How to Increase LinkedIn Engagement

Whether you use LinkedIn strictly for your personal brand or you manage a business profile on LinkedIn, it can be tricky to get the levels of engagement you want on the platform. Part of the reason for this is that LinkedIn is not considered as “fun” as other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. However, there are many things you can do to increase engagement with your posts and profile on LinkedIn to get more out of it and gain publicity and even potential clients for yourself or your company. Don’t get discouraged if you aren’t seeing massive engagement right away. Keep tweaking your profile and creating high-quality content and watch your following and engagement grow!

[Edit]Steps

[Edit]Polishing Your Personal Profile

1. Highlight your expertise and knowledge with your profile’s headline. Decide what topic or field you mainly want to share content in and gain followers. Make the headline on your profile specific to this, rather than more general. Appealing to a smaller group of people interested in something specific will get you more engagement than trying to appeal to a large, diverse audience.^[1]
   
   • For example, if you plan to share content about data analysis and want to gain followers who will engage with your posts on this topic, your headline could be something like: “Data Analyst | I Use Real-World Data to Develop Businesses.”
   • You can also try writing a headline that speaks directly to your audience if you want to offer them something specific. For example, if you plan to share content about leadership, you could write something like: “Leadership Coach | I Help Professionals Grow Their Leadership Skills.”
2. Update your profile every month or quarter. Go through your profile at the end of every month or quarter and add any new work experience, achievements, skills, certifications, and anything else that will make you look like more of an expert in your field. Set a recurring reminder on your phone to update your profile if it helps you remember to do this.^[2]
   
   • Updating your profile regularly makes you look more active on LinkedIn and people are more likely to follow you and engage with you.
   • Make sure to update your profile any time you change something like your current position or location, as well.
3. Use high-quality profile and background photos. Set your personal profile photo to a professional-looking headshot. Change the default LinkedIn background photo to something that showcases your location, your industry, or your personal brand.^[3]
   
   • It’s OK if you don’t want to invest in getting a professional headshot taken by a photographer. There are other ways to take a good profile picture. For example, you can take a professional-looking profile photo by standing against a blank wall and using a smartphone camera’s portrait setting.
   • Some ideas for your background photo could be an aerial photo of the city you live and work in, a custom logo for your personal brand, or the logo of the company you work at.
4. Include relevant keywords throughout your profile. Choose some keywords that are relevant to the types of jobs and clients you want and include them in your profile’s headline and job descriptions. This will help people who are more likely to engage with you find you through LinkedIn search.^[4]
   
   • For example, if you’re a freelance content writer with a marketing focus, you can use keywords like: “content creator, content writer, ghost writer, and content marketer.”

[Edit]Building a Strong Business Profile

1. Take notes on your competitors’ LinkedIn profiles. Review the profiles of your top competitors and look at how they’re portraying their brand to your potential customers. Take notes on their pictures, descriptions, listed specialties, content updates, and anything else that stands out on their profile.^[5]
   
   • If there are certain things you like about a competitor’s profile, you can try to include similar things on your profile in a unique way. On the other hand, if you want to differentiate yourself completely from a competitor, you can avoid using things like similar descriptions or photos.
2. Use custom branded banners to make your business profile look professional. LinkedIn allows businesses to use up to 3 custom banners on their profiles, so take advantage of all 3 of these slots. Create a unique branded banner for each one to make your profile look professional and polished.^[6]
   
   • You can also take advantage of the banner spaces to include a call to action. For example, if you’re launching a new clothing line, you could create a banner that includes some text that says something like: “Our Summer 2020 Line Is Now Available. Visit Our Website to See It Now!”
3. Fill your profile with industry and product keywords to optimize it for search. Make sure to fill out your profile with all the relevant products and services that your company offers, so people who search LinkedIn with those keywords are more likely to find your page. Include other relevant keywords that describe your company and aren’t necessarily a product or service as well.^[7]
   
   • For example, if your company manufactures and sells environmentally friendly clothing, you could include keywords like: “eco-friendly clothing,” “eco-friendly fashion,” “environmentally friendly clothing,” “environmentally conscious fashion,” and other terms along those lines that people might search for on LinkedIn.
4. Ask customers for recommendations and endorsements. Reach out to past customers and ask them to write recommendations or to endorse your company on LinkedIn. This will make your profile look more reliable and potential customers are more likely to engage with it.^[8]
   
