LinkedIn content has been analyzed to identify posting best practices that lead to the highest success rates.

A new study conducted by Socialinsider reviewed posts shared by active accounts between January 2022 and December 2023 to determine which content generates the most shares, impressions, and engagement.

Key findings. After thorough investigation, researchers concluded that brands and marketers should consider the following to enhance their performance on LinkedIn:

• Opt for multi-image posts for maximum engagement. 
• Prioritize video content to increase the likelihood of your posts being shared on LinkedIn.
• Interact with your audience via polls to increase impressions.
• Keep your captions short and pair them with multiple images to boost engagement.
• Encouraging employees to strategically create and manage their own personal profiles can significantly enhance the company’s message on LinkedIn.
• Brands should utilize LinkedIn page analytics to understand their audience better and tailor content to different audience segments.

Engagement. Overall, LinkedIn engagement is increasing – in fact, it’s up 44% year-on-year. However, it’s important to note that brands are also posting more frequently on the platform compared to before, which is believed to be influenced by the shift away from X.

Why we care. Use the conclusions of this investigation to improve your LinkedIn strategy. While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, using the findings from this study can help you make data-led decisions about the type of content you post.

Multi-image posts. Researchers found that multi-image posts typically receive the highest engagement on LinkedIn, followed by document posts, images, and video. Although carousel posts were phased out by the platform last year, you can still implement a similar strategy by sharing a PDF with each slide featuring a different image.

Video posts. Researchers also discovered that video posts tend to generate the highest average number of shares on LinkedIn. This finding might be particularly relevant to businesses prioritizing brand awareness.

Poll posts. Polls have been found to generate the highest impression rate on LinkedIn. Researchers attribute this to people’s inclination to express their opinions on the platform, with polls providing a straightforward method to do so.

External links. The study emphasized that posts containing links to external websites tend to perform poorly on LinkedIn. One strategy that brands, especially publishers, are using to address this challenge is by posting the links in the first comment of their post instead.

Deep dive. Read the Social Insider report in full for more information.