Using LinkedIn with Buffer
LinkedIn is the number one platform for business-to-business (B2B) lead generation, with 80% of B2B leads coming from LinkedIn vs. 13% on X/Twitter and 7% on Facebook. This article covers everything you need to use LinkedIn Pages and personal profiles with Buffer: connecting them, fixing connection problems, scheduling posts, media specifications, troubleshooting failed posts, engagement, and analytics.
In this article:
- What features are available for LinkedIn in Buffer?
- Who can connect a LinkedIn Page? Super Admin vs. other roles
- Connecting a LinkedIn Page or profile to Buffer
- Buffer connected my personal profile instead of my Company Page
- Troubleshooting LinkedIn connection issues
- Refreshing a LinkedIn channel
- Scheduling posts to LinkedIn Pages and profiles
- Image, video, GIF, and document (PDF) specifications for LinkedIn
- Engaging with LinkedIn comments in Buffer
- LinkedIn analytics: what's available for Pages vs. profiles
What features are available for LinkedIn in Buffer
Buffer supports publishing, analytics, and engagement for LinkedIn, with a few differences between Pages and personal profiles.
- Publishing: available for both LinkedIn Pages and personal profiles.
- Analytics: advanced analytics in the Analyze tab are available for LinkedIn Pages only. Personal profiles get per-post metrics in the Sent tab.
- Engagement: reply to comments for both Pages and profiles in Buffer's Community feature.
| Publishing | Analytics | Engagement |
| ✓ (Pages + profiles) | ✓ (Pages) | ✓ (Pages + profiles) |
Who can connect a LinkedIn Page? Super Admin vs. other roles
To connect a LinkedIn Company Page or Showcase Page to Buffer, you must be a Super Admin of that Page. This is the single most common reason a Page won't connect or refresh.
LinkedIn offers several Page admin roles, but only one can connect or refresh a Page in Buffer:
- Super Admin: Can connect and refresh the Page in Buffer. This is the required role.
- Content Admin, Curator, Analyst, and other roles: Can manage certain tasks within LinkedIn, but cannot connect or refresh the Page in Buffer.
If you are a Content Admin (or any role other than Super Admin), you'll either not see the Page when connecting or encounter a permissions error. Ask an existing Super Admin to grant you the Super Admin role, or have them connect the Page to Buffer on your behalf. Learn about LinkedIn Page admin roles here.
📝 Notes:
If no one has Super Admin access: If the previous Super Admin has left and no one else holds the role, the Page cannot be connected or refreshed in Buffer until Super Admin access is restored. Use LinkedIn’s Page admin recovery process to regain access, then connect the Page to Buffer.
Personal profiles: Connecting a personal LinkedIn profile does not require a Page admin role. You are simply authorizing your own profile.
Connecting a LinkedIn Page or profile to Buffer
To connect a LinkedIn profile or Page to Buffer, you’ll first sign in with your personal LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn does not allow you to sign in directly as a Page.
Once you’re signed in, Buffer will show your personal profile and any Pages where you have Super Admin access, so you can choose which one to connect.
To connect a LinkedIn Page:
- In another browser tab, sign in to the personal LinkedIn profile with Super Admin access to the Page.
- In Buffer, go to Channels and select the option to connect a new LinkedIn channel.
- When LinkedIn prompts you, authorize Buffer through your personal profile.
- We'll show you a list of available accounts, select the Company Page, not your personal profile.
- Complete the connection. The Page will then appear as a separate channel in Buffer.
To connect a personal LinkedIn profile, follow the same flow and select your profile at step 4.
Connecting more than one LinkedIn account?
You can connect multiple LinkedIn accounts to Buffer. To make sure Buffer connects the right one, log in to that specific LinkedIn account in another browser tab before you start connecting it in Buffer.
These are the LinkedIn account types Buffer supports:
|
Type of account |
Buffer integration |
Notes |
| LinkedIn Company Pages |
✓ |
Connect by authenticating through a LinkedIn profile that has Super Admin access to the Page. |
| LinkedIn Showcase Pages |
✓ |
Connect by authenticating through a LinkedIn profile that has Super Admin access to the Page. |
| LinkedIn profiles |
✓ |
As long as the content you share across profiles is unique, there's no issue connecting several profiles. |
| LinkedIn groups |
Not supported |
LinkedIn groups aren't accessible to third parties through LinkedIn's API. |
📝 Notes: There is no risk to connecting your LinkedIn account to Buffer, and using Buffer to automate your posting does not violate LinkedIn's Terms of Service.
💡Tip: If you manage multiple LinkedIn Pages across different Buffer accounts, we recommend having the same Super Admin connect the Pages for each account. This can help reduce the risk of unexpected disconnections.
Buffer connected my personal profile instead of my Company Page
If Buffer connected your personal profile instead of your Company Page, one of these is usually the cause:
- You do not have Super Admin access to the Page. Only a Super Admin can connect a LinkedIn Page to Buffer. Content Admins and other Page roles cannot do this. See Who can connect a LinkedIn Page.
