LinkedIn

LinkedIn

Single provider covering organization management, organic posting (Share/Marketing API), and advertising.

Workflow

1. Organizations: List the company pages you administer. Discovered org IDs are cached on the credential; when you manage exactly one page, org-scoped calls can omit organization_id. List page admins when you need role visibility.
2. Member identity: Read the authenticated member profile to cache member_urn on the credential. Connection count for the signed-in member can omit member_urn when that value is already cached.
3. Posting: Create text or article posts using either a urn:li:person:{id} or urn:li:organization:{id} as the author. Article posts include a link preview card with title, description, and thumbnail auto-extracted from Open Graph tags.
4. Editing: Update post text after publishing. Listing and creation responses include post_urn for follow-up update or delete.
5. Resharing: Repost another user's or org's post to your feed with optional commentary using reshareContext.parent on the post-creation flow.
6. Advertising: List ad accounts first (request up to 100 rows so the credential cache stays complete). When the response includes multiple accounts — or multiple ACTIVE accounts — pass the chosen numeric account id on every ads read or write. When exactly one ad account is cached, those calls may omit the account id. For new campaigns, set off-site delivery (default false; LinkedIn requires an explicit value). Pass campaign start dates as YYYY-MM-DD (the platform converts to epoch milliseconds upstream). To go live with ACTIVE status, include audience targeting (geo and facet URNs from targeting search and audience-size reads) and a unit cost when a daily budget is set — otherwise create as DRAFT, fill targeting and bidding, then update status. Order: targeting discovery → audience sizing → campaign groups → campaigns → creatives → performance reads.
7. Community Management (comments, reactions, metadata): Capabilities are registered but gated by LinkedIn's Community Management product on a separate developer app from Sign In + Advertising. A 403 with reason linkedin_community_management_unavailable means the OAuth app lacks that entitlement — not a bad credential.

Entity Model

• Organization: Company page. Fields: localizedName, vanityName, staffCountRange, industry.
• Profile: Authenticated user. Returns firstName, lastName, vanityName, id (member URN suffix).
• Posts: Content by author. Fields: commentary, author, visibility, lifecycleState.
• Ad Accounts: Top-level billing entity. Fields: name, status, currency, servingStatuses.
• Campaign Groups → Campaigns → Creatives: Ads hierarchy.
• Analytics: Performance (impressions, clicks, CTR), engagement (likes, shares), video metrics.

URN Formats

• Member: urn:li:person:XXXXXX
• Organization: urn:li:organization:12345678
• Post: urn:li:share:12345678 or urn:li:ugcPost:12345678
• Image: urn:li:image:XXXXXXXXX (from Images API upload)
• Document: urn:li:document:XXXXXXXXX (from Documents API upload)
• Video: urn:li:video:XXXXXXXXX (from Videos API upload)
• Campaign: urn:li:sponsoredCampaign:{id}
• Geo: urn:li:geo:103644278 (US)

Content Types (via Posts API)

All post types go through the post-creation tool. The content field determines the format:

Type	content field	Organic	Notes
Text-only	omit content	Yes	Highest algorithm weight for text with no links
Single image	{"media": {"id": "urn:li:image:..."}}	Yes	Upload image first via Images API
Multi-image	{"multiImage": {"images": [{"id": "urn:li:image:...", "altText": "..."}]}}	Yes	2–20 images, each uploaded separately
Article link	{"article": {"source": "https://...", "title": "...", "description": "..."}}	Yes	Link preview card; OG auto-extract or override
Document/carousel	{"media": {"id": "urn:li:document:..."}}	Yes	PDF/PPTX/DOCX → swipeable carousel viewer
Video	{"media": {"id": "urn:li:video:..."}}	Yes	Upload via Videos API first
Poll	{"poll": {"question": "...", "options": [...], "settings": {"duration": "SEVEN_DAYS"}}}	Yes	2–4 options; organic only
Reshare	add reshareContext.parent (no content)	Yes	Repost with optional commentary

Image Post Workflow

1. Upload the image with owner URN + source_url (or image_base64) → returns image_urn
2. Create an image post with one or more image_urns → returns post_urn
3. Single image = content.media; 2–20 images = content.multiImage

Document/Carousel Post Workflow

1. Upload the document with owner URN + source_url (or document_base64) → returns document_urn
2. Create a document post with the document_urn + optional title → returns post_urn
3. Each page of the PDF/PPTX/DOCX becomes a swipeable slide

Video Post Workflow

1. Upload the video with owner URN + source_url (or video_base64) → multipart upload + finalize → returns video_urn
2. Create a video post with the video_urn + optional title → returns post_urn

Poll Post Workflow

Create a poll post with author, commentary, question, options (2–4 strings), and duration (THREE_DAYS, SEVEN_DAYS, or FOURTEEN_DAYS).

Reshare Workflow

Create a reshare post with author (who is resharing) + parent_post_urn + optional commentary. Reshares with commentary get significantly more reach than silent reposts.

Algorithm & Reach (2026 data)

• External links in body: 40–50% fewer impressions. March 2026 update intensified this.
• Link in first comment: Reduces penalty to 5–15% (narrowing).
• Image posts: 87% higher engagement vs text-only. Multi-image: 6.6% engagement rate.
• Carousels (PDF): Highest dwell time (each swipe = engagement signal). 3–5x more dwell than text.
• Text-only: ~0.5% engagement rate baseline, but zero link penalty.
• Golden hour: First 60 minutes determine whether content gets amplified beyond your network.
• Personal > org: Personal profiles get 5x more engagement and 2.75x more impressions than company pages.

Flywheel: Personal + Org Page Growth

1. Post from personal profile (7k reach) → native text or image, no external links
2. Org page reshares the personal post (builds org content library, reaches org followers)
3. Org page posts product content (releases, blog articles) → personal profile reshares with founder commentary
4. Both grow together: personal posts drive org page followers (people see company in title, visit page)

Gotchas

• Listing personal posts: Requires restricted r_member_social. Listing by organization_id is the supported path.
• Article posts: Passing article_url produces a link preview card. Title and description auto-extract from OG tags but can be overridden; the API does not scrape OG tags automatically, so explicit title/description values are more reliable.
• Image and document order: Upload media first to receive an image or document URN, then create the post referencing that URN.
• Upload source_url blocked (HTTP 403): The image host refused our server fetch (hotlink/WAF) — not a LinkedIn credential problem. Retry with image_base64 / document_base64 / video_base64 or a direct CDN URL the server can download.
• Ads delete: Only DRAFT entities can be deleted. Active must be archived first.
• Follower counts: The dedicated follower count and follower stats tools take the numeric organization_id.
• Reshare author: The author on a reshare is who is resharing, not the original poster.
• Community Management entitlement: Comment, reaction, and social-metadata tools call partnerApiSocialActions / partnerApiReactions / partnerApiSocialMetadata. They return 403 on the Sign In + Advertising OAuth app until a Community Management developer app credential is connected. The structured reason is linkedin_community_management_unavailable.
• Org profile edits: Tagline, About, specialties, custom button, and cover image are LinkedIn admin UI only — PARTIAL_UPDATE on organizations returns 404.
• Post access: Fetching a single post URN the caller cannot read returns UGC_FORBIDDEN — that is a resource access boundary, not a credential reconnect issue.
• Post not found: HTTP 404 / NOT_FOUND means the URN was deleted or never existed — list posts for the organization to pick a current URN, or create a post and use the returned post_urn.
• Credential scope: After managed-org discovery or ad-account listing, non-secret defaults live on the credential (linkedin_account_scope). Re-run discovery when org or ads access changes.