This week on #bufferchat, our community chatted all about LinkedIn, everything from best performing content to top marketing strategies. Read on to discover all of the awesome insights shared during the chat!
Catch our weekly Twitter chat, #bufferchat, at TWO times every Wednesday for valuable industry insights and to meet hundreds of other smart marketers and social media enthusiasts. Same topic, same place, just at different times – feel free to join in to whichever chat time works best for you!
4 pm AEDT (Sydney time)
9 am PT (San Francisco time)

This week’s stats:
Bufferchat #1 (4 pm AEDT): 26 participants; reach of 974,760
Bufferchat #2 (9 am PT): 59 participants; reach of 1,109,764
Q1: How does LinkedIn factor into your social media strategy?
From the community:
A1: It’s a big component of sharing our #b2b thought leadership. LinkedIn Pulse provides a great opportunity to create and share such thought leadership right from the network. #bufferchat
— Javier Sanabria (@SanabriaJav) December 13, 2017
A1 @LinkedIn is where social gets professional and you can do a lot to share your thought leadership and personal brand. From an advertising standpoint, I’ve found this channel very expensive (compared to Twitter/Facebook) and not as effective in targeting. #bufferchat
— Nancy Casanova (@nancycasanova) December 13, 2017
A1: From a B2B perspective, it’s a must. Sharing company updates, industry news, fun facts it’s a great way for your company to connect with biz professionals. #BufferChat
— ?Codi? (@Codishaa) December 13, 2017
A1. We use LinkedIn in a few ways: group for discussions, company page to share thought leadership, long-form posts (I encourage our contributors to publish these) to extend reach #bufferchat
— allison ryder (@allisonryder) December 13, 2017
See all the great answers to question 1 here!
Q2: Is there anything that surprises you about LinkedIn?
From the community:
A2:
(1) I am surprised that a lot of people still use LinkedIn like Facebook. This is on the user.
(2) As for the platform, I was surprised with the quality of courses on LinkedIn learning. The ones I tried were pretty good.
#BufferChat
— Raul Rovira ❄️ (@RaulARovira) December 13, 2017
A2: I’ve been most surprised by the number of leads I’ve got through my slightly neglected LinkedIn profile compared to the website I spent lots of time and money on ?. Time to reprioritise for 2018! #bufferchat
— Felicity Wild (@flickwild) December 13, 2017
A2. I am noticing a lot of great changes to the platform. The chat feature surprises me as it has opened the door to more direct sales and with the platform being more b2b, it feels you have to engage in the conversation on behalf of your workplace. #bufferchat
— Ted Mahy ? (@tmahy) December 13, 2017
A2: LinkedIn is the NUMBER ONE channel B2B marketers use to distribute content. More than Facebook, more than Twitter, more than Quora, more than everything else.
That’s big news.#BufferChat pic.twitter.com/7tnOplF2W3
— Josh Gallant (@joshgallantt) December 13, 2017
See all the great answers to question 2 here!
Q3: What kind of content performs best on LinkedIn?
From the community:
A3. Personal & transparent stories related to business, entrepreneurship, and self-help/self-care (stress, sleep, growth, etc.) #bufferchat
— D Johnson Lindsay (@djohnsonlindsay) December 13, 2017
A3: People get angry about posts written like this.
Many LI users do tell fake/ridiculous stories in this format.
Thing is, no matter how valuable your thoughts are, it’s hard to read a block of text.
Line breaks must perform well because enough users like them. #bufferchat
— Laura Ferruggia ?? (@lauregg) December 13, 2017
A3. I’ve seen people who have posted native video regularly on there see massive growth. Also, long-form pulse content hosted on-site. Oftentimes I’d take content from my website & upload it natively to LinkedIn & it does better. #bufferchat
— Geoffrey Blosat (@GeoffTBlosat) December 13, 2017
A3: Best performers by far for us are the more personal articles we post. It’s a great place to take a deeper dive. #bufferchat
— Qocreate (@qocreate) December 13, 2017
See all the great answers to question 3 here!
Q4: Will native video alter your LinkedIn strategy?
From the community:
A4: absolutely, the stats are off the charts for this and there’s definitely a leaning towards it in regards to the algorithm in the short term. That being said, more and more users are taking this and using it. As such, it will hit a critical mass eventually.#bufferchat
— Chris Tynan (@Chris_Tynan_) December 13, 2017
A4 NO, but it has helped like Customer Videos, product demos, office tours etc #bufferchat https://t.co/z8JNyyx2wa
— Ruchi Aggarwal (@Ruchi_Aggarwal1) December 13, 2017
A4 ’ve pivoted to video+chosen LinkedIn as the main platform to share from. It will help with all the pros already discussed. LinkedIn gives more of bump in cred than sharing on Facebook imo. Expect the platform to get lit 2018. @jeffweiner and team are on it. #bufferchat pic.twitter.com/Py5tofOcqu
— Musolé “Sole” Kambinda ? (@Musolek) December 13, 2017
A4 No. I don’t go to LinkedIn for videos and I’m not super pumped about all the videos there… I don’t know why but it feels like a “this has worked for other platforms, so let’s do it, too!” #bufferchat
— The Budget Backpack (@TheBdgtBckpck) December 13, 2017
See all the great answers to question 4 here!
Q5: Does Pulse, Influencers or any of the other new features change your perception of LinkedIn?
From the community:
A5: I dig the influencer movement, but I don’t like the algorithm reward system. I’d rather see a smaller-scale update from a connection I personally know instead of getting flooded with posts from influencers from weeks ago. Lets keep the social in social networking.#bufferchat
— Geneva Hayward (@gen10hay) December 13, 2017
A5 These new features are what will continue to grow the platform. We have begun to expect new things from LinkedIn on a regular basis. Like the #LinkedIn Advisors program. What a brilliant idea! #bufferchat
— Markham & Lambert (@MarkhamLambert) December 13, 2017
A5) Yep! I had a personal attachment to Pulse. I personally don’t like what they did with it. But that’s just my opinion. As we get into more of the LI features, I’m sure my perception of the platform, overall, will change. #bufferchat https://t.co/rcMDhEzNQx
— What Box Strategies (@WhatBoxStrategy) December 13, 2017
#bufferchat A5: I think Pulse was becoming a thing as I started learning the platform. I used to view it as something professional fields used and I never viewed my job like that. I’m warming up to it as one of my favorites
— Joe Coad II (@JoeCoadTwo) December 13, 2017
See all the great answers to question 5 here!
Q6: What are your top three tips for LinkedIn marketing?
From the community:
A6: 1.- Change your discourse to a more formal one (with out losing your personality)
2.- Write pieces/articles that shine light on not often thought subjects.
3.- Engage, comment, share with other users. (It IS called SOCIAL media)#bufferchat
— J. Pablo H3 (@HinoIII) December 13, 2017
A6: LI Tips
1. Have a “how can I help others” attitude
2. Be professional, but approachable.
3. Don’t playa hate; participate! #BufferChat
— Julie Lichtenberg (@jalichtenberg) December 13, 2017
A6. Be authentic, stay on brand most importantly don’t mass inmail! #bufferchat
— Jennifer (@jennyreeves202) December 13, 2017
A6 #bufferchat
-Maintain your professionalism
-Share timely, relevant content
-Be SOCIAL! Comment, like, and share other posts!
— Olive & Company (@oliveandco) December 13, 2017
See all the great answers to question 6 here!
Thank you so much to our awesome community for sharing such great insights in this chat!
Do you have any comments or answers to these questions? Leave your thoughts in the comments! We’d love to hear from you!
Image sources: UnSplash