Personal Posts are a Win-Win on LinkedIn

With over 800 million users spread across 200 countries, LinkedIn projects a daily growth rate of two new members joining every second. Taking their exponential growth potential into account, the professional connection possibilities are endless.

According to Hootsuite, almost 44% of LinkedIn members are active on a monthly basis with as many logged in daily. Any professional in 2022 knows using LinkedIn is an essential part of their job description; not just having a LinkedIn profile but knowing how to use it. 

From engaging with your network, sharing content, commenting on other people’s posts to searching for candidates and clients, LinkedIn’s list of benefits for recruiters is endless.

With that being said, the question often asked is, “Is it best to share content on your company page or your personal LinkedIn page?” Our answer is: Your personal brand on LinkedIn will always be the most effective and here are some reasons why.

People Buy From People

We aren’t saying you need to completely write off your company page, but your audience is far more likely to engage with a personal post as opposed to a formal one from your organization.

If your company page is being managed with scheduled and shared content, you can easily share these posts directly to your personal account along with your own comments in the caption to encourage your followers to interact with the post.

You’re far more likely to receive engagement in the form of likes, comments and shares by posting content directly from your personal LinkedIn page, especially if you ask for feedback in the caption. Why? Because people buy from people. Your connections will prefer to strike up a conversation with a person, instead of shouting into the abyss that is the comment section of a post on a company’s page.

People Connect with People

Your overall company messaging can reach and speak to far more people on LinkedIn by individually connecting with them through your personal profile than by trying to get people to follow your company page. Through your personal profile interactions, your company page has better potential to organically grow.

Asking recruiters to share on social media or trying to get recruiters to share company content isn’t always a straightforward task. However, if they are building LinkedIn connections effectively with their target audiences and sharing relevant and interesting content, they will be able to build up a community of people who are more likely to engage with their content in the future.

Therefore, if you are trying to educate your recruiters on the importance of employee advocacy and sharing content, let them know they are far more likely to build a network of candidates and clients on LinkedIn by sharing their own content than they are by liking the occasional company page post.

Algorithms Prioritize People

Have you noticed when you check LinkedIn in the morning, you see posts from people you often interact with at the top of your feed? That’s because the LinkedIn algorithm prioritizes people over company pages, as well as the people you engage with the most.

LinkedIn describes itself as a place where you can “manage your professional identity” and “build and engage with your professional network.” Nowhere does it say, “LinkedIn is a place for companies to be more popular than individuals.”

Quite the opposite— the entire platform is built around connecting people. Consider what you’ve seen on LinkedIn over the past week. In fact, open LinkedIn and view your recent activity. Who or what have you engaged with the most? Have you liked, commented or shared anyone’s posts?

If so, was most of it shared by an individual or an organization?

We can almost guarantee it was originally posted by a person. Individuals will always have more connections and people looking at their profile than that of company pages.

Getting Recruiters to Share Content is Simple

If your organization has been prioritizing sharing content on your company page because it’s the easiest way to distribute, don’t worry, we understand. Historically, trying to get recruiters to share content on LinkedIn has never the easiest of tasks.

As soon as you ask a recruiter to share their own content on LinkedIn to develop their personal brand and engage with their audience, they’re likely to interpret this as needing to write three blog posts a week and share a video every morning.

Be sure to tread lightly when encouraging recruiters to share more content on LinkedIn and reassure them that they don’t need to produce all their own content. Simply sharing external news or their company blog posts is enough, as long as they’re adding their own comments or perspective whenever possible.

The best part is, they don’t have to manually login and share something daily. (There are several companies that simplify social media, so posting daily is no longer a chore. My company, Paiger, for example, sends users a daily email with tips, news and other relevant content to help them share posts directly from their inbox.)

At the end of the day, simplifying social media posting is a win-win solution for everyone, allowing recruiters to share content on LinkedIn with a keystroke to create organic growth for your overall company page.

Authors

Darren Westall

Darren is a tech guy that loves marketing and recruitment, pouring his passion into Paiger. Previously the CTO of Broadbean, Darren built the first version of Paiger's software and took the product to market in 2018. Darren now spends his time working with Paiger's customers to help them take their marketing to the next level; while taking care of everything inside Paiger too! Often speaking at public events or appearing on podcasts, Darren loves to chat marketing, sales and recruitment.