Pinned or featured posts on your profile can be great for keeping a piece of content you want people to see at the top of your profile on the likes of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. This can be information about a recent offer, your opening hours, an update on how you're operating, or maybe a post giving an overview of your business to keep something relevant and helpful at the top of your profile.

What You Need to Know

A pinned post is a status update that you manually select to stay at the top of your Timeline, meaning it will not slip down the Timeline as you continue to add other posts to your page. You can only pin one post at a time on Facebook or Twitter, however on LinkedIn you can Feature several posts, files or links in your profile.

Pinned or featured posts stay in this position until you either remove or replace them.

How to Pin or Unpin a Post

To pin a post, go to your profile on the platform you’re wanting to pin something on. At the top right corner of the post you will see 3 dots ‘…’ which you can click for a drop-down menu to select the pin or feature option.

To unpin a post, simply click on the dots on the corner of the pinned post and select the unpin option on the drop down menu.

Smart Pinning Ideas

Here are a few simple suggestions to help you decide on the best pinning strategies for your profiles.

You can use a pinned post to build your email list. Offer something of value in exchange for a sign-up on your mailing list.
Pin information on your page that you want first-time visitors to see immediately, or even repeat visitors to have as accessible information eg an overview of your business, a current offer, contact information, or how to order details.
Create a ‘Welcome Video’ giving an overview of what you do or to help people get to know you and what you’re about.
Promote an upcoming event or offer
And with the current pandemic, perhaps an update on how you’re operating is useful for customers.

Most importantly…
keep it fresh and relevant

In reviewing and auditing client’s profiles, I often see a pinned or featured post that was initially created and shared years ago. As a new potential customer visiting a profile for information, seeing the date of the top post as ‘21st May 2017’ for example would make me think this isn't an active account and therefore information isn't up to date or the business is not operating. The information in the pinned post could very well still be relevant, but the date is off-putting and could end up with lost sales or business which isn’t what any business owner wants.

Here are a few options to fix this

Write and post a new piece of content to then mark as your pinned or featured post
Look at recent posts that you could pin instead
Copy the caption and graphics from the pinned post then add this as a brand new post to then pin
Don't have any posts featured or pinned and keep your most recent content at the top

Overall, pinning and featuring content is a great way to highlight key aspects of what you do and the difference you make to your customers.

Happy Pinning!

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