Why Scheduling Your Personal LinkedIn Posts Will Get You More Business
And which social media scheduling tool you should use
Originally published in Better Marketing. There are no affiliate links in this article. All recommendations are based on my own research and experience with the products.
Scheduling social media posts. Sounds corporate, right? That’s what social media managers do for a business’s Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn feeds — and more.
But if you are a time-strapped business leader, scheduling LinkedIn posts is the easiest way to build your online presence and thought leadership.
In this article, I’ll explain why you should schedule your LinkedIn posts, what you should look for in a social media scheduling tool, and which scheduling tool–among the hundreds on the market–you should use.
Why Schedule Personal LinkedIn Posts?
Get the Timing Right
You want to share your posts when other people are online. A lot of research shows that LinkedIn posts shared between 8 and 10 am or around lunchtime perform best.
But you might be busy at those times.
You don’t want to rearrange your day just to share a LinkedIn post during a good window. Instead, set your post to publish at the desired time in your social media scheduler. Then go back to running your business.
Get the Message Right
Set aside time to time to write clear, relevant, and engaging content. Focus on what you want to say, not on sharing a half-baked insight before your next meeting starts.
Include an image or graphic with your post. LinkedIn posts with a single image or graphic perform well. You could even create a custom graphic on Canva that reflects your company brand colors.
Be Efficient & Plan Ahead
Scheduling LinkedIn posts allows you to set aside time to write multiple posts at once. You can schedule a week’s worth of posts, or a month’s, or even a year’s. Let all your juices flow in one session and then schedule them on your preferred days.
This approach leads to…
More Exposure, Less Effort
Exposure on LinkedIn helps build your business. The more people see your name, brand, and message, the more likely they are to think of you, visit your website, and recommend you to their own network. When you schedule multiple posts in advance, you can focus on your business knowing that your exposure engine is running on its own.
What to Look for in a Social Media Scheduling Tool for LinkedIn
There are dozens of social media scheduling tools out there, and they all have similar functionality:
The ability to manage multiple social channels in one place
The ability to schedule posts with images and video
A calendar view that gives a visual representation of the posting schedule
Some form of analytics to show how the content performs
Few of these tools work well for LinkedIn personal profile management. I have researched and tested dozens of tools. Here are the criteria that I looked for to find my ideal LinkedIn social media scheduling tool:
Can It Connect To Personal LinkedIn Profiles?
Many popular social media scheduling tools only connect to LinkedIn company pages. Those are non-starters for me!
Can It Tag A Company Page?
Imagine you want to give a shout-out to your employer in a post. In the LinkedIn post composer, you would type @ + the company name. Some–but not all!–social media scheduling tools also have this functionality. Some claim they do but the functionality doesn’t work correctly.
Note: It is not currently possible to tag an individual’s personal profile through a scheduling tool (ie, @ + John Smith).
Can It Schedule The First Comment On A Post?
A few social media scheduling tools let you schedule the first comment on a post. This is crucial for LinkedIn since LinkedIn posts without links get more engagement and reach. If you want to share a URL, it is best to drop it in the comment rather than in the post’s main body.
The Best LinkedIn Social Media Scheduling Tool for Personal Profile Management
SocialChamp is the best social media scheduling tool for LinkedIn right now. It meets all of the criteria outlined:
Connects to personal LinkedIn profiles
Tags company LinkedIn pages correctly
Schedules the first comment on a post
The free (yes, free!) plan is perfect for individuals who want to manage their own profiles. There is no limit to how many posts you can schedule, and you can manage two other social media accounts from the dashboard.
Here’s the downside: there are no analytics for LinkedIn personal profiles.
A Note on Analytics for LinkedIn Personal Profiles
LinkedIn’s native analytics for personal pages are not great. To access them, you need to turn on Creator Mode. Through these analytics, you can click on individual posts to see their performance. On the aggregated performance side, you can see impressions and engagement over time as well as analytics about who has engaged with your content.
LinkedIn makes it hard for third parties to integrate with analytics, particularly for personal pages. Many social media scheduling tools therefore do not provide analytics for personal profiles. Those that do offer analytics did not meet the posting criteria I discussed earlier on in this article.
The lack of integrated analytics is a serious gap. With other social media platforms, it is easy to see how your posts perform and to identify what drives your highest-performing posts. You can identify what type of post performs best, at what time of day, and on what day of the week.
Although I have yet to find an all-in-one solution that provides the posting capabilities and the analytics, I have found a good analytics tool: SHIELD Analytics. It is not free, but it provides good insight into post performance, follower growth, and more. You can use it in conjunction with SocialChamp.
Conclusion
Managing your personal brand on LinkedIn doesn’t have to be time-consuming. Using a social media scheduling tool helps you get the timing right, stay on message, and get more exposure with less effort. This leaves you with more time to focus on growing your business.
Ready to try it?
Here are three ways I can help you:
Serve as your business’s Fractional CMO.
Analyze and optimize your marketing strategy.
Get 1-on-1 coaching for amplifying your LinkedIn presence.
Interested? Send me a note.