject matter experts, and employees across departments can all contribute in some way, whether it’s helping to create the content, helping to amplify it, or both.
Engage your people regularly by resharing their best @mentions and LinkedIn content. Boost the reach of your most important content by notifying employees who may be interested in sharing the post. Recognize team members and team accomplishments by giving them a shout-out from your Page. Lastly, take advantage of the "My Company” tab to foster internal engagement through a trusted, employee-only community.
11. Create a Newsletter to Grow Subscribers and Page Awareness
Newsletters have emerged as a great way to consistently produce thought leadership and keep your brand top of mind. When you go to publish an Article from your Page, select “Create a Newsletter.” You’ll have a number of options like title, description, logo, and cadence. Once you publish your first Newsletter, it will post as an Article to your Page feed and notify all of your Page followers.
By covering topics that are meaningful to your brand community, the Newsletter can serve as an ongoing way to attract and engage a qualified audience through your content. Reviewing analytics to see which editions of the Newsletter resonate most with subscribers can be helpful in directing not just your approach for future editions, but also your LinkedIn content strategy at large.
12. Boost Your Page’s Best Posts
By boosting posts from your LinkedIn Page, you can ensure the content reaches people beyond those who are already following you on LinkedIn. Types of posts that companies often amplify include industry thought leadership, customer spotlights, and new product launches or events.
One simple strategy: Use the Boost feature for a post that is already driving engagement with your Page followers. Not only can you be confident based on its early success that the content is catching the attention of your community, but you can also use LinkedIn’s targeting features to amplify it toward a demographically similar – yet much broader – audience.
Learn more about best practices for Boosting posts on LinkedIn.
Get Creative With Your Content in 2023
Your LinkedIn Page works best when it is a dynamic, visually compelling collection of highly valuable content. Curate it thoughtfully with your audience in mind, explore the possibilities, and watch your follower count grow next year.