- You selected your personal profile instead of the Page. The connection process always starts by signing in through your personal LinkedIn profile. Buffer then shows a list of available profiles and Pages. Reconnect the channel and select the Company Page when the account list appears.
- You were signed in to the wrong LinkedIn account. Sign out of LinkedIn, then sign in to the profile with Super Admin access to the Page. You can also use a private or incognito window before reconnecting.
📝 Note: A personal profile and a Company Page are separate channels in Buffer. Each counts as one channel for billing, and you should only connect both if you intend to publish on both channels.
Troubleshooting LinkedIn connection issues
If a LinkedIn Page or profile won't connect, work through these in order. This covers the "No LinkedIn connections matched," "you've hit a snag, try again later," and "Page not showing" errors.
First, check Buffer's status page for a platform outage. An active incident may be contributing to channel connection issues.
Try the following troubleshooting steps in order:
-
If the Page does not appear in the account list, confirm that you have Super Admin access and that you are signed in to LinkedIn with that account before connecting.
If you are a Super Admin and the Page still does not appear, continue with the steps below.
- If you see “You’ve hit a snag” or “No LinkedIn connections matched,” or the connection continues to fail: Remove Buffer from LinkedIn’s authorized services, then reconnect the channel.
- In LinkedIn, go to Settings & Privacy > Data privacy > Other applications > Permitted services.
- Find Buffer and remove it from the list.
- Return to Buffer and reconnect the LinkedIn channel.
- If Buffer isn't listed in Permitted services, then there's no stale authorization to remove, so skip this step and try connecting in a private/incognito window while logged in to the correct LinkedIn account.
- If Buffer connects the wrong account, or you manage multiple LinkedIn logins, sign out of LinkedIn on all browsers, then sign in only to the correct account. You can also use a private or incognito window before reconnecting.
- If you see “Already connected to another Buffer account,” or the profile or Page appears unavailable, the channel is linked to a different Buffer account, sometimes one that has been deleted. Removing Buffer from LinkedIn’s authorized services will not resolve this. Contact us at hello@buffer.com, and we’ll release the channel so you can reconnect it.
Refreshing a LinkedIn channel
If a connected LinkedIn channel becomes unauthorized or requires a refresh, a Super Admin of the Page must complete the refresh, just as they would when connecting the Page. While the channel is unauthorized, posts will not be published, and analytics will not update or be backfilled.
For step-by-step instructions, see Refreshing a channel in Buffer. If the refresh still fails, remove Buffer from LinkedIn’s Permitted services list, then reconnect the channel. See Troubleshooting LinkedIn connection issues.
Scheduling posts to LinkedIn Pages and profiles
You can schedule posts to LinkedIn Pages and personal profiles the same way as any other channel in Buffer. However, some features vary depending on the type of LinkedIn channel you connect.
See our step-by-step guide to scheduling posts, then use the table below to compare the features available for LinkedIn Pages and profiles.
📝 Best time to post: The "best time to post" feature in Analyze does not support LinkedIn. To build an optimal schedule, see The Best Time to Post on LinkedIn. Need inspiration? Check out 30 Days of LinkedIn Post Prompts.
| Features & good-to-knows | Notes |
| Scheduling a first comment |
On our paid plans, you can schedule a first comment to publish alongside your LinkedIn post. The comment is published from the same LinkedIn Page or profile at the same time as the post. It cannot be scheduled for a later time or published from a different channel.
|
| Scheduling Documents |
On the web version of Buffer*, we support one LinkedIn PDF document (PDF carousel) per post, with a maximum size of 100 MB and 300 pages. Add a document title to Schedule or Save the post. *mobile support for LinkedIn PDF documents coming soon! |
| Tagging / mentions |
To mention a LinkedIn Page, copy and paste the LinkedIn URL for that Page into the composer (eg: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bufferapp/).
To mention a LinkedIn profile, type the @ symbol and start typing the name of the profile you wish to tag*. *Notes:
Learn more about adding mentions (tags) in posts here. |
| Hashtags | Your hashtags won't hyperlink in the composer, but they'll hyperlink once published to LinkedIn. Learn more about how hashtags work in Buffer here. |
| Hyperlinks in the post text | LinkedIn does not support hyperlinks on words or phrases. Pasted URLs publish as clickable links and may include a preview. |
| Link previews for LinkedIn URLs | Buffer can't generate a link preview image for URLs on the linkedin.com domain, because LinkedIn's API blocks third-party preview generation. To include an image, upload it manually. |
| Audience selection (Public vs. Connections only) | We're not able to set a LinkedIn post's audience to Connections only, because LinkedIn's API doesn't offer that control to third-party tools. To limit the audience, post that update natively on LinkedIn. |
| Daily posting limit | 50 posts per 24 hours. Learn more about Daily posting limits. |
| Character limit | 3,000 characters per post; 1,248 characters per first comment. Learn more about character limits for each social network. |
| Post attribution | The name shown at the top of your LinkedIn Page posts as "Posted by [Name]" is the LinkedIn Admin who connected the Page to Buffer. Your followers don't see this. |
📝 Not supported: At this time, we don't support creating LinkedIn polls or posting to the Life tab through Buffer.
