For years, government agencies have been an attractive target for marketing campaigns.

But increasingly, agencies realize the benefits of flipping the script, transforming themselves from prospects to marketers.

It makes sense. Marketing can help you connect with end users who benefit from your services, build a support base among thought leaders in your sector, and attract top talent to your organization.

And when it comes to marketing on social media for government agencies, one platform wins: LinkedIn.

Research shows that 72% of “Washington insiders” — including federal executives, Capitol Hill staffers, and private sector members — use LinkedIn for work. That’s 20% higher than any other social network.

With that in mind, we’ve rounded up five LinkedIn Page best practices for government agencies and picked out five real-world examples of high-quality government LinkedIn Pages.

5 Best Practices for Government Agencies on LinkedIn

Whereas LinkedIn Profiles represent individuals, Pages are for collective organizations.

According to LinkedIn, members view Pages more than 1.5 billion times a month, so they’re a highly effective way to connect with and engage your audience.

Now, let’s dig into five best practices for building a high-quality LinkedIn Page:

1. Complete Your LinkedIn Page

Let’s start with the obvious stuff.

Completed LinkedIn Pages perform better, with LinkedIn’s data showing that they generate 30% more views than incomplete Pages. So your first port of call is to ensure your Page contains all the following elements:

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Now, let’s dig into some quick best practices for those elements:

  • Logo: If your agency already has a logo, add it here. If not, use a tool like Canva to create one. Keep it to 300 x 300 pixels.
  • Cover photo: Also known as a “background photo,” your cover photo should be 1,584×396 pixels. Make sure it relates to your organization. What do you do? What do you want your audience to takeaway?
  • Information fields: LinkedIn offers various organizational information fields to explain who you are, where you’re based, and what you do. Fill in all the relevant ones.
  • Overview: Your overview text lets you spell out your purpose and goals. The section has a 2,000-character limit, but the text truncates at around 320 characters, as shown in the above example.
  • CTA button: LinkedIn allows you to choose from five potential call-to-action buttons — Contact us; Learn more; Register; Sign up; and Visit website. Choose the option that’s most relevant to your marketing goals.

2. Make Your LinkedIn Page Visible

You’re not just making a LinkedIn Page for the sake of it; you want people to see and engage with it.

That means making it as visible as possible.

LinkedIn data shows that Pages grow faster when they have more than 150 followers, which shows the importance of momentum. Once you start growing your follower count, your audience size can snowball. Use the following tactics to boost visibility:

  • Engage with your community. Get into the habit of liking and commenting on posts from your followers and community members who don’t currently follow you.
  • Tag thought leaders in your posts. That way, there’s a better chance they’ll share the posts with their network.
  • Share other people’s content. Not only is this an easy way to engage your audience, but it might also encourage those people to share your content.
  • Share your Page via external platforms. Add your LinkedIn Page to your email signature and other social channels to get as many eyes on it as possible.
  • Publish articles on your LinkedIn Page. People are following you for a reason: because they have some interest in what you do. So be sure to share your own content, such as publishing press releases, promoting upcoming events, or posting progress updates on current projects.

3. Create Thought Leadership Content

Thought leadership content can be a powerful marketing tool.

LinkedIn says most decision-makers spend at least an hour a week reading thought leadership. So it’s definitely in your best interests to publish stuff like:

  • Industry trends-based articles
  • Original research
  • Market reports
  • Unique insights (e.g., predictions for your sector)
  • New takes on existing issues and conversations

LinkedIn is uniquely well-suited to a thought leadership strategy among social networks because it’s the only platform that allows you to publish long-form content straight from your Page.

Follow these steps to create high-quality thought leadership content for LinkedIn:

  • Strike a balance between informative and concise. LinkedIn is a social platform, so brevity goes a long way. Keep your copy to 500 – 1,000 words, use short sentences, and add bullet points.
  • Add hashtags to boost visibility. Tools like Hashtagify can help you find suitable options.
  • Ask readers to engage. End each post with a CTA to respond in the replies, tag a colleague, or share your content.

4. Expand Your Reach Through Employee Advocacy

Remember, your Page isn’t your only LinkedIn resource. Most, if not all, of your employees will have their own LinkedIn profiles.

Combined, those Profiles can massively increase your reach. Indeed, LinkedIn says employee networks have 10X as many connections as their employers. So be sure to encourage your team to share your content and point their followers toward your LinkedIn Page.

Pro tip: Educate employees on how to cite your agency accurately in their Work Experience section. That way, every time they make a new connection, the person they connect with will be prompted to follow your Page as well.

Build Targeted Ad Campaigns
If you’ve got a budget to spend on ad campaigns, LinkedIn is a fantastic option.

