TUTORIAL ARTICLE

Beginner

8 min

The ultimate guide to increasing engagement on LinkedIn

Everything you need to know about increasing your LinkedIn engagement from a personal profile or business page

What you’ll need
Practice in the app

LinkedIn is a powerful platform on which to build a personal brand, network with industry professionals, and raise brand awareness for your business. But how can you stand out against LinkedIn’s 930 million-plus users? Read on for our extensive list of tips for boosting your LinkedIn engagement to get noticed and remembered.

What is a good engagement rate on LinkedIn?

Your social media engagement rate is the total engagement on a post divided by the total number of impressions on that post. This is usually expressed as a percentage.

Say a LinkedIn post gets 1000 views and 100 engagements — then it has a 10% engagement rate. This is because: (10 engagements / 100 views) x 100 = 10%.

A good engagement rate for LinkedIn is about 2%. However, this can climb all the way up to 5-6% at times.

How should a business approach LinkedIn versus an individual?

Should those managing a LinkedIn business page have a different approach than those posting from a personal profile? The short answer is yes. There’s a big difference in how you should approach your LinkedIn strategy depending on the type of page you’re publishing from.

For those seeking advice on increasing their engagement from a LinkedIn business page, it’s important to understand that you may be at a disadvantage due to the human-less and impersonal nature of posting as a brand, unless of course, you’re managing a business page for a household name. To maximize the engagement on your content, it’s important to promote employee advocacy by encouraging your colleagues to share posts from the business page with their own audience. You should also be using your business page to engage with other businesses and brands, as well as sharing content created by your company and re-sharing relevant content from other businesses in this space. This will help your business form connections with others who will engage with your company content and may even share your content on their social channels too.

When it comes to those posting from personal profiles, it’s likely that you may receive higher engagement rates because of how much easier it is to relate and connect with a human versus a faceless brand. We suggest leaning into this human aspect as much as possible to maximize your engagement levels by showing up as your most authentic and honest self. We recommend sharing stories, talking about your experiences, sharing lessons you’ve learned, and using first person language. It’s okay to also relate your content back to your business as long as you keep it subtle and try not to be too promotional.

In short, LinkedIn business pages will want to post content relating to company news and a smattering of promotional content, as well as relevant content and resources, while a personal LinkedIn account should offer more insight into who the person is and their professional journey.

20 ways to boost your LinkedIn engagement

1. Employee advocacy

For those managing a LinkedIn business page, it’s important to encourage your employees and colleagues to reshare content published from the company page on their own personal profiles. This can make a huge difference by broadening the reach of your content.

2. Authenticity

Unsurprisingly, content posted from the account of a real-life human versus content from a faceless brand will generally perform better. When publishing from a personal profile you can maximize your potential for engagement by speaking in first person, showing some vulnerability by discussing past mistakes or lessons you’ve learned, and showing your face whenever you feel comfortable.

3. Show your expertise

Valuable content will always get great engagement. If you’re looking to position yourself as an industry expert and a thought leader, then you can expect to amass great engagement on your content over time as well as a growing list of connections.

4. Storytelling

Some of the most popular content you find on LinkedIn are stories. LinkedIn is a great place to share lessons you've learned as well as thought-provoking stories and tales of personal experience. LinkedIn is largely about professionals coming together to learn from one another, so what better way to achieve this connection than through storytelling?

5. Engage with others

It would be naïve to think that you could pop onto LinkedIn, crank out some content, and immediately get great engagement. While the best content will always receive at least some attention, LinkedIn is about networking and building connections as much as any other platform. Be sure to interact with others in your industry and they'll be sure to return the favor.

6. Join relevant groups

In conjunction with our previous tip, joining relevant LinkedIn groups and engaging with the members within will help build deeper and more intimate connections on the platform — which, in turn, will raise your engagement rates.

7. Consistency

It’s important to note that engagement is something that will grow over time if you are consistent with posting high quality content to LinkedIn. Much like a plant that needs watering on a regular schedule, your social media engagement will also bloom with consistent effort.

8. Create for LinkedIn

The very best performing content will be the posts that were created specifically with LinkedIn in mind — not those that have been repurposed from your other various social media channels. Every social media channel is unique, and LinkedIn more so than others, so crafting content that is specifically intended for LinkedIn and your LinkedIn audience will ensure that it primed for engagement.

