LinkedIn who? Four reasons to amp it up on this—often overlooked—platform.

When was the last time you logged into LinkedIn? Posted an update? Refreshed your profile? I’m betting it may have been during your last job search. It may surprise you to know that while other platforms have increasingly become pay-to-play spaces, LinkedIn is still delivering organic growth. In fact, a recent report showed that our corporate Media Profile LinkedIn page is our leading platform with the highest reach, impressions and engagement over the last six months𑁋despite a greater volume of Instagram-focused content.

1) The stats𑁋baby’s got reach!

Although it’s often underappreciated, LinkedIn has twenty million active users in Canada, with 44% of all Canadian internet users holding an account (close behind Instagram’s 51% and greater than Twitter’s 42%). Last year, LinkedIn saw a 22% increase in engagement across the platform!

We mentioned corporate pages above, but individual accounts are also experiencing growth—personal pages collectively have social networks ten times larger than a typical corporate brand.

2) The algorithm

Relevancy is more important than recency on LinkedIn. Like all platforms, its algorithm aims to show users more of what they want to see and less of what they don’t. This can result in greater longevity for your content. The three primary ranking signals? Connections, interests and engagement.

Users can hide content that’s not of interest, which we highly recommend you consider while curating your feed. Although posts without external links perform better, this platform is kinder to that type of content than Facebook, et al.

Timing is also an important factor to consider. Users on LinkedIn tend to be more active on weekday mornings, with weekends and after-work hours typically performing the worst for engagement and visibility.

3) Room to Play

While you may think of LinkedIn as a place for text-heavy, longer-form content, there’s actually a fair bit of room for creativity. Beyond text posts and articles, LinkedIn currently includes the following formats:

Documents, in particular, are an exciting and flexible option allowing you to share text-heavy content more visually (think carousels). Occasions encourage engagement and allow you to showcase your people in a new and thoughtful way.

When it comes to format selection, evaluating your objectives is essential. Bold visuals drive reach and engagement. Posts with images get twice as many comments. Larger images do even better, with 38% higher click-through rates than other images. Video posts are five times more likely to get comments and perform well in boosting awareness. Images are more effective when it comes to lead generation and driving traffic.

Hot tip: Where possible, when driving traffic to an external site, use link posts to increase the clickable area.

4) It’s good for business

Did you know 30% (or one-third) of a company's engagement on LinkedIn comes from employees? In fact, employees are 14x more likely to share content from their employers than other types of content on LinkedIn.

Help them, help you! Whether you’re an individual or an organization, consider:

So, what are you waiting for?!

If you're not sure how to get started, Media Profile offers everything from competitor audits and social strategies to employee support, content planning and execution. One of our favourite offerings? Employee training: A helpful way to encourage and increase reach and engagement metrics. We love a lunch-and-learn!

Are you looking for more information or curious about optimizing LinkedIn for your organization? Shoot us a message; we're always happy to chat.