In the next section, we’ll share a couple of high-quality examples of LinkedIn ads from government agencies. But one essential element of a successful LinkedIn ads campaign is to nail your targeting. Get it right with these best practices:

  • Choose the right location. Location is the only required targeting field; you can target a whole country, a single town, or anything in between.
  • Use demographic targeting. Hopefully, you know a little about your audience — their interests, age, occupation, and more. Use these targeting criteria to hone in on precisely the right people.
  • A/B test different audiences. Consider running the same campaign to two different audiences to see which drives the best engagement and results.
  • Create tailored ads. Your ad content should speak to your audience. For instance, if you’re targeting tech companies, try discussing an issue they care about.

5 Examples of High-Quality Government Agency LinkedIn Pages

Now that we’ve covered some general best practices for government on social media, let’s take a look at five examples of agencies that are getting it right:

1. Environmental Protection Agency: Set Out Your Mission

We know that a completed LinkedIn Page can help you generate more traffic.

But remember, this isn’t a check-the-box exercise.

Having just something in every section won’t automatically get you a bunch of views. And it definitely won’t turn those views into loyal followers engaged with your messaging.

So what, specifically, should you be adding to your LinkedIn Page?

One of the best approaches is to spell out your agency’s mission, vision, and values clearly, like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does here:

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The EPA has employed a smart approach. Not only does it help potential followers better understand what they do, but it also affirms their organizational culture.

Values and culture are closely intertwined. Indeed, more than half of employees say they experience company culture most strongly through their organization’s values and mission.

And a positive organizational culture has myriad benefits. According to Gallup, culture helps you to:

  • Attract world-class talent
  • Build alignment between teams
  • Engage employees
  • Drive performance

2. Department of Labor: Engage Professional Audiences

LinkedIn has an estimated 66.8 million monthly active users in the US. And with a total user base of 850 million members in more than 200 countries and territories, it’s one of the world’s largest professional networks.

That makes it the perfect platform to reach a professional audience.

The US Department of Labor uses this to its advantage, regularly running employer events featuring corporate, advocacy, and labor leaders:

3. MEDC: Amplify Organic Posts With Paid Support

Building a LinkedIn ad campaign from scratch takes a little effort. Before you’ve started writing engaging copy and designing eye-catching imagery, you must figure out your strategy and objectives.

So it makes sense to start small by using your ad budget to amplify an organic post. Even a relatively small budget can get thousands of other eyes on your posts, helping build your audience and generate leads.

But how do you decide which posts to amplify?

The key for Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) is to take a customer-centric approach. Michelle Grinnell, the agency’s Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications, explains:

“A small business owner may need access to capital or help expanding into international markets. A site consultant or C-suite executive may be looking for a location for a new manufacturing facility or corporate HQ. A local municipality might be looking for new ways to ignite growth in a downtown business district. Understanding their path ensures we can connect them with the best ‘front door’ to MEDC’s suite of programs and services.”

This enables the agency to pick out posts that best align with its goals at any given time.

In this example, MEDC used the combination of a recent event and an economic report to position Michigan as an attractive state in which to do business:

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That’s a strong message for any organization focused on economic development.

4. Customs & Border Protection: Reach a Diverse Talent Pool

Talent attraction is a longstanding challenge for government agencies. Worryingly, a recent Deloitte report flagged up several statistics that suggest it’s becoming even harder:

  • In Texas, the state auditor saw a 38% turnover rate for state employees aged under 30.
  • From January 2020 to January 2022, the government sector lost over 600,000 workers — more than manufacturing, wholesale trade, and construction combined.
  • In a 2021 survey of government agencies, 38% said employees who are eligible for retirement are speeding up their retirement plans.

So it pays for government agencies to reach the broadest possible candidate pool.

The US Customs & Border Protection understands this. In one recruitment campaign, it targeted different audiences via its LinkedIn page by creating ads with specific messaging:

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The example on the left targeted office workers by playing on their desire for a more exciting, adventurous career. Meanwhile, the ad on the right spoke to qualified veterans by tapping into their sense of honor and commitment to public service.

5. Lubbock Economic Development Alliance: Reach Young Talent

Continuing with the talent attraction theme, it’s important to remember that LinkedIn isn’t just a platform full of senior professionals.

Almost four in five users worldwide are aged between 18 and 34, while one-fifth are 24 or younger:

​​Statistic: Distribution of LinkedIn users worldwide as of January 2022, by age group | Statista
Find more statistics at Statista

So it’s no surprise lots of government agencies leverage the platform to reach younger audiences. Not just in terms of hiring talent themselves but also in promoting their cities or states to young jobseekers.

For instance, Lubbock Economic Development Alliance ran this ad highlighting how Lubbock was recognized as one of the ten best cities for college graduates:

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