When building a LinkedIn presence, leverage both personal profiles and company pages, as each serves a unique role.

Personal profiles generally achieve much higher organic reach and engagement than company pages.

People are more likely to trust and interact with content coming from real individuals – “people connect with people” – which fosters authenticity and genuine relationships. In contrast, a LinkedIn company page provides an official brand hub for credibility (showcasing your business info, services, and culture) and is necessary for running LinkedIn ad campaigns.

Personal Profiles

Ideal for thought leadership, networking, and humanising your brand.

Posts from personal accounts often get prioritised by LinkedIn’s algorithm, leading to greater visibility without paid promotion.

Encourage key team members (e.g. founders or employees) to create and optimise their own LinkedIn profiles to represent the company – this way, they can share company-related content to their networks and amplify reach. (Each individual should have their profile, rather than using a single profile for multiple people.)

Company Pages

Serve as your brand’s official presence.

Use the page for major updates, announcements, and curated content that establishes credibility.

While company page posts tend to get less organic reach, maintaining a page is important for brand legitimacy (people will look up your page), and it enables features like LinkedIn advertising and job postings.

Ensure the page is filled out (logo, banner, about section) to appear professional.

Best Strategy

Use a combined approach – maintain an active company page and have employees share or repost company content through their profiles.

For example, publish an article or update on the company page, then have team members engage with or repost it on their profiles with personal commentary.

This way, you get the trust and reach of personal posts alongside the authoritative backing of a company page.

Also, encourage employees to list your company page in their experience section so that their networks can discover your page easily.

In summary, tap into personal profiles for reach and engagement, and use the company page for branding and as a content hub – together, these will reinforce a reliable brand image on LinkedIn.

Optimal Length and Structure of LinkedIn Posts

LinkedIn allows up to 3,000 characters per post (roughly 500 words), but you don’t need to max this out.

A good target is around 1,300–2,000 characters (about 200–300 words) for a post – enough to convey value, yet concise enough to hold attention.

 In practice, long-form posts are common on LinkedIn, but they perform best when they are structured for readability.

 Only the first ~200 characters (a few lines of text) are shown in the feed before a “...see more” cut-off, so it's critical to hook the reader early.

Start with a compelling hook in the first sentence – for example, a bold statement or question – to entice readers to click “see more.”

 A click on “see more” is counted as engagement, which can help your post’s visibility.

Formatting Tips

• To avoid creating a wall of text, break your post into short paragraphs (no more than 3–4 lines each) and use whitespace and formatting (like lists or emojis) strategically.

• A data study found that the top-performing posts often contain 16–20 sentences total, split into brief paragraphs for easy scanning.

• Use bullet points or numbered lists inside posts when listing tips or steps – this makes content more digestible for the reader.

• Additionally, write in a clear, conversational tone and aim for simplicity (around a 4th-grade reading level) if possible; overly complex language can alienate readers and even reduce reach (posts above a 10th-grade reading level saw significantly less reach in one analysis).

• The key is to deliver value in a format that busy professionals can quickly read and understand.

Post Length vs. Engagement:

While brevity can work, LinkedIn readers do expect more context and storytelling compared to Twitter or Instagram. Don’t be afraid to share detailed insights or narratives in your posts – just make sure every paragraph earns the reader’s time.

Some of the highest-engagement posts on LinkedIn are indeed longer and substantive, but they succeed because they’re well-structured and offer real value (e.g. a personal story with a lesson, industry insights, or tips list).

 If you go long, maintain a strong narrative flow and consider ending with a question or prompt to encourage comments. Always preview your post on mobile if possible – since the majority of LinkedIn users browse on mobile (around 88% in 2024), ensure your post is easy to read on a small screen (short paragraphs, vertical-friendly images).

In summary, keep posts focused and reader-friendly. Use an attention-grabbing opener, break text into chunks, and stay within a few hundred words. This approach will help maximise engagement while conveying professionalism.

