The Why, What, When, and How of Promoting Events on LinkedIn

This is a sponsored post by Christy Huggins, Senior Social Media Manager at Eventbrite. More information about Event Manager Blog’s sponsored posts.

LinkedIn can be an elusive and intimidating platform for event organizers. The “casually social” platforms like Facebook and Snapchat make it easy to promote events with straightforward content. But on the premier social platform for professionals, LinkedIn’s more than 100 million active monthly users are specifically looking for content related to careers and the workplace. If your event has anything to do with business, education, or networking, it behooves you to master LinkedIn’s domain. But even if it doesn’t, you can still take advantage of this powerful social platform.

So if LinkedIn is the “where,” you might be looking for the “why, what, when, and how.” Keep reading.

Why You Should Post Your Events on LinkedIn

Many people use both LinkedIn and Facebook — but the similarities tend to end there. Facebook is a beautiful smorgasbord of friends, grandmothers, cousins, co-workers, and the occasional pet profile. LinkedIn’s demographics get specific: users tend to be more educated, slightly older, higher-income, and more urban and suburban. Half of all college grads and 44% of people making more than $75k per year are on the platform. If those demographics match the ones you’re hoping to attract to your event, LinkedIn’s target market is ready to go.

What to Post On LinkedIn

Typically, users on LinkedIn are looking for professional advice, tips, resources, and, of course, jobs. Regardless of the type of event you’re promoting, it’s a great idea to spin the professional aspects on LinkedIn. For instance, you could:

Play up the networking opportunities of your event
Announce that you are hiring or looking for volunteers
Promote your guest speakers, partners and sponsors, who are without a doubt on LinkedIn themselves
Give a behind-the-scenes glimpse into your production process, using video and photos
Talk about the venue and what makes it special

In any case, use bold images and attention-grabbing headlines, and end with a question to spark conversation. No matter what you’re speaking about, always make it very easy and obvious how to register.

How to Optimize your Event Post on LinkedIn

There are two ways to post on LinkedIn.

Status updates. The easiest way to post on LinkedIn is to make a status update. If you are posting from a company or branded page, that status update will appear in the newsfeed of anyone following you, as well as on your profile page. You can also set up a Showcase page that’s specific to the event itself. This is a great way to target your messaging precisely to your audience.

Published posts. One of the best features of LinkedIn is the ability to publish longer articles on their Pulse platform. Using this format, you can include multiple pictures and lots of detail, as well as links to past events and venue information. If you do a good job with these posts, they might even end up being promoted on LinkedIn’s Channels, which is like getting a free audience boost. To better gauge what LinkedIn chooses to feature here, poke around in the various channels and see what’s being published.

And there are several ways to get the word out about your event and the posts you’ve made.

Ask a partner to share it. Ask your sponsors, speakers, and partners to share your post or even write original content to support your event. LinkedIn has a network of leaders designated as official “Influencers.” If you can manage to snag one of them to help you promote your event, you’ll reach amplified eyeballs. You might not be able to land Bill Gates, but there are plenty of other Influencers you can browse from LinkedIn’s Discover page.

Share it with a group. LinkedIn Groups are hangouts for people in particular niches. There’s a group (or ten) for every subject, and you can share your status updates and published posts there. For instance, if you are hosting a collaboration of beer brewers, the Craft Brewery Alliance, with almost 10k members, is a great place to spread the word. When you post in groups, stay involved in the conversation you start: always check back to answer any comments.

Direct messaging. LinkedIn is a great place to contact guest speakers, industry influencers, and other types of leaders you want to involve in your event or ask to help spread the word. If you have a Premium account, you can send paid InMail to someone even if you’re not connected to them. You can also send a free direct message to up to 50 of your first-tier connections at once.

Advertising. And, like most social platforms these days, LinkedIn offers a way to boost your reach with paid advertising. You can target your posts to specific types of people — for instance, C-level leaders in the automotive industry or anyone working in retail in your geographic area.

When to Post about Events on LinkedIn

More than any other social platform, LinkedIn sees its busiest traffic during weekday work hours. In fact, LinkedIn posts get the most clicks and shares on Tuesdays between 10 and 11am. However, this is a general rule. Your specific event might have different rules. For instance, if your audience consists of restaurant professionals, they might keep later hours.

In Conclusion

Now you know the why, what, when, and how of Linkedin. Want to learn how to use other social media channels to promote your event? Read 9 Steps to Master Social Media for Events for insight into how you can master all social domains.