The LinkedIn API allows developers to access LinkedIn’s platform and data to build applications that leverage LinkedIn’s professional social network. With over 740 million members worldwide, LinkedIn is an invaluable resource for scaling businesses, recruiting talent, conducting market research, and more. The LinkedIn API makes it possible to tap into these capabilities programmatically.
Overview of LinkedIn API Capabilities
Here is a high-level overview of some of the main things that can be done with the LinkedIn API:
- Access member profile data – Retrieve info like name, location, education, skills, interests, etc.
- Share content and interact with updates – Post, like, and comment on member posts and articles.
- Search profiles and companies – Find LinkedIn members and companies matching search criteria.
- Publish long-form posts – Create long-form articles and publish them to LinkedIn.
- Manage contacts and relationships – Access 1st-degree connections, share connections, and more.
- Analyze company followers and statistics – Get info on companies’ followers and social engagement.
- Create targeted advertising campaigns – Use demographic targeting to market to LinkedIn audiences.
- Access job listings data – Search, retrieve, and interact with LinkedIn job postings.
- Send messages and notifications – Communicate with connections via the LinkedIn messaging platform.
- Authenticate via LinkedIn – Enable LinkedIn login and account verification.
This covers some of the main feature areas. Let’s explore some specific use cases and capabilities in more detail.
Accessing and Managing LinkedIn Profile Data
One of the core things that can be done with the LinkedIn API is to access user profile data. With the proper permissions, it’s possible to retrieve information on a LinkedIn member’s identity, background, interests, skills, education, expertise, accomplishments, and more. Here are some specific examples of profile data access:
Get identity information
- Name
- Headline/tagline
- Location
- Industry
- Picture URLs
Get background information
- Experience/work history
- Education history
- Volunteer experience
- Skills and expertise
- Licenses and certifications
Get member interests and details
- LinkedIn Groups joined
- Causes supported
- LinkedIn Pages followed
- Language proficiencies
This profile data enables personalized experiences based on the member’s professional details. It can power customized recommendations, relevant content targeting, and more.
In addition to reading profile data, the API also enables updating and managing select profile fields. This allows things like maintaining profile completeness, synchronizing profile data with other systems, and enabling profile editing capabilities within external apps.
Interacting With Content and Posts
Another major capability unlocked by the LinkedIn API is the ability to interact with content and posts. This includes things like:
- Posting regular status updates
- Publishing long-form posts as articles
- Liking and commenting on posts
- Following LinkedIn Pages and Influencers
- Sharing content to member timelines
Here are some specific use cases enabled by the API’s content and posts capabilities:
Automated content publishing
Tools can leverage the API to auto-publish new company blog posts to LinkedIn, either natively or by linking to content on another site. This expands reach to the LinkedIn audience.
Social media management
Social media management platforms can integrate with LinkedIn to enable managing LinkedIn Pages and posts from a unified dashboard along with other social networks.
Content recommendation engines
Relevant content can be recommended to users based on their profile data and then one-click shared to their LinkedIn feed.
Analytics on post performance
The API provides data on post impressions, likes, comments, clicks, etc. This info can power analytics on how well content performs.
Searching LinkedIn Profiles and Companies
The LinkedIn API opens up access to LinkedIn’s profile and company data for search purposes. Developers can leverage the API to search the 500+ million LinkedIn member profiles by criteria like location, education, skills, job title, and more. Company search makes it possible to find companies matching attributes like industry, size, location, and so on.
Here are some examples of how search capabilities through the API might be used:
Recruiting and talent sourcing
Search for member profiles matching hiring criteria to surface potential candidates for open positions.
Sales prospecting
Find contacts at target companies that fit ideal customer profiles.
Partnership opportunities
Discover companies that have complementary offerings for partnership opportunities.
Market research
Better understand company demographics, competitors, industry trends, and more.
Lead generation
Build lead lists by searching for members with relevant titles or interests.
The search capabilities unlock a trove of LinkedIn data for business use cases.
Analyzing Company Followers and Statistics
For companies and organizations with LinkedIn Pages, the API enables accessing data on their followers and audience. This includes metrics like:
- Follower count
- Industry distribution of followers
- Geographic distribution of followers
- Follower growth over time
- Top companies followers work for
- Engagement stats for posts
This data can provide valuable business insights. Some examples include:
Audience intelligence
Better understand who your followers are – their roles, industries, regions, and interests.
Measure content performance
See how well different post types and topics resonate with your audience.
Benchmark against competitors
Compare follower growth and engagement rates vs competitors.
Identify partnership opportunities
Discover companies with overlapping followers/interests that may be good partners.
