Visual Hooks and Company Page Posts on LinkedIn.

User Defined Company Page Cover Images.

Recently, I wrote about how Company Pages have become important for posting on LinkedIn due to the superior analytics (versus virtually none when posting direct, but blind, from your user account). Well, it seems LinkedIn is determined to tempt us to the Company Page route. Another boon they have granted is the ability to change the cover image for link posts on a Page.

The alternative cover image for this post.

To demonstrate, I posted this very post and changed it's cover over on my Company Page.

Demonstration of changing the cover image for a link post on LinkedIn.

Why would you want to do this? There are very many good reasons.

1. I have often written about "Graphical Horses for Online Courses": the visual hook used for an original article just might not work for a post on LinkedIn. What works for blogs, and for Pinterest and Google+ in particular, does not always work well on LinkedIn.

 2. The image only appears as a thumbnail on LinkedIn. Size matters. Note how I have deliberately chosen my "Alternative Cover" here to show how the graphic in this post becomes too small to be readable on LinkedIn. It's a deliberate bad choice.

3. To give a more uniform branding to your Page. The graphics for the articles you post may not be in keeping with the theme of the Page. By creating a consistent set of visuals, it makes your Page look more professional and helps the posts hang together as a story.

4. To test the hooking power of your Visuals. By trying different styles of graphic on a sequence of  similar posts and by comparing the analytics, you can really focus in on which style actually works in the context of your Company Page (I told you those analytics are important).

5. Making a post audience specific. Let's say you're adding a post to your Company Page with a specific LinkedIn Group in mind. You could add a keyword or even the group badge to a tailor made graphic. You can share your bespoke version of the post from your Page to a Group via your user account. This would have higher impact on the target Group than a vanilla cover image.

Do you have any other ideas for exploiting this gift from LinkedIn?

Of course, one has to wonder why they haven't implemented this for user accounts? In fact, I'm seeing a lot of link posts where no image is showing in the LinkedIn newsfeed. The difference between the User Experience and the Company Experience is again stark.

Again, one suspects it is all designed to gently nudge us toward that "Sponsor" (paid advertising) post button.