In the past few months, you must have noticed a significant change on LinkedIn – the preview images generated while sharing third-party links have now been squeezed to tiny, barely-noticeable thumbnails.
Picture this: You’ve crafted the perfect event promo. Your graphics? Stellar. Your copy? On point. But when you hit ‘post’ on LinkedIn… wham!
Your beautiful image shrinks faster than your hopes of going viral.
This new image policy has been an absolute buzzkill for event promotions.
All those nice and shiny banners have been laid to waste…unless you pay up (more on this later) 🤔
Is there a workaround for this thumbnail tyranny?
Read on!
Why is LinkedIn crucial for event marketing?
LinkedIn is where all professionals hang out, right? Turns out, it’s much more than that.
Research by Hootsuite shows brands trust LinkedIn more than any other platform.
In fact, more than 70% see it as a solid bet for ROI, ahead of Instagram, Whatsapp and Facebook.
But there is more.
Check out these numbers (from the same report):
- Just seeing an ad on LinkedIn can bump up someone’s likelihood to buy by 33%
- 2x higher conversion rates, 2x greater engagement
- A whopping 82% of B2B marketers say it’s their top-performing platform.
This data holds true for the meetings and events industry. Snoball’s Peer-to-Peer Event Marketing Benchmark Report reveals LinkedIn is the go-to platform to spread the word about events.
It outshines other channels by a mile, boasting more than twice the shares compared to emails, direct messages, and even social media behemoths like Facebook, Twitter (X) and Instagram.
This means an attendee to your event is more likely to share about their experience on LinkedIn than any other channel.
In North America and Europe, this impact becomes more profound.
More than half the advocates in these regions prefer sharing info about their events through LinkedIn over any other channel.
For event marketers, LinkedIn isn’t just an option—it’s an essential tool in your arsenal.
Ignoring its potential could mean missing out on a goldmine of opportunities.
Why have third-party link preview images been reduced on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn wants you to pay if you are keen on those eye-catching scroll-stopping larger previews.
Here’s how it breaks down:
You post something organically, and you get this tiny thumbnail.
But if you decide to turn that post into a Sponsored Content ad, the image gets supersized to anywhere from 360 x 640 pixels up to a whopping 2430 x 4320 pixels.
Here’s a preview:
Now, here’s where it gets a bit tricky.
Let’s say your sponsored post with that nice big image starts getting some traction.
People are resharing – but now it becomes an organic post again through those shares. And boom! back to the small thumbnail it goes. See image below:
This whole situation can really throw a wrench in your plans when you’re trying to get the word out about your event.
However, fret not, for we at Snöball have devised a workaround.
Snöball partners up with LinkedIn with a deeper integration to solve the LinkedIn link preview challenge
Here’s how it’ll work:
When your participants hit the share button to promote your event, they’ll be prompted to authenticate their account with a LinkedIn sign-in.
This allows Snöball to post on their behalf, helping reduce the number of clicks.
Once they are in – boom! The post is shared with its glorious FULL SIZE preview image. And don’t sweat about the referral link – it’ll be included in the post text.
Here’s the good news: this update is already live for all our clients. You can keep the event buzz going strong, LinkedIn changes and all.
Your speakers, attendees, sponsors and exhibitors can continue posting just like before – no hassles, no headache, less clicks.
Plus, you get a sweet bonus: additional tracking data to evaluate and measure how your P2P referral campaigns are really performing.
Want to know more?