Monitor brand awareness
Track follower growth and demographic shifts over time.
These insights can inform content strategy, partnerships, competitive intelligence, and more.
Creating Targeted Ad Campaigns
The LinkedIn API provides capabilities to create customized advertising campaigns targeted to specific demographics and interests. Key features include:
- Member targeting by profile attributes like location, job role, skills, etc.
- Targeting by interests like Groups joined, Pages followed, skills, etc.
- Location targeting down to zip code granularity
- Applying 1st and 2nd-degree connection targeting
- Combining targeting parameters with Boolean logic
- Access to LinkedIn’s Audience Templates for common targeting frames
- Powerful campaign management and analytics
This targeting functionality facilitates precision ad campaigns. Here are some examples of how it might be applied:
Promoting business software to IT decision makers
Target ads to members with IT job titles in specific companies, regions, and industries.
Running a recruiting campaign
Target developers, designers, or other roles with ads promoting open positions.
Driving event attendance
Reach members near an event’s location who are connected to people already registered.
Growing group membership
Engage professionals with relevant interests to have them join relevant groups.
The granular targeting provides exceptional options for zeroing in on the right audiences.
Accessing Job Listings Data
The LinkedIn API provides programmatic access to LinkedIn’s extensive job listings data. This includes the ability to:
- Search current job openings by criteria like keywords, location, date posted, etc.
- Retrieve details on job listings like description, responsibilities, qualifications, etc.
- Get aggregated stats on hiring companies
- Share job listings to LinkedIn
- Follow companies to track new job postings
Here are some examples of how these capabilities might be used:
Building a job search engine
Create a custom jobs search portal using LinkedIn listings as a data source.
Enhancing career sites
Automatically showcase relevant job openings on company or school career sites.
Monitoring hiring activity
Track job posting volume for companies, skills, and regions over time.
SEO for talent branding
Attract candidates by publishing open positions as LinkedIn articles.
By tapping into LinkedIn’s robust jobs data, developers can build all kinds of helpful hiring and recruiting solutions.
Sending Messages and Notifications
The LinkedIn messaging capabilities allow communicating directly with LinkedIn members via the API. Core features include:
- Sending messages to 1st-degree connections
- Receiving messages via a webhook
- Triggering in-app notifications
- Integrating with third-party messaging systems
This facilitates things like:
One-to-one messaging
Engage your connections by sending targeted messages and notifications.
Event reminders and invites
Remind connections about upcoming events they’ve shown interest in.
Email automation
Send personalized emails based on LinkedIn data signals.
Chatbot integration
Incorporate LinkedIn messaging into conversational chatbot flows.
Messaging capabilities help drive more engaging and automated communication flows.
Authenticating Via LinkedIn Login
LinkedIn also offers robust API capabilities for enabling LinkedIn Login in external apps and sites. Core features include:
- Member login via LinkedIn
- Accessing member profile data (with permission)
- SSO – managing a single identity across multiple apps
- Verifying member identities
This powers use cases like:
Streamlined registration
Members can easily register/sign in to third-party apps with their LinkedIn account.
Social proof
Display LinkedIn profile details like photo, company, etc. to build trust.
Spam reduction
Leverage LinkedIn data to detect and block fake accounts.
Secure access
Use LinkedIn identity for gated access to events, content sites, etc.
By tapping into LinkedIn’s identity system, sites can reduce friction and build credibility.
Additional Notable Features
Beyond the major capabilities highlighted above, here are some other notable features available via the LinkedIn API:
- Ads API – Manage programmatic advertising directly on LinkedIn.
- Interest categories – Get info on member interests for targeting.
- Company pages – Programmatically manage Company Pages.
- Content sharing – Share content to member feeds and messaging.
- Influencer posts – Access posts from LinkedIn influencers.
- Analytics – Tap into engagement analytics for posts, pages, ads, etc.
- Network updates – Get a stream of content/activity from a member’s network.
- Lead generation forms – Create lead gen forms for gated content.
Developers have many additional APIs and use cases to explore beyond the core capabilities outlined in this article.
Conclusion
In summary, the LinkedIn API opens up a wealth of professional social data and capabilities to developers. Key opportunities include:
- Tapping into rich member profile data
- Engaging with content, posts, and messaging
- Enabling precise ad targeting
- Accessing jobs data
- Building on top of LinkedIn identity
- Analyzing audience and company follower metrics
- Facilitating recruiter workflows
- Streamlining registration with SSO login
Developers can drive value in a diverse range of verticals like recruiting, marketing, sales, and analytics by integrating with LinkedIn data. The API makes it possible to harness the professional insights and connections of LinkedIn’s 660+ million members.