Post more, post carousels, and let the reader see themselves on page one

This is part 2 of our three-part series on LinkedIn company pages, and like part 1 it is built on our own numbers.

The typical company page in our study of 200 pages posts four or five times a month. Between March and July our page posted 124 carousels, about six a week, and in July I told people to go further than that.

Here are the three changes I would make to any company page this week, with three carousels we made in the last few days so you can see what I mean.

1. Post two or three times a day

Most pages hold back because they worry that a second post will bury the first. LinkedIn now shows each post to the people who care about its topic, so a post about pricing and a post about hiring reach different readers instead of competing for the same ones.

Our study points the same way: in weeks when a page posted five or more times, each post did as well as in weeks with a single post, and a post that went out the day after the last one did as well as one that waited a week or two.

I put it more bluntly on LinkedIn in July:

2/ Post multiple times/day (3x is fine)

We follow it ourselves. Since 8 October our page has posted two carousels every day, one in the afternoon and one in the evening.

The real limit is having three things to say each day, and one finished client job can usually supply them: the story of the job, a list of the problems you found, and a how-to for the fix.

2. Make it a carousel, and say what you sell

On our page, carousels are the posts people click. One got 295 impressions and 90 clicks, and the other three in the same analytics table were clicked by 15%, 33% and 37% of the people who saw them.

A carousel gives you room to teach something properly, and anyone who reaches the last page has chosen to spend time with your business. Use that page to sell, and be direct about it: the problem you solve, who you solve it for, and how to reach you. If your product handles one of the steps you are teaching, name it on that page in the middle as well.

Here is one that went out on our page on Friday, built from our study of 134,522 posts:

Slides 1, 2, 6 and 7 of 7. See the full carousel on LinkedIn.

What to copy: one finding per page, with the number big enough to read on a phone. What I'd fix: our last page names us and links the study, but it never says what we do for the reader. That breaks my own rule from two paragraphs up.

In our study, posts that asked for something got 15% less engagement, and I will gladly give up a few likes for a click from someone who wants what we sell.

Want to turn a post you already wrote into a carousel like these? Our LinkedIn Carousel Generator does it: paste the post, get a finished carousel.

3. What to put in the carousels

I'll use one made-up business for the next three examples: an IT support firm for small offices.

A listicle puts one problem and its fix on each page. For the IT firm, that could be "7 reasons your office Wi-Fi slows down every afternoon, and the fix for each one."

This week we drew a listicle in whiteboard marker for a different reader, the owner of an architecture and engineering firm:

Hand-drawn whiteboard carousel, slides 1, 2, 4 and 5: A&E firm owners, 3 costs quietly eating your overhead rate, unbilled proposal hours, re-work from late changes, and what is your overhead rate.

Slides 1, 2, 4 and 5 of 5.

What to copy: the first three words. "A&E firm owners:" tells the right reader the post is for them before they read the headline, and the last page asks for their own number, so the comments fill up with exactly the people you want to talk to.

The how-to is my favourite kind, and for the IT firm one might explain how to get a new starter working by lunchtime on their first day: order the laptop a week early, set up their accounts the day before, and leave the Wi-Fi and printer details on the desk. The laptop setup is what the firm charges for, so it gets its own page. Part 1 has the full template.

A case study or testimonial works when the reader recognises their own situation on the first page. Customer stories were only 4% of the posts in our study, and when a company does post one, it is tempting to start with itself, as in "Case study: how we moved Harlow Dental to the cloud." A reader skims past that because it is about you. Start with the client's week before you came in, in enough detail that someone with the same problem recognises their own:

PAGE 1: Every Monday at 9, the practice manager at a 12-person dental practice spent her first hour fixing the printer, the Wi-Fi and somebody's password.

PAGE 2: What it cost them: [the hours lost, the patients kept waiting].

PAGE 3: What they had already tried: a new router, a shared password sheet, and a nephew who "knows computers".

PAGE 4: What we changed: [two or three specific fixes, one line each].

PAGE 5: Her Monday now, in her own words: [a real quote from the client].

PAGE 6: We look after IT for offices of 5 to 50 people. If page 1 sounds like your Monday, message us "MONDAY".

A practice manager reading page 1 is thinking about her own printer before she knows who posted it, and page 6 tells her what to do about it. Fill the brackets with a real client's numbers, with their permission. If you have a LigoSocial account, paste the outline into the chat on your home page and the carousel comes back ready to edit.

The case study can also be about you. This week I pinned my own last 14 days to a cork board, one channel per page:

Pin-board carousel, slides 1, 2, 4 and 7: 728K views and impressions across 5 channels, Threads 418K, LinkedIn 24K with 66% from people who don't follow me, and the lesson: same idea, 5 shapes.

Slides 1, 2, 4 and 7 of 7.

What to copy: the real screenshot does the convincing, and the note pinned under it says what it means in one line. Page 4 also backs up point 1: 66% of my LinkedIn impressions came from people who don't follow me.

Your 2-minute move

Open a note and write down the last problem a client asked you to fix, in the words they used when they first got in touch. You can use that as page 1 of a case-study carousel this week.

Next Monday, part 3

Next Monday I'll go through the scoreboard from the 200 pages, including the post type that beat product posts by 82%, the grey link preview box that cost posts 40%, and the two-hour window that did better than the rest of the day.

One ask: hit reply and tell me how many times your page posted last week, and I will read every one.

Talk next Monday,

Junaid

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Your company page can post three times a day. Here's what to post.