LinkedIn has been steadily growing as a social media platform with more business owners, employees, and freelancers than ever posting regularly. LinkedIn is great as a B2B platform where people can connect, recruit, and make new relationships for business.

It can be hard to stand out, however, as more and more people are using the same tactics to get the best engagement. Knowing what you need to do for 2022 is important. For those who are just starting out on LinkedIn or for those who have been there for a while but want to get into posting regularly, there are some best practices for how to get the most out of LinkedIn for 2022. 

Know Your Audience

The first thing you should do before you get into regular posting is to understand who your audience is. Look up posts from your target audience to understand their tone, what habits they have, how often they post, and when they are most likely to be active on LinkedIn. Additionally, you can use LinkedIn’s Website Demographics tool to get an idea of what kind of people are visiting your website.

When you have done this research and you know more about the people that you are trying to target, then you can start creating content specific to them. Before understanding your audience, you run the risk of missing the mark completely with your posts. It’s a lot easier to come up with specific ideas, topics, and themes when you know who you are talking to.

We also suggest that you find your community. Follow thought leaders, get involved in conversations, and comment on posts to increase visibility. Make sure you also join groups relevant to your brand or business and follow the hashtags that you wish to get involved in.

Types of Content

It’s easy to get bogged down in reading what everyone else is doing and worry that you’re not going to get engagement. One of the best things to do is take what others are doing and follow examples of what gets them engagement and avoid the things that fall flat.

Put out employee posts; new starters, birthdays, and work anniversaries. Mention any important work that employees have done, make sure that you celebrate the wins! You can also write when it’s gone slightly wrong (but make sure there’s something you’ve learned along the way), and get it out there about awards that you’re nominated for or have won.

It’s so important for people to realize that you’re human, that your business cares about its staff, and that you’re doing something positive. Create fun and engaging calls to action so people who wish to, can get in touch or read more articles about the company. 

This also moves into highlighting company culture, becoming a thought leader, and making sure that potential employees or clients are aware of your business and how you interact as an organization. Make sure these posts are authentic and genuine, post them when relevant rather than having a strict schedule. 

Posting educational posts on something that your business does, or can help with is also a great way of engaging with not only potential customers but the wider audience on LinkedIn. Make sure the post is backed up by data or research, this will help your audience realize that you know what you’re talking about and that you can find data to back up your findings.

Still make it fun and easy-to-read though, no one enjoys reading those long LinkedIn articles that seem to drone on indefinitely. Educational posts, infographics, and charts can be especially beneficial if you are in the B2B space. Small digestible pieces of relevant information are your best bet at catching the attention of your target audience.

Source

It all leads back to thought leadership, making a community that you want to help. LinkedIn has its own educational series on how to make the most out of LinkedIn depending on how you want to use it if it’s to advertise better, drive more leads, or build your brand.

LinkedIn Best Practices

LinkedIn is riddled with great examples of how to post, so a great way to learn the best practices is by being an active user.

Be Human

One practice you’ll notice among some of the highest performing posts is that they make sure that not all their posts are self-promotional. This ensures the reader knows your company is built by humans and that you’re not just a faceless corporate facade. This will go a long way in creating a target audience that will engage and react to your posts.

Self-promotion is fine, but make sure it is in small doses. If you do post self-promotional posts, make sure your call-to-action is the best it can be so people can find out more about you. Make sure your profile is also completely up to date. 

Stop the Scroll

Capture your audience’s attention with a catchy visual, a striking headline, or a video. You want to stop them from scrolling past your content so make it worth their while. Posts can be up to 1,300 characters long but having a striking image to get them to read what you’ve written is one of the best ways to get them to look at you and your business. 

Engage

Building relationships with your audience and customers is crucial to an effective LinkedIn posting strategy. Reply to comments, and be sure that your tone is consistent throughout any post or interaction. If that means one person focuses on LinkedIn and other social media, so be it. It has to be unified across all channels.

Having one voice is less confusing to readers and means they get to know you and the brand better. Remember your brand is your business, and branding is extremely important on LinkedIn. 

Focus on Readability

Make your content easy to read. Bullet points or smaller, one-sentence paragraphs get people reading on so make sure it’s formatted in a way that will want people to click on the ‘read more’ button. By doing this, you can also create a little bit of suspense, but make sure it makes sense to do so.

Don’t confuse the audience by cutting off half your sentence and moving it down a line because it seems like a good idea. The copy is disjointed and doesn’t read well. Most people also think that a line break denotes a period, so it can read like you have put periods in the middle of sentences, which makes no sense. 

Be Consistent

Consistency is the most important practice. There is no point doing all of the research regarding target audiences, hashtags, content, etc. if you’re going to post once a month. Post 3-4 times a week during the hours that your customers and audience are online. Most posts between 8 am and 2 pm have better engagement than those posted later or earlier but you will have to decide when is best for you. Some businesses post every day, again it might work for you but make sure to post at least 3 days a week. 

Be Intentional

Provide valuable content that people want to read. If there is no value, why should anyone waste their time on it? If all you do is write posts about your personal life, people will question it. If all you do is post more corporate jargon-filled posts, people will not engage. Make sure each post has a challenge, opportunity, or benefit (unless it’s a celebratory or birthday post), and ask members of your staff to share and react with it so the engagement continues to grow. 

Valuable content is important, it shows you know your company and its audience and that you can provide information that people want to know about. That is key on LinkedIn, and you can only grow with valuable posts.

Posting on LinkedIn, in a Nutshell

Overall, make sure that you are consistent, authentic, and genuine. Focus on the audience and building a community. 2022 is the year of growth, so make sure you’re a part of that by following these best practices and tips. Start today and stick with it.