LinkedIn Best Practices
LinkedIn’s professional atmosphere has a central audience of faculty, staff and alumni. We use LinkedIn to share stories that highlight UC Davis staff and alumni, university achievements and faculty research.
The UC Davis approach to LinkedIn.
Our social media team operates the main LinkedIn company page for the university. If you want a specific page for your department or group, consider creating a LinkedIn Showcase page (a sub-page to the main UC Davis LinkedIn page). We encourage most departments to consider groups as opposed to a separate page if they are looking for richer engagement opportunities with people.
Consider a LinkedIn Group.
Depending on your department, a LinkedIn Group could be a centralized place for knowledge and news sharing amongst your communities. Group pages, when well moderated, are typically more active than main pages and can deliver better value.
Hit the posting sweet spot.
Post two to five times per week, depending on the relevance of the content being shared. Groups on LinkedIn may not receive the same engagement as main pages, so it is important to not overwhelm group members with content. Finding relevant content and reposting it into your group is a good way to keep the group active if original content is hard to produce.
Ideal content.
The ideal post length is around 100 characters, but longer captions, so long as they are relevant and engaging, do very well on LinkedIn. Videos posted to LinkedIn should be high-quality, of horizontal orientation and produced professionally.
Don’t discount the value of nostalgia.
Since the majority of the audience on LinkedIn consists of alumni, nostalgic posts resonate well. Search campus archives (or your own) for historic photos to share. Remember to share class years when you can.
LinkedIn Accessibility Best Practices
When posting on LinkedIn, key accessibility areas to consider are: graphics, image and video descriptions, alternative text, video captioning and post copy.
Image accessibility
Graphics: General guidelines
Image descriptions: General guidelines
- Include it in the post copy and separate from the rest of the post copy with a line break.
- When sharing a link with an image, consider writing an image description for the thumbnail image.
Alt Text: General guidelines
- You can add alt text when posting natively or from a management platform, or you can edit alt text after you post.
- How to add alt text on LinkedIn posts: LinkedIn Help
Video accessibility
Captioning: General guidelines
- LinkedIn allows for closed or open captions on videos.
- Whenever possible, opt to use closed captions and upload them with an .SRT file. However, burning in (open) captions is a good practice as well.
- How to add .SRT captions to LinkedIn videos: LinkedIn closed captioning help
Video descriptions: General guidelines
- Include it in the post copy and separate from the rest of the post copy with a line break.
Post copy: General guidelines
More resources: LinkedIn Help