LinkedIn Best Practices

LinkedIn is a great platform to showcase your department or college and its efforts in research, academic accomplishments, recruiting faculty or staff, and more. 

Getting Started

Create a Company Page

When you are creating a LinkedIn account for your department, make sure you are creating a company page rather than a personal profile. It has a lot of the same features as a personal profile but includes more sections to add a description of your department's focus and primary audience. 

Profile Picture

Use the TXST Brand avatar as your profile picture and include your department or college’s name in it as well. 

Website

Link to your department’s homepage so that it is one of the first links a user will see when they visit your company page. 

Tagline

Summarize your department’s mission in 120 characters or less. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to add more detail about your department in the description.

Optimize Your Page

Banner Image

Your banner image is important in that it is the largest and first image a user will see when they land on your page. Make sure it is a high resolution photo of campus or your building. 


Overview

Lead with relevant terms and phrases that describe your organization’s mission and purpose (LinkedIn members can search by keywords). 


Call to Action Buttons

Customize your button to align with your goals and track who’s clicked in the admin view or in visitor analytics. We recommend choosing the button labeled “contact us” for the best results and the most actionable engagement. 

Posting on LinkedIn

Content to share

Here are some examples to get you started with your LinkedIn content: 

  • TXST News articles related to your program or college

  • News articles about faculty research 

  • Videos (if available) 

  • Student stories/highlights

  • Program highlights, degrees available, and courses available

  • Rankings (if available) 

  • Job placement statistics and careers for your students

  • LinkedIn Polls

How often to post 

Posting on LinkedIn should be consistent, just like your other social media platforms. About once or twice a week is ideal. 

Engage 

Support other TXST pages on LinkedIn by connecting or following other university official pages, liking content, and resharing other news articles related to your college or organization. Having a LinkedIn page also lends itself to engage with thought leaders and faculty in your industry or field of work. 

Hashtags

Hashtags on LinkedIn work like hashtags on Instagram and Twitter and keywords on YouTube. Hashtags make you visible to people searching in your field. For example, if you are the engineering department of Texas State, use the hashtags “#engineering,” “#STEM,” “#science,” or “#highered.” All those hashtags would be relevant and helpful to get your audience engaged with your page. LinkedIn also has the built-in feature of recommending hashtags for you to use that are in line with your content. We recommend 3-4 hashtags max per post. 

Additional Resources