We all want to maximise our customer or investor engagement on LinkedIn and there are lots of different post types we are sure you have seen. In this blog we will look at the different types of posts and what is likely to get the most engagement for you.
You will all have seen the below when coming to create a post on LinkedIn let's look at these first.
Obviously, when writing a post you can simply begin to write your message in the start a post box. You could do nothing more than this and have a text only post but we wouldn't recommend this. It's likely to get the least reach and engagement.
So as you can see you can easily add a Photo or video, poll or write an article. Pretty straight forward but assuming this is to get a message across to your audience which do you choose? Photo, Video, Poll or Write an article? (if you are looking at a personal page you will see slightly different options)
Photo's
Adding a photo will increase your reach, typically twice as much as a text only post. Think about what's in the photo. If this is people and even better their faces this will gain more attention than a product only shot, it helps to put a face to your organisation. You can also consider using photos of key information from a longer post or infographic with a link to see the full post. This is an example we did for a post on Social media and which platforms are typically used by which age demographics.
You can upload photos directly into your post but if you are trying to gain brand recognition we recommend using a recognisable template, that way before your viewer has read anything they can see it's a post from you. Below are a couple of examples from our posts showing a theme.
Video's
These typically get five times the engagement of a text only post. If you are going to use this medium make sure it's short, typically 30 seconds. Research has shown viewers will watch 10 to 30 secs of a video. So either keep it short, a roundup of what's in the news for example, or cut a 30 sec clip that's engaging, maybe asking a question or sharing one tip with a link to the longer video, on your website or YouTube channel for the full video. Set-up videos speeding up the build of an exhibition stand are great ahead of an event.
Poll
These are a more recent addition and work well when asking a question of your audience or trying to gain engagement past liking a post. These need to be short as you have 140 characters for the question and 30 for the answers. Typically 2 to 4 answers work well. you can always ask people to put other options in the comments section. Remember to check back and follow up on such comments.
Use hashtags to help the LinkedIn algorithm organise these in the right category.
You cannot amend polls once they have been published so if you make a mistake you would need to delete it and start again.
You can choose the duration of your poll from 1 day up to 2 week. It's automatically set at one week and we think this is most appropriate. Remember if you have very few followers you are not likely to get a great engagement from a poll so maybe save until your followers have increased.
Articles
These allow for a long form post, more like a blog. They perform best if using approx 2000 words. Remember just like your other articles include relevant images or graphs to support your article and engage the user. If you are using a blog post from a website. Make sure to post on your blog site first then a syndicated post on LinkedIn. Remember your LinkedIn posts shouldn't just be advertising your products but engaging and educating your community. An article is a great way to create an engaging educational piece.
Other media
So that's the simple formats for media but there are more. If you click in the write a box post you will see the screen shown below.
From here you can add an event, Typically used for LinkedIn live events but you can add a link to an external event, Add a date and description.
If you click on the three dots to the right this will open up further options as shown below.
Celebration
From here you can share a celebration, maybe the COO has been with you for 10 years or a product has achieved use in xxx number of hospitals. You can use the standard images LinkedIn offer or add your own.
Advertise a vacancy
This is a simple operation to carry out with drop-down menus and boxes to complete, including job description, title, and type of work. Remember you can also add the now hiring banner to your personal LinkedIn profile.
Carousel
We are not sure about you but we are seeing so many more of these in our feed yet the fact it's a little hidden to find how to create them can make it difficult initially.
This is found in add a document which you can use to add many different types of documents but it's easy to create a carousel of images or text of key information, viewers then scroll through the different pages. This is an excellent way of doing lists or tips if you want to add more than one line to each. Keep a tip per page in your document, save the document as a PDF and upload. Remember to make the text on each page clear to read and not too much. Here is the link from LinkedIn explaining how to create a carousel post.
Add text to the post as you would usually remembering all the other rules for an effective LinkedIn post some of which we covered in a previous blog
How to assess what works for you and your community.
We have given a bit of direction on the different types of media and how they typically perform but the best thing to do is try the different formats over a couple of weeks and then look at the analytics to see which has the most impressions, likes, and comments. This will give you the best indication of what works for your audience.
As always if you have any questions about this topic or want help with your marketing please drop us a line.
