How to schedule a LinkedIn carousel?

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As of June 26, 2023, LinkedIn has removed the ability to create carousels on their website and their app. Although you won’t find a “Carousel” button anywhere on LinkedIn, you can still add them manually.

Instead of using a LinkedIn form or template, users now must create their own carousels as PDF files. Then, they can attach these files to a LinkedIn post.

But what if you have no experience with graphic design? What if you want to schedule several posts to appear in the future?

This article will introduce two handy services that can help you to tackle these obstacles: Canva and Postwise.

Also, this article will take you in for a closer look at the best practices for crafting an engaging LinkedIn carousel, provide a step-by-step guide to scheduling that LinkedIn carousel, and introduce some tools and methods for measuring the success of all of your carousels.

Best Practices for Crafting an Engaging LinkedIn Carousel

If you are reading this article, you are likely familiar with the concept of carousels. That being said, it’s easy to overlook some finer aspects of crafting one that engages viewers from start to finish.

A great carousel should not only inspire viewers to engage with your ideas and statements but also inspire them to engage with your brand or organization.

In this section, we’ll go through how to determine the appropriate length of your carousel, we’ll go into more detail on the formatting requirements, and lastly, we’ll address some common mistakes.

Carousel Length

Technically, you can upload carousels with as few as two slides to as many as three hundred slides. But to be most effective, aim for just 10 – 30 slides.

According to social media and marketing agency data, you have about three seconds to engage your viewer in a social media video post. This means your initial slide must be catchy enough to engage the reader.

Just a handful of users will stick around to view the entire carousel, so it’s essential to limit the number of slides. Also, endeavor to make each slide almost instantly digestible.

According to the same research, 65% of the viewers who do decide to engage with your content will continue for about ten more seconds. This would mean approximately two or three additional slides.

Of those who are still around after ten seconds, 45% will continue for a full thirty seconds. This would mean approximately six or seven more slides.

Although this data suggests that you should gravitate more toward the lower end of the range (10 slides), you may be able to create slides that users can move through more quickly. In this case, you can add several more slides.

In any case, ensuring that you have not overwhelmed the viewer with a large number of slides is a priority.

Formatting Your Carousel

Because you can upload almost any PDF document, you may be tempted to reuse existing flyers, brochures, and other marketing documents. These often are not ideal for display on LinkedIn.

For one, PDF documents often default to the size of regular A4 printer paper. While this is an advantage for printed advertisements, this doesn’t make for the best LinkedIn viewing.

You can customize the size to your preference as long as you keep each slide to the same size.

The most effective and engaging LinkedIn carousels are sized at 1080 x 1350. This allows the carousel to take up a larger space on the screen and is a common choice among carousel creators.

For those who prefer portrait and landscape shapes, the 1080 size can be extended up to 1920 in either length or width. This is great for incorporating images along with the text, as shown below.

Common Mistakes

While creating a carousel might seem straightforward, there are some things you should look out for while planning your carousels:

Missing a Hook

The most common mistake in designing LinkedIn carousels, by far, is not including an engaging first slide, a.k.a. a hook. This first slide catches the user’s attention and encourages them to continue to click through the remaining slides to the end.

A good hook will explain to a viewer exactly what they can expect to get out of viewing the carousel. Although it’s good to write a catchy, irresistible title for your post, be careful not to oversell or overpromise.

Adding a number (for example, “9 Simple Ways to Boost Your Social Media Profile”) can encourage engagement.

Slides Too Detailed

Not many viewers will be patient enough to read a wall of text in your carousel. Instead, opt for visuals and headlines.

Make sure these are sized appropriately so that users do not need to enlarge their screen to read or view. Researching color theory can help you take advantage of complementary and supplementary color schemes in your design.

This might have a little too much information on one slide — but we’re not disclosing the author because we don’t like calling people out!

Nothing can make someone scroll past your content than someone posting yellow wording on a neon orange background!

Dull Presentation of Data

Often, your carousel will contain fascinating facts and data from your research. This is certainly engaging content, but your reader may not notice it without some extra work on your end.

For example, avoid saying that a recent study concluded that 305 out of 1096 people use non-dairy milk in their breakfast cereal each morning. Instead, say that 3 out of every 10 people use nondairy milk.

