Many marketers are of the wrong impression that the number of LinkedIn followers equals marketing success. But in reality, maximizing LinkedIn impressions is the secret behind tapping into LinkedIn’s ultimate marketing and networking potential.
So if you’re reading this, you’re on the right track.
Keep reading to learn about measurable ways to boost impressions for increased reach and crack the LinkedIn algorithm.
Table of Contents
What are impressions on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn impressions indicate the number of times your content is viewed for at least 300 milliseconds on your follower’s or signed-in member’s LinkedIn feed.
So a 1000 LinkedIn impressions means your content appeared 1000 times on someone’s feed whether they engaged with it or not.
Although not a clear-cut indicator of marketing success, impressions are key content analytical metrics that let you improve content quality and follower engagement.
A decline in LinkedIn impressions is a wake-up call to improve your LinkedIn engagement strategy and let the platform’s algorithm notice and boost your posts more often.
5 ways to improve your LinkedIn impressions
As we saw, impressions on LinkedIn are stepping stones to generating more leads and increasing reach. So here are our five tried and tested ways to improve them:
1. Optimize your LinkedIn profile
Your LinkedIn profile is like your very own professional branding page.
It helps you stand out from the sea of competitors and can be the guiding light for LinkedIn algorithms to increase your content’s reach and impressions.
Now how can you optimize your LinkedIn profile?
These tips can help give you a head start:
- Optimize your LinkedIn profile URL by keeping it short and specific. Use keywords like your profession and services offered
- Use a high resolution headshot as your profile picture
- Precisely describe what you do and who you help in your professional headline and summary. Don’t forget to end the summary with a CTA, for example, a link to book a call with you.
- Include your current and past work along with your roles and responsibilities at each job
- Certifications help add brownie points to your expertise. Add them to LinkedIn’s “Certifications and Licenses” section.
Need more optimization tips with real examples? No, you don’t need a course. Check out our free LinkedIn profile optimization eBook.
2. Create engaging content
Content is the heart and soul of social media platforms, and LinkedIn is no different.
You now know LinkedIn impressions give you a major hint on how your content performs. So below are some best content tips curated from our personal experiences:
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Post regularly
Consistency is key in boosting impressions. Regular posting signals the LinkedIn algorithm and your audience that you’re active, ready to offer value, and engaged.
But remember, while consistency is everything, don’t overwhelm your followers with too many posts in a week or a day. Stick to a maximum of 5 high-quality posts a week to stay consistent. You could do one post each weekday or 2x on Wednesday and three on other days – it’s up to you.
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Share multimedia content
Sticking just to text-based LinkedIn posts assuming it’s a professional platform? What if we tell you multimedia content is equally, if not, more effective than text-based content?
We have proof. Below are some of our best-performing LinkedIn multimedia posts that garnered high impressions:
A carousel post: Carousels are posts with multiple images and/or videos. You could make them extra engaging by using a mixture of text, images, and videos.
A follow-up post with a GIF: Although we discourage the use of page redirect links that may impact reach, we found that the use of a GIF on an engaging and audience-relevant topic garnered close to 150k impressions:
High-resolution informative images as posts: Images are great at capturing attention and offer a much-needed break from reading lengthy texts. For example, you could use infographics to decode a tough topic, share quotes from industry experts as images, and turn statistics or poll results into visual representations.
Check out our example below that fetched high impressions. Notice the wordplay within the image and the opening line that could catch anyone’s attention right away:
Posts with screenshots: When in doubt, say it with screenshots. Screenshots as LinkedIn posts are great at capturing interest in some contexts, for example, while sharing a testimonial, an achievement, or explaining a tool’s use – like the one below:
Posts with video: There’s no match to videos’ effectiveness in conveying emotions to otherwise dull LinkedIn posts. They help you tell stories that are instant hits with your audience – thus leading the way for more impressions.
In this example, we received higher than usual impressions for a video post educating followers on a useful Excel trick:
PDF-type posts: You can upload case studies, client success stories, eBooks, and research papers as PDFs. LinkedIn favors this content if it identifies that you’re offering incredible value to your followers.
Also, “swiping” between PDF pages counts as new engagement for LinkedIn which is the best trick to getting more impressions.
Here are some more quick tips to create awesome LinkedIn content and source high impressions:
- Polls have shown to increase impressions. So run interesting and industry-specific polls each week to keep the momentum strong.
- Never add external links to your posts as LinkedIn discourages posts that let the audience leave the platform. Instead, try adding them to your comments.
- Come up with catchy opening lines, especially the first two lines of each post. This way, readers are pushed to click on “read more” and engage.
- Use hashtags relevant to your topic, but don’t overdo them.
- Like and comment on your own posts to get the ball rolling and some initial traction.
3. Join and participate in relevant groups
LinkedIn groups have stood the test of time. They are one of the best tactics to get content traction and generate leads.
How?
Start joining LinkedIn groups in your industry or niche. For example, if you’re into the marketing niche, filter out groups on LinkedIn using keywords like marketing, digital marketing, advertising, and so on:
You could also look for groups based on your specific interests, such as LinkedIn posting tips, local events, or favorite tools. This way, you can meet many like-minded professionals that you can add to your network and post relevant content for.
Another key tactic is to actively participate in your recently joined groups rather than being an onlooker. Contribute to group discussions, and live meetings, and share your insights to increase your visibility amongst professional communities.
4. Optimize posting times
The fact is simple. If your audience is professionals with jobs, they are most likely to check their LinkedIn feed right before the start of their work day or an hour after it ends.
However, there’s no hard and fast rule about the “golden time” to post on LinkedIn and capture high impressions.
But here are two tips that help:
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Analyze audience activity
Use LinkedIn Analytics, such as Content analytics to gauge engagement trends among followers and other key metrics, and Follower analytics to get a deeper look into your followers to reveal the best time and day they’re the most active.
You could also analyze your best-performing posts in the past to replicate content and timing.
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Post strategically
Once you have an idea of the best or most ideal times to post, schedule your posts to auto-publish during peak times to maximize engagement and visibility.
Such strategic posting during peak activity hours multiplies the likelihood of your posts appearing on followers’ feeds, thus increasing LinkedIn impressions.
5. Engage with your network
You’re leaving a lot of potential behind if you’re just posting content but not engaging with your network’s posts. Frequent engagement with others’ posts persuades them to return the favor of interacting with your content.
Most importantly, it shows you’re keen on listening and learning from others in your niche.
So always set out a couple of minutes each day to comment something thoughtful on your connections’ posts.
Also, make it a point to connect with professionals within your industry or niche. This way, you receive only genuine engagement on your posts and reach relevant audiences who can resonate with your content.
Some final thoughts
Noticed a post getting incredible impressions and wished it was you? Well, now you know the secret to getting more LinkedIn impressions.
Here’s a wrap-up on how to get more LinkedIn impressions:
- Optimize your LinkedIn profile to set the stage
- Create out-of-the-box content. Move over just text-based posts and include GIFs, images, videos, screenshots, carousels, PDFs, and polls
- Join and engage in niche-specific LinkedIn groups
- Analyze and optimize posting times to maximize visibility
- Actively engage with your network’s posts and send LinkedIn connection requests strategically
If you want to try your hands at LinkedIn automation for outreach and engagement, check out Expandi!