   • For example, if you sell environmentally friendly clothing, you could send a follow-up email to customers who have made online purchases from you and say something like: “We hope you’re enjoying your new clothes! If so, would you mind taking a second to review and endorse us on LinkedIn? This would help us get our eco-friendly clothing to more customers worldwide!”
5. Create Showcase pages to highlight specific products or services. LinkedIn’s Showcase pages are additional pages that appear on the right-hand side of your business profile and show up separately in LinkedIn search results. Create these pages for different product lines, services, or departments of your company to provide more focused and specific information for people interested in those things.^[9]
   
   • For example, if you have an eco-friendly clothing company, you could make different Showcase pages for women’s clothing, men’s clothing, shoes, and any other lines you want to highlight. That way, if someone searches for something like “eco-friendly men’s fashion,” they will see your showcase page and be taken directly to the page that is most relevant to them.

[Edit]Creating High-Engagement Content

1. Focus on publishing mainly text-based content. Plain text posts actually tend to receive the highest numbers of likes, comments, and views on LinkedIn. Posts with external links and photos receive lower levels of engagement, so focus your content publishing efforts on text.^[10]
   
   • This doesn’t mean that you can’t create other types of content. In fact, you definitely should add some variety. It just means that text-based content should be your first choice on LinkedIn.
   • For longer text-based content, you can use LinkedIn’s “write an article” feature. This allows you to publish more long-form content directly on LinkedIn, which is shown to get more engagement than trying to send traffic somewhere else, such as a personal blog.
2. Publish short native videos on LinkedIn to connect with your audience visually. Videos uploaded directly to LinkedIn tend to perform better than sharing videos from another platform like YouTube or Vimeo. Upload videos that are under 90 seconds to get the most engagement. ^[11]
   
   • For example, if you work in marketing, you could start a video series of 30-second marketing tip videos. Or, you could do 1-minute video interviews of other professionals in the marketing space.
   • Another video idea is videos that demonstrate new technologies your company is working on. For instance, if you work in 3D printing, you could upload videos of your latest 3D printers printing impressive objects.
3. Tell personal or business stories in your content to connect with people. Readers and viewers are more likely to engage with content that tells a story. Share things like before and after stories and personal or client success stories.^[12]
   
   • For example, if you’re a career coach, you could share a personal story about how you were once lost and struggling to find a career, but you persisted and never gave up and now you’re successful. This will encourage engagement from users who are in a similar position.
   • If you work at a marketing agency, you could tell a story about how your marketing services helped a certain struggling client boost their sales dramatically and become successful.
4. Include a call to action at the end of every post. Ask users to comment and share your content. Telling users directly what you want them to do is an easy way to increase engagement.^[13]
   
   • For example, you can say something like: “If you liked this video and found it helpful, be sure to share it!” or “Let me know what you think about this topic in the comments below.”
5. Ask questions in your posts to facilitate conversation and debate. End text-based or video content by asking your readers and viewers what they think about the topic. This will encourage people to leave comments and engage with you and other users on your content.^[14]
   
   • For example, if you wrote a short post about “5 Marketing Trends for 2021,” you can end it with a question like: “Which of these trends do you think will be the most important and why?”
   • If you’re a fitness coach and you uploaded a video about a healthy diet, you could end the video by saying something like: “Which meal of the day is hardest for you to eat healthy at?”
6. Respond to users who engage with your content. Read the comments that people leave and try to respond to as many as possible—every one if you have the time—to keep the engagement growing. When people see that you’ve engaged with others on your past content, they are more likely to take the time to leave a comment themselves.^[15]
   
   • If a piece of content you posted isn’t getting the engagement you would like to see, you can also try commenting on it to spark engagement. For example, you can ask for feedback or ask another question in the comments section.
   • Even if someone leaves a simple comment like “Great points!” take the time to respond. You can say something like: “I’m glad you found this post useful! Thanks for reading.”

