The problem with a lot of data and stats is that they often don't provide you with any insights that you can act on. That's why I love data that provides insights with solutions to improve marketing processes. Which is what OkDork and Search Wilderness found after analyzing 3,000 of the most successful LinkedIn Publishing posts, it offered compelling data that can help you dramatically increase the results of your next post on LinkedIn Publisher.
I was so blown away by the data presented in their original post that I had to reach out to the original authors and ask if I could create an infographic with it. Thankfully they agreed and that gives me the great pleasure of providing you with this top-notch and actionable information on sharing articles on LinkedIn, in a handy infographic and article.
You LinkedIn Publisher posts will perform best with a title between 40 and 49 characters long. This number has remained the same for many years now.
If you are creating a longer title, aim for 60 and 69 characters.
Interestingly, posts with precisely 8 images performed around twice as well as those with 9 to 11 images and over 2.5 times better than those with 7 or less!
The data from OkDork & Search Wilderness indicates a strong correlation between the use of video and multimedia with significantly lower post views.
Although using 1 or 2 videos or multimedia assets showed a slight reduction in views, any amount above that had view counts dropping off a cliff.
A headline can make or break a LinkedIn Publisher post. To have the best success with your posts, keep these headline tips in mind.
Don't write question posts: LinkedIn posts where the headline poses a question perform poorly.
Do write how-to posts: These posts perform best across the board regarding LinkedIn Publishing metrics.
Do write list posts: These posts perform well, getting slightly more post views, post likes, LinkedIn post comments, and LinkedIn shares than non-list posts.
Posts that are divided into sections by precisely 5 headings perform best, with 9 headings coming in as a close second.
Additionally, using headings (H1, H2, H3) to break your post into easily digestible (and readable) sections will help your post perform better.
LinkedIn Publisher posts with 1900-2000 words performed 1.5 times better than the next best word count (1800 words) and over 2 times better than any word counts beneath it.
It is worth noting that the optimal word count has remained the same over several years.
Posts on LinkedIn with a neutral sentiment performed at least 1.7 times better than those with either positive or negative sentiments.
Posts written using positive language tend to get the most LinkedIn shares and likes, while neutral language posts tend to see more comments and post views than both positive and negative sentiments.
The Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease test analyzes text to determine how difficult the language is to comprehend as written on a scale of 1-100. A score of 30 is considered best understood by university graduates, while a score of around 65 is considered "Standard" difficulty and is easily read by those from 13-15 years as well as by 80% of adults.
Although LinkedIn is a business platform, full of well-educated adults, it may surprise you to know that posts with a Flesch-Kincaid Readability Score of 80-89 (easy) and requiring the education level of an 11-year-old performed the best.
It is vital that you promote your LinkedIn Publisher posts.
A good rule of thumb is to follow the 80/20 rule. You want to spend 20% of your time creating content and then 80% of your time promoting it.
An essential part of promoting your LinkedIn Publisher posts is to share them on other platforms such as Twitter or Facebook.
The best way to predict how well your LinkedIn Publisher post will perform regarding views and engagement can be best predicted by the number of likes it gets. More post likes will increase the number of LinkedIn shares, post views, and comments according to correlation data.
Adding a call to action at the end of your post encourages people to click the like button, which is an effective way of gaining more views and shares.
We noticed a long time ago that our blog traffic and social media posts performed much better on Thursdays. Analyzing the top 3000 LinkedIn Publishing posts showed a similar trend: Thursdays get the most views.
To get the maximum number of post views…
Big thanks for the data
A big thank you must go out to Paul Shapiro from Search Wilderness and Noah Kagan from OKDork for gathering these incredible stats. You can also check out their original article that lays out all of their findings in greater detail.
The data that has been gathered should guide you but does not need to be followed precisely. For example, rarely do my blog posts have eight images in them but many of the other suggestions I do follow as I have seen the results first hand.
It's vital for you to test what works for your unique business and for your target market. Let this data guide you to dominate the LinkedIn publishing platform.
