With over 900 million global users, LinkedIn is the number-one platform for B2B marketers. It’s a great way to distribute content and grow your business. Half of all social traffic to B2B blogs and websites comes from LinkedIn.
So how might you pump up your promotional volume on LinkedIn if you’re an already-slammed-to-the-gills marketer? Well, for starters, let’s work smarter, not harder.
LinkedIn’s staff frequently share tips and post best practices in their regularly scheduled webinars. Additionally, automation is another tool you can use to simplify posting.
However, it’s also important to understand when to schedule LinkedIn posts to optimize views and engagement. Let’s dive into seven best practices to keep in mind when setting up your posting schedule.
1. Schedule LinkedIn Posts Once per Day
Posting multiple times daily is the standard approach to social media content marketing. However, this method doesn’t reap the same benefits on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn’s own marketing guide states that 20 posts per month will let you reach 60% of your audience. You will hit this target if you post once daily, five times a week. Usually, publishing more than once daily on LinkedIn won’t boost your engagement results.
We know how challenging it is to even meet a daily posting schedule. LinkedIn implemented a native scheduling tool at the end of 2022, allowing you to preschedule posts for more efficient use of your time.
Source: LinkedIn
Instead of posting more frequently on LinkedIn, we recommend using any extra social media time to work on another platform where the algorithms favor increased publishing rates.
2. Post Only on Weekdays
LinkedIn is different from other social media like Facebook and Twitter. Its primary purpose isn’t for social communication.
Think of it as a professional networking platform. Most people use LinkedIn to build professional connections and market to those in their industry, which means that most people use it on weekdays only, while they’re at work.
According to SproutSocial, the best days of the week to schedule LinkedIn posts are Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Meanwhile, avoid posting on Sunday. It has the lowest engagement of any day of the week.
3. Post in the Morning
The best content marketing strategy is to schedule your posts to intersect with the times your audience is online and scrolling their social media platforms. Here, LinkedIn again stands out from other social media platforms.
Users are more likely to engage on a professional networking site at work, particularly since many businesses have a company LinkedIn page. According to LinkedIn, updates posted in the morning have the highest engagement rate.
Why Is Morning Posting Ideal?
It makes sense to schedule LinkedIn posts in the morning if you think about the work routines of most business professionals. A typical morning often looks something like this:
- Make a coffee and greet your colleagues.
- Go to your desk.
- Check your email.
- Read online publications and social media to catch up on industry news.
- Complete morning work tasks.
- Check social media before heading to lunch.
Sometimes, morning deadlines supersede the first social media check-in. The optimal posting time is between 8:15 and noon, with the 10:00 and 11:00 hours seeing the most action.
Source: SproutSocial
Are There Other Good Times To Schedule LinkedIn Posts?
LinkedIn usage also increases around lunchtime and at the end of the workday, though these times don’t receive as much engagement as the morning hours. The uptick in activity during lunch and at the end of the workday is logical.
Often, users are too busy to check in on social media in the morning, so they’ll have a quick read over lunch. By the end of the day, meetings and other commitments have ended, leaving room for less critical tasks.
If your LinkedIn audience lives in different time zones, you may need to adjust your posting times. This way, everyone following you has a good chance of seeing at least some of your posts.
4. Vary Your Content
Determining the best posting times is the first step in optimizing your engagement on LinkedIn. The second step is to figure out what content to post.
As you schedule LinkedIn posts, make sure you vary your content. Here, the platform is similar to other social media platforms.
Viewers like variety, so mix up topics and formats. GIFs, articles, text, and videos are all fair game on LinkedIn. Additionally, you should take advantage of LinkedIn Live.
Keep in mind that people are more likely to share videos than any other content type. LinkedIn offers tips for posting video content on the platform.
When developing your LinkedIn content strategy, create posts that:
- Are relevant to your network
- Demonstrate your humanity
- Provide value
- Don’t include more than three hashtags
- Use language your audience understands and sounds human
The LinkedIn algorithm isn’t a fan of external links, so don’t include them in your posts. If you want viewers to check out an external site — say, your webpage — include the link in the comment section.
5. Use LinkedIn Analytics
The best way to know what strategies are best for scheduling LinkedIn posts is to assess the data. If you want to find out your audience’s sweet spot, experiment and then analyze your posts to see how well they performed.
Keep in mind that the suggested posting times are an average across industries and users. They may not be the ideal times to schedule LinkedIn posts for your audience.
For example, around 8 p.m. may be the best time to reach C-suite decision-makers. Executives have long and busy days. Even at 5 p.m., they are still catching up on emails and other matters. They don’t have time for social media until they’re at home.
LinkedIn has a built-in analytics tool to identify which posts are most effective. Sort your posts by top engagement rate, impressions, clicks, or interaction. Then see if there are any trends in post type or posting times.
As LinkedIn analytics only show the post date, keep records of the times you post.
6. Don’t Overuse LinkedIn Automation Tools
Automation tools can be helpful in carrying out repetitive tasks when you schedule LinkedIn posts, saving time when responding to connection requests and similar jobs. However, you should use them in moderation.
LinkedIn takes a dim view of “scraping” tools. You risk LinkedIn editors restricting your account if you rely too much on automation.
7. Incorporate an Integrated Social Media Strategy to Schedule LinkedIn Posts Efficiently
Most likely, LinkedIn isn’t your only social media platform in your digital marketing strategy. To maximize your ROI and resources, treat LinkedIn as just one part of the larger puzzle and optimize your posting schedule across all platforms.
Though an integrated strategy is effective, it can get a bit chaotic when planning, drafting, publishing, and analyzing the performance of social posts across multiple social networks. DivvyHQ simplifies the process.
Our integrated content operations platform helps social teams manage the entire social planning and production process, as well as collecting relevant data across platforms with our DivvyHQ Analytics dashboards. You should definitely give DivvyHQ a look if you’re trying to streamline your workflow.
Get in touch today to find out more and to request a demo to learn how we can help you schedule LinkedIn posts efficiently and effectively.
