Types of posts on LinkedIn.

Why use them?
Text posts can be useful for driving engagement. Consider posing a question to catch your audience’s attention and encourage them to comment. Or, use a list to summarize takeaways, wins, or ways people can help.

Best practices
• Avoid big blocks of text, which can be cumbersome to read. Remember, many people will be viewing your post on a mobile device, so try to be as succinct as possible.

• Make your first sentence engaging, especially for longer posts that will get cut off beneath a “read more” line. Give people a reason to keep reading.

• Use emojis to add some color and personality to your text posts — if it’s appropriate for the message and fits with your nonprofit’s brand.

Why use them?
An eye-catching visual can capture the attention of your audience quickly and tell a richer story than using text alone. Posts that include at least one image typically get two times more comments than those without.

Best practices
• Use clear, high-quality images to create a professional appearance. The optimum image size is a minimum of 552 x 276 pixels, and the maximum image size is 5MB.
• Always include text with your image posts to provide context and drive action.
• Add descriptive alt text to improve the accessibility of your posts. Alt text is heard by members using voice-over screen readers and is not seen by other members. You can add alt text by clicking the pencil icon when uploading images via desktop.

Why use them?
Using several eye-catching visuals allows you to share more context and can drive increased engagement with your post.

Best practices
• Post clear, high-quality images. Include descriptive alt text to improve accessibility. Use accompanying post text to provide context for the series of images.
• Coordinate sizing and formatting for all the images you include to make sure none of the images end up looking shrunken, distorted, or cropped.
• Consider how the images will stack alongside one another in the post. For example, multi-image posts with two images will display differently than posts that feature four images.

Why use them?
Video can heighten the emotion of your message and create a more personal connection between you and your audience. Unlike embedded videos, such as YouTube links, native videos autoplay on members’ LinkedIn feeds, making people more likely to pause and watch.

Best practices
• Include post text along with your video to provide context and encourage people to stop scrolling and watch.
• Prioritize short videos that your audience can quickly digest. Videos can be up to 15 minutes long, but many people won’t watch for the full 15 minutes. Aim for videos between 30 and 60 seconds long as they tend to perform better than longer videos.
• Add closed captions to improve accessibility (learn more about closed captioning).
• Find many more tips and tricks for excelling with video as a nonprofit.

Why use them?
When you publish an article on LinkedIn, your followers and supporters can comment on the article directly and easily share it with their networks. Additionally, if you @mention another member or organization in the article, they’ll get a notification about the mention, making them more likely to see and engage with your content. You might use articles to share announcements, details about a new campaign, thought leadership, or insights to inform and educate your audience.

Best practices
• Make your articles easier to read. Aim for less than 1,000 words and consider using bulleted lists.
• Embed images, videos, rich media (ex: Instagram posts), and slides within your articles to break up the text. You can also add a cover image at the top of your article that will appear when you share the article on your Page and elsewhere.
• Include a question or call-to-action at the end of your article to drive engagement.

Why use them?
The newsletter feature on LinkedIn allows your team to quickly create and publish professional, eye-catching newsletters from your nonprofit’s LinkedIn Page. When you create your first newsletter, all existing followers of your Page will be notified, encouraging them to subscribe. Subscribers may also receive push and/or email notifications, depending on their settings.

Best practices
• Presentation matters. Give your newsletter a compelling name, add a logo, and write a short description about what people can expect while reading.
• Try to maintain a regular posting schedule so subscribers look forward to new editions of your newsletter. Indicate the cadence on the newsletter’s landing page (ex: daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly) to set expectations.
• Add subheadings and images within your newsletter to break up text and make it more enjoyable to read.

Why use them?
Easily share resources and information, such as annual reports and research, by uploading documents directly to LinkedIn.

Best practices
• Use @mentions to give credit (ex: to a research partner that helped you create a report or to an employee who was instrumental in creating the content). This not only recognizes people’s work but encourages them to engage with the post.
• Give your document a relevant title when prompted after uploading so people know what to expect from it.
• Add an executive summary if you’re uploading a larger document (ex: a 25-slide deck) to let people know why it’s worth reviewing the whole thing.

Why use them?
Use the “Celebrate an occasion” feature to give kudos, announce project launches, mark milestones, or welcome new members to the team.

Best practices
• Tag relevant people and pages (ex: when welcoming a new team member) to encourage engagement.
• Use the “Give Kudos” celebration option as a powerful employee engagement tool.
• Personalize the suggested messaging from LinkedIn to share more details about what you’re celebrating and why.

Why use them?
Polls are a quick and easy way to generate engagement. Use them to gather information about your audience (ex: about the type of content they’d like to see or their opinion on a trend). Or, consider quizzing them on fun facts about your nonprofit or cause, then posting the correct answers.

Best practices
• Keep your questions clear and concise. If it’s confusing how the answers correspond, people either won’t engage or it may skew the results.
• Avoid overusing polls. If you run multiple polls a week, your audience may get bored of them. It’s best to save them for when you have something good to ask.
• Try not to set and forget your polls. LinkedIn allows you to see poll participants and their answers, meaning you can follow up with respondents if you choose. People can also comment on the poll, and you can respond to their comments to generate further engagement.

Why repost content?
Reposting content related to your nonprofit demonstrates to your followers that your organization is actively interested in and engaged with the latest news related to your cause. In addition to building community and conversation, sharing relevant content from others can also help ease the demands of content planning and production associated with developing net-new original content to post.

Best practices
• Always add context to what you repost. When you repost content on LinkedIn, you’ll  have the option to “Add your thoughts” and write additional text to accompany your repost. Take this opportunity to spark a conversation or showcase your nonprofit’s expertise.
• Follow the 3:1 ratio: For every post featuring original content your nonprofit publishes, try to find and repost three posts from other sources.
• Start conversations: Try using the content you repost to open a dialogue. For example, you could ask a question in the post text you write to accompany a reposted piece of content. Then, you could respond to the answers you receive in the comments.