9. Perfect your profile

Whether you’re managing a company page or a personal profile, having a complete and professional-looking profile will make a world of difference when it comes to your engagement levels and follower counts. Make sure that every section of your profile has been filled out in a thoughtful manner, and that you have a professional headshot (or high-res logo) for your profile picture. LinkedIn is a channel for professionals, so a profile that is incomplete or lacking in effort will not suffice.

10. Tone down the self-promo

It’s okay to shout about your products/services occasionally, but an overly promotional LinkedIn presence will do the opposite of making sales — it’ll drive people away. Showing up as your authentic self and allowing your audience to get to know the person behind the business will do more for your business than any promotion post could do. After all, people buy products from people they like.

11. Optimum timing and frequency

The best time to post on LinkedIn for maximum engagement is when the majority of your audience is online. While this will vary for everyone, generally speaking, Tuesday to Thursday between 9am and 12pm is when the majority of people are active on LinkedIn. When it comes to frequency, it’s important to note that LinkedIn’s algorithm aims to provide a mixture of content from different people and pages to the newsfeed. As a result, if you’re posting more than once per day, only a small amount of your content is likely to be seen by colleagues and followers. With this in mind, how much you should post to LinkedIn is usually limited to between two and five times per week with the absolute maximum being posting once per day.

12. Ask questions

If you’re looking to drum up comments and conversation in response to your content, then it’s important to ask questions of your audience. Share an opinion and then ask your audience, followers, and friends what they think, or ask what they would do in your situation. Stir up discussions, and kickstart debates.

13. Optimize your content for visibility

Taking simple steps, such as tagging colleagues or influencers in your content, can increase the exposure of your post and make sure it’s seen by the most relevant people. Adding hashtags will also make it easier for your content to appear in search results on the platform.

14. Offer a resource

Content that offers a resource, such as a downloadable worksheet, checklist, or guide, is sure to be a hit on LinkedIn. Sit back and watch as your resource makes the rounds on social media, a testament to its value and usefulness.

15. Like your own posts

One unique thing about LinkedIn is that the algorithm will recognize a like as engagement, even if it’s come from the owner of the post. To use this information to your advantage, we suggest waiting until initial engagement with your post has died down before liking the post yourself. This will give it a boost and help it to stay in people’s newsfeeds just a little bit longer. You can also do the same with commenting, although this tactic works a little better if you leave a comment immediately after publishing your post. The idea is to add a comment to expand upon what you said in your post while also signaling to LinkedIn that this post is getting instant engagement and is therefore valuable.

16. Experiment with different formats

While many social media channels favor video content, LinkedIn content can be successful without a video or an image, as long as the actual content itself is insightful or valuable. To find out what works best for you, be sure to experiment with a variety of content formats, whether you create copy-only content, videos, or add images to your posts. Remember to make all content as accessible as possible, with captions being a must for any videos you create.

17. Try new features

As with all social media platforms, anyone making use of newer features is likely to get a boost in the algorithm. After all, social media channels want their users to witness new features being used so that they’ll catch on and grow in popularity. When it comes to LinkedIn, it may be time to try out LinkedIn Newsletters, LinkedIn Stories, or even livestreaming.

18. Keep an eye on your analytics

If you’re managing a LinkedIn page rather than a personal profile, it’s a good idea to regularly check on your analytics to see how your content is performing. Delving into your analytics will give you incredibly valuable insights on which piece of content is performing best and help you to understand whether certain topics or formats have been successful. There is much to learn from your LinkedIn analytics, so make sure to check in regularly and adapt your strategy based on your findings.

19. Optimize your content for mobile

Out of 4.48 billion social media users, 99% of them access websites or apps through a mobile device. As a result, it’s essential to consider how your content will display on mobile. Content that is difficult to understand, unclear, or unprofessional looking will get limited engagement.

20. Collaborate with influencers

Content created in collaboration with influencers will give you exposure to the audience of those influencers, as well as intrigue your existing audience. Sometimes the result is also simply great content — which is, of course, good for engagement.

Increasing your engagement levels on LinkedIn might be your ultimate goal, but it’s important to keep your priorities in order. Interesting, valuable, and high-quality content should always be your number one focus. Put your effort into creating the best content that you can, and engagement will naturally follow — especially if you follow these tips.


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