[Edit]Getting Your Content Seen

1. Post new content at least 1-2 times a week. LinkedIn’s algorithm rewards people who post regularly, so make a habit of creating content at least once or twice a week to show up more in users’ feeds. Choose specific days of the week and set aside time on those days to share content on LinkedIn, if it’s easier for you to commit to doing it this way.^[16]
   
   • Don’t worry if you don’t see high engagement right away. Just stick with it and keep publishing content regularly. Eventually it will pay off in the form of more followers, connections, and engagement.
2. Use up to 6 hashtags in each post to increase the visibility of your posts. LinkedIn allows users to search for content with hashtags, so use a few of them in every post you make to help your content appear to a wider audience. Choose hashtags that are highly relevant to the specific content and your industry or professional niche.^[17]
   
   • For example, if you posted something about marketing trends, you can use hashtags like: “#marketingtrends,” “#marketingtips,” and “#marketingindustry.”
   • A person can also choose to follow certain hashtags on LinkedIn and content with those hashtags shows up at the top of their feed. So, if someone is following “3Dprinting,” your posts that use that hashtag are more likely to appear to them.
3. Invest in LinkedIn ads if you have the budget for it. Sponsor content that you want to have the most visibility, so it shows up to more people. Create personalized ads that will go directly to users’ inboxes if you want to reach a very specific audience who is more likely to engage with your content.^[18]
   
   • For instance, you can target your ads at people in certain industries or with specific job titles or functions.
4. Share your content in relevant LinkedIn groups. Join some groups that are related to your area of expertise and the type of content you are posting on LinkedIn. Share your content within these groups to get it in front of highly interested users who are more likely to engage with it and share it themselves.^[19]
   
   • For example, if you’re primarily creating content related to software development, you can look for groups of programming, coding, and software professionals.
   • Before you start sharing in a group, take a look at other content that has been posted to see if people are actually engaging in conversation in the group. If not, it might not be worth your time to post in the group.
   • You can join up to 100 groups on LinkedIn, so try to find as many relevant groups as you can. You could even try creating your own group to gain a following of people who are interested in the exact type of content you’re creating.
5. Engage with content that other people create. When you comment on or like someone else’s content, it shows up in your connections’ feeds, so you gain more visibility on LinkedIn. People will then potentially jump into the conversation or click on your profile and go look at the content that you’ve created.^[20]
   
   • Try to find other people who are in the same industry or professional niche and engage with their content. That way, people who are interested in their content might take a look at what you’ve created and engage with it as well.

[Edit]Tips

• Aim the content you share on LinkedIn at a specific audience of people who are more likely to engage with it.
• Look at engagement like a two-way street. Engage with other peoples' content and respond to people who engage with yours.

[Edit]Warnings

• Outside links receive less engagement than content posted directly on LinkedIn.
• Videos that are longer than 90 seconds receive less engagement than shorter videos.

[Edit]References

1. ↑ https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-increase-linkedin-engagement-4-tips/
2. ↑ https://www.inc.com/megy-karydes/7-simple-ways-to-boost-your-linkedin-engagement-see-results.html
3. ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2015/05/21/15-surprising-rules-you-should-know-regarding-linkedin-etiquette/#4720161a6b0e
4. ↑ https://www.inc.com/megy-karydes/7-simple-ways-to-boost-your-linkedin-engagement-see-results.html
5. ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/236690
6. ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2015/08/20/how-to-optimize-your-brands-presence-on-linkedin/#7ef005595e8a
7. ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226583
8. ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226583
9. ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/neilpatel/2015/08/20/how-to-optimize-your-brands-presence-on-linkedin/#7ef005595e8a
10. ↑ https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-create-high-engagement-linkedin-posts/271719/
11. ↑ https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/20-linkedin-tips-to-help-boost-engagement/545369/
12. ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/316139
13. ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226583
14. ↑ https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-increase-linkedin-engagement-4-tips/
15. ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/316139
16. ↑ https://www.inc.com/megy-karydes/7-simple-ways-to-boost-your-linkedin-engagement-see-results.html
17. ↑ https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/20-linkedin-tips-to-help-boost-engagement/545369/
18. ↑ https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/20-linkedin-tips-to-help-boost-engagement/545369/
19. ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/287979
20. ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/316139