Although this may be less accurate, you can include a link in your post for more precise information.

And, even better, turn your data into charts, graphs, and diagrams so that it can be understood at a glance.

Step-by-Step Guide to Scheduling a LinkedIn Carousel

In this section, we’ll go through each step of creating and scheduling a LinkedIn carousel.

1. Create Your Carousel

First, design your carousel. By far the most popular choice for designing a carousel is a free graphic design service called Canva. Canva allows you to design striking slides without using paid programs like PowerPoint, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, or Adobe Acrobat Pro.

After creating your free account, you can simply search for LinkedIn Carousel templates or click “Create a design” in the top-right corner. Then, the rest is very intuitive.

Simply click on the templates you wish to use and replace the text. Or insert text boxes and shapes and your own logos and design each slide yourself.

Be sure to use a consistent color scheme and corresponding font styles and sizes throughout each slide to give your carousel a professional polish.

When you are finished, simply save your work and click Share>Download. Be sure to change the file format to PDF Print before downloading to your computer to ensure sharp images and high-quality, readable text after publishing it on LinkedIn.

2. Upload Your Carousel

After you’ve finished creating and downloading your carousel, it’s time to upload it to LinkedIn. This process is very simple.

On your homepage, click in the textbox to create a new post. This should expand into a window where you can write with a few more options.

Go ahead and create the text that will accompany your carousel. Here, it’s wise to insert any hyperlinks you might refer to in the carousel or give a slightly more detailed explanation of what viewers can expect than what appears on the first slide.

Then, click the three dots (…) in order to reveal the option to “Add a document.” Click there and browse the computer for the PDF file you created on Canva.

Go ahead and submit the post to instantly upload your carousel.

3. Create Scheduling Parameters

Sometimes you will want to post carousels regularly and not have to be at the computer each time. With the power of AI, this is easier than ever.

A great option for scheduling LinkedIn carousels is Postwise AI. Postwise allows you to create your posts and schedule it for a day in the future.

After you’ve scheduled your posts, you can view them all on a simple calendar.

Additionally, Postwise offers tools that will help you manage all your posts on up to five accounts. These include:

Bulk Scheduling – You can schedule up to six months’ worth of LinkedIn posts. The number of posts increases with an unlimited plan.

AI Writer – Postwise was developed by studying the voices of the most successful social media influencers. This can be used to help generate text to accompany your carousels.

Content Library – You can take the guesswork out of developing ideas for your posts. Postwise’s extensive library of successful / viral posts can help you to develop your own.

Autoplug – When a post is particularly successful, Postwise can automatically insert links to products, websites, and any other plugs you can imagine.

Postwise is also a great choice, because they offer a free trial with 120 Postwise AI credits. Click here to get started today!

Measuring the Success of Your Scheduled Carousels

Even on their free plan, LinkedIn offers tools which provide analytics that can help you measure the success of your carousels. Simply click in the top left corner of your home page where it says “Impressions of your post.”

This will take you to a page that lists your recent posts. You can click “View Analytics” on any of your posts to learn more details about the engagement such as the impressions, reactions, comments, and reposts.

Of course, the number of comments and reposts are self-explanatory, but you may wonder about what “Reactions” and “Impressions” actually refer to.

Reactions are the number of times someone has responded to your post by clicking the reaction button under your post:.

Impressions are the number of times your carousel was actually displayed for a viewer.

If you feel this number is lower than it should be, consider adjusting the time and day you post. Also, consider adding three to four relevant hashtags.

If you receive many impressions, but not many comments and reposts, then perhaps your content might need to be adjusted. Consider ending your carousel or post with an exciting question.

When viewers are asked their opinion on an interesting subject, they often won’t hesitate to weigh in. This often leads to reposting and more sustained engagement with your content.

Conclusion

As you evaluate your social media marketing strategy, don’t underestimate the power of LinkedIn carousels. Users are far more likely to engage with your content when you display eye-catching visuals and generate memorable captions and headlines.

Design your carousels like a professional graphic designer with the help of free services like Canva. Increase your productivity by using a LinkedIn Scheduler and AI Writer like Postwise.

Postwise can help you to identify the trending posts in your field and automate several of the tasks that can suck up all the time in your day. Check out their offer for a free trial which starts you off with several free AI credits.