LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 700 million members. As a platform built to connect professionals and businesses, LinkedIn offers many opportunities for companies to market their brand, find new customers, and hire talent. One way to leverage LinkedIn for marketing and outreach purposes is through their application programming interface (API). The LinkedIn API allows developers to integrate LinkedIn data and functionality into their own applications and websites. This opens up possibilities like automatically posting content to LinkedIn, analyzing LinkedIn data, and more. So how exactly can you post to LinkedIn through their API?
Get API Access
The first step is to get API access by registering as a LinkedIn developer. You can do this by creating a LinkedIn developer account at https://www.linkedin.com/developers/. As part of the registration process, you’ll need to agree to LinkedIn’s API terms of use and provide some basic information about yourself and your company. Once your registration is approved, you’ll have access to LinkedIn’s suite of APIs through OAuth 2.0, an open standard for secure API authorization.
Understand the Different APIs
LinkedIn has several different APIs that serve different purposes:
- Jobs API – Search, retrieve and manage job posts and candidate application data
- Ads API – Create, manage and analyze your LinkedIn ad campaigns
- Interests API – Leverage member interests and profile data for targeting and analysis
- Companies API – Access company profile data to identify sales leads
- Groups API – Manage group membership and interactions
- Share API – Enable sharing capabilities between your app and LinkedIn
For posting content to LinkedIn, you’ll want to use the Share API. This allows you to share content through member posts and company updates.
Authentication and Authorization
To use any LinkedIn API, you first need to authenticate your application and get an access token. This access token will grant permissions for your app to access specific member data based on the API scopes you’ve requested.
The main steps are:
- Register your app through the LinkedIn developer portal to get a client ID and client secret.
- Implement OAuth 2.0 in your app to obtain an access token from LinkedIn’s servers.
- Pass the access token with each API request to authenticate.
- Refresh the access token as needed before it expires (typically every 60 days).
This flow allows LinkedIn members to grant permission to your app to access their data without exposing their credentials directly to you.
Craft Your Post
Once you’ve implemented OAuth and obtained an access token, you’re ready to start posting! The Share API has endpoints for creating posts, company updates, and social actions like liking or commenting.
Here is an example request body for creating a new text-based post as a member:
{ "author": "urn:li:person:{linkedinId}", "lifecycleState": "PUBLISHED", "specificContent": { "com.linkedin.ugc.ShareContent": { "shareCommentary": { "text": "Check out my new article on the LinkedIn API!" }, "shareMediaCategory": "NONE" } }, "visibility": { "com.linkedin.ugc.MemberNetworkVisibility": "PUBLIC" } }
You specify the author as the member LinkedIn ID, the post content text, and the desired visibility level. Photos, links, hashtags and @mentions can be added as well.
For company updates, you’ll want to specify the company ID instead of a member ID, and use the corresponding company share endpoint.
Check Requirements and Limits
When posting through the API, be sure to follow LinkedIn’s requirements and limits for a good user experience:
- Text posts have a limit of 700 characters
- Photo posts are limited to 5 MB
- Don’t exceed the daily request limits per access token
- Follow the post frequency guidelines to avoid spam/abuse restrictions
- Link directly to content instead of using redirects
- Use relevant hashtags sparingly
Consult LinkedIn’s API documentation for specifics on various endpoints and use cases. Staying within the guidelines will help your posts reach your target audience successfully.
Analyze Engagement
Once your posts are live, you can use the Statistics API and other endpoints to collect engagement analytics. Important metrics to track include:
- Impressions – How many times your post was seen
- Clicks – How many clicks on links or hashtags
- Reactions – Likes, comments, shares
- Follows – New follower growth
This data can inform your future posting strategy and help optimize your efforts over time.
Conclusion
Posting to LinkedIn through the API opens up powerful marketing automation possibilities. By following the steps to gain API access, implement OAuth, craft engaging posts, and analyze results, you can integrate LinkedIn deeply into your content efforts. Just be sure to follow LinkedIn’s guidelines to avoid issues. With some technical work upfront, the LinkedIn API provides a valuable tool for any marketing pro.