Hashtag Usage on LinkedIn

Hashtags on LinkedIn can categorise your content and help it surface in searches, but they should be used strategically and sparingly. The general recommendation is to use about 3 to 5 relevant hashtags per post. Unlike Twitter or Instagram, stuffing a LinkedIn post with dozens of hashtags isn’t effective – it can look spammy and may even hurt your reach. A recent LinkedIn algorithm study in 2024 found that hashtags have minimal impact on reach (LinkedIn even disabled dedicated hashtag pages in late 2024), and including more than five hashtags could reduce your post’s visibility. Posts with over 6 hashtags can significantly sabotage reach on LinkedIn.

Best Practices

• Stick to a few hashtags that are highly relevant to your content, industry, or audience.

• For example, a web design agency in the UK might use hashtags like #WebDesign, #DigitalMarketing, or #SmallBusinessTips.

• It’s wise to mix broad and niche hashtags: include one or two broad, popular hashtags to reach a wider audience, and one or two niche or industry-specific tags to target a more focused community.

• For instance, combining a popular tag like #Marketing with a niche tag like #UXDesign can expand reach while still hitting relevant readers.

Placement & Tone

• Place hashtags at the end of your post caption or in a separate line so they don’t interrupt the flow of your text.

• This keeps your post looking clean and professional.

• Additionally, you can incorporate a hashtag organically in a sentence if it feels natural (e.g., “We just launched a new website for a #FinTech client”). But avoid excessive in-line hashtags that make the text hard to read.

• Remember that on LinkedIn, content should read more like a short article or story, not a list of tags.

One more note: users used to be able to “follow” hashtags to see related posts, but with recent changes, hashtags are no longer clickable on desktop, and LinkedIn has de-emphasised them.

This means hashtags are now primarily useful for searchability – if someone searches LinkedIn for a term, posts with that hashtag might appear. So, use them to label your content, but don’t rely on hashtags alone to boost your reach.

Focus more on content quality and relevance. In summary, use 2–5 hashtags maximum, choose them wisely, and don’t expect hashtags to work magic – they are a small supplementary tactic for discoverability rather than a major growth driver on LinkedIn.

Sharing External Links: In-Post vs. Comment Strategy

Including external links (e.g., to your website or a blog post) in a LinkedIn post requires some strategy, because LinkedIn’s algorithm tends to penalise posts that send users off‑platform.

Data shows that putting an external link directly in the post caption can reduce your reach by roughly 40% on personal profile posts and by 25–35% on company page posts.

The likely reason is that LinkedIn wants to keep people on LinkedIn, so it down‑ranks content that immediately directs users elsewhere.

To avoid this drop in visibility, a common practice is to place the link in the first comment instead of the post itself. For example, your post text can say, “Check the comments for the full case study/link,” and then, as the author, you immediately comment on your post with the URL. This way, your main post can circulate without the algorithm flagging an outbound link while still providing access to the link for those interested.

Another approach is to post without a link initially, then edit the post after a little while to add the link; however, editing a post can also reset or reduce its momentum, so the first‑comment method is usually preferred.

When using the “link in comments” approach, make sure to add value in your post content itself (don’t just write “link in comments” with no context). Provide a summary or key points from the link so that even those who don’t click still get something useful.

This improves engagement and doesn’t frustrate readers. Also, be prompt in adding the comment with the link right after posting, so it’s easily visible to anyone who sees the post early.

One thing to watch out for: don’t overdo self‑commenting just to beat the algorithm. LinkedIn might detect if an author is repeatedly commenting on their posts without real engagement from others. Research suggests that having an excessively high proportion of your comments on your post can trigger a reach penalty. In other words, if you’re the only one heavily commenting on your post (aside from genuine replies to others), it could limit your distribution.

It’s fine—even beneficial—to respond to comments from others; just avoid spammy behaviours like commenting “up” or excessively bumping your post. Use your author comments purposefully: for posting a link or additional info, and for replying and fostering discussion with commenters. Beyond that, invite your audience to comment with their thoughts or questions, rather than trying to artificially inflate comments yourself.

In summary, feel free to share external links, especially if they provide further value (a blog, a news article, your portfolio, etc.), but do it in a way that doesn’t tank your reach.

Usually, that means keeping the LinkedIn post itself link‑free and placing the URL in a comment. This approach maintains your visibility while still guiding interested readers to the content. And once people do start commenting, join the conversation—answer questions, thank them, and so on.

Engaged discussion will boost your post far more than the link ever could!