How to schedule LinkedIn posts

LinkedIn rewards showing up steadily, two or three useful posts a week, every week. That is hard to keep up around client work, which is exactly what scheduling is for. Here are the two ways to do it.

1. In LinkedIn itself

LinkedIn's own post box can schedule a post. Write it, press the clock icon beside Post, and choose a date and time. It works for your personal profile and for a Company Page you manage, it is free, and for one account posting a couple of times a week it may be all you need.

2. With a scheduler

A scheduler earns its place when LinkedIn is one of several networks, when you want a month planned at once, or when you want help writing posts that suit LinkedIn. Our guide to the best LinkedIn scheduling tools sets out which tool fits which job, including the specialists built only for LinkedIn.

Write for the feed before you schedule

• LinkedIn cuts a post off after a couple of lines, so the first line has to earn the click on "more".
• A post holds 3,000 characters. Check a draft with our free character counter.
• Short paragraphs with space between them read far better than a wall of text.
• A post from a person usually travels further than the same post from a Company Page.
• Leave time after it goes out to reply to comments: the conversation is half the reach.

When to schedule them

LinkedIn is read in working hours, so weekday mornings and lunchtimes are a sensible start. Watch which of your own posts do well and move towards those times. Our LinkedIn content strategy for small businesses covers what to post once the schedule is set.

Scheduling LinkedIn with Optimate

Optimate's LinkedIn scheduler puts LinkedIn on one calendar with your other platforms, writes posts from your brand kit, and stops a post over LinkedIn's limit before it is queued. Start your 14-day free trial, no card needed.