Image, video, GIF, and document (PDF) specifications for LinkedIn
LinkedIn supports images, videos, GIFs, and documents (PDF).
| Videos | Images | GIFs | Documents (PDF Carousels) | |
| Number allowed per post |
1 |
20 | 1 | 1 |
| Video length | 3 seconds to 30 minutes | - | 3 to 60 seconds | - |
| File size | up to 1GB | up to 10MB | up to 10MB | up to 100MB and 300 pages |
| Dimensions / Aspect ratio | 1280 x 720 pixels | 1200 x 627 pixels (optimal for LinkedIn), or square (best for sharing across networks) | - | - |
| File types supported | MP4, MOV, AVI, M4V, or a video link | JPG, PNG, HEIC, WebP | GIF | |
| Custom thumbnail support | Not supported for uploaded videos; supported for video links | - | Not supported | - |
| Autoplay | Yes, for MP4 files between 75KB and 200MB | - | Yes | - |
| Alt text | - | Yes | - | - |
📝 Notes:
- If a GIF won't publish and you get a generic error, it may have too many frames for LinkedIn to accept. Try a shorter GIF, a smaller file, or convert it to a video.
- When adding a Document (PDF carousel), remember to add a document title, or the post won't schedule.
Engaging with LinkedIn comments in Buffer
You can reply to comments on LinkedIn Pages and profiles using Buffer’s Community feature. Available on the web version of Buffer and our mobile apps.
To use Community on desktop:
- Head to the Community tab on the left of the dashboard.
- Select your LinkedIn channel on the left menu and start replying to your comments.
📝 Note: Comments behave slightly differently between LinkedIn Pages and profiles. Learn more about how LinkedIn comments work in Community.
💡Tip: Prefer to reply to comments on the go? Check out our guide to Engaging with Community comments in Buffer's mobile app.
LinkedIn analytics: what's available for Pages vs. profiles
LinkedIn analytics are available in two places in Buffer:
- Sent tab: Shows per-post metrics for both LinkedIn Pages and personal profiles.
- Analyze tab: Provides advanced analytics for LinkedIn Pages only. Personal profiles are not supported.
Sent post analytics (Pages and profiles)
In the Sent tab, you get a quick view of sent-post metrics for both LinkedIn Pages and profiles.
For LinkedIn profiles, you can see these analytics: total impressions, reactions, comments, shares, engagement rate, views, watch time, and unique viewers (for profile video posts).
For LinkedIn Pages:
- On the Free plan: likes, comments, and impressions.
-
On our paid plans: likes, comments, impressions, shares, and engagement rate.
Advanced analytics in Analyze (LinkedIn Pages only)
If you're on our Essentials or Team plans, use the Analytics tab for advanced analytics for your LinkedIn Pages. See the LinkedIn metric descriptions we have available.
To open advanced analytics for your Pages, select LinkedIn on the left and explore the tabs:
- Overview: your overall engagement levels over time. See Performance overview on your analytics dashboard.
- Posts: a history of your published posts and how they're performing. See Analyzing your posts.
- Answers: the best day, type, and frequency to post. See Answering questions about your social media strategy.
📝 Good-to-knows:
- PDF carousel posts: analytics aren't available for LinkedIn PDF carousel posts.
- Reposts: analytics aren't available for content you reposted.
- Paid/sponsored posts: we can pull in metrics for LinkedIn sponsored posts.
- Backfill on connect: when you first connect a LinkedIn Page, we backfill up to 6 months or 500 posts. See why your Buffer data might differ from native analytics.
- Analytics refresh window: Buffer updates analytics daily for your 500 most recent LinkedIn Page posts. Once a post falls outside that range, its data stops refreshing.
- Showing 0s or missing data? Newly connected Pages can take up to 24 hours to populate, and while a channel is unauthorized, analytics won't update. If numbers still look wrong after a day, reach out to us.
Best practices for avoiding suspension when sharing to multiple profiles
While it's technically possible to connect a large number of LinkedIn profiles to Buffer, we don't recommend it, and it can lead to account suspension on LinkedIn's side.
Social networks, particularly LinkedIn and Facebook, actively discourage the use of personal profiles for business and advertising. They intend personal profiles to be authentic, personal accounts, with content created and shared by the profile's owner.
If LinkedIn detects duplicate content shared across profiles, it'll often suspend those accounts. Suspensions are usually temporary, but they'll keep happening if the behavior continues.
📝 Have a LinkedIn feature suggestion? We'd love for you to submit or upvote it on our feature suggestions board.
Resources from our blog
- The Best Time to Post on Linkedin
- Replying to Your Comments on LinkedIn Boosts Engagement by 30%
- LinkedIn Marketing: The Complete Guide
- How Often to Post on LinkedIn — Backed by Data
📝 Need help with your LinkedIn channel? Send us an email at hello@buffer.com, and our Advocacy team will be standing by to assist!