Referencing is one of the things you can do to make your claims or anything you are saying more valid. People use citations a lot in the academic world and even if you have listened to regular conversations between people, you might hear citations, like when they use a bible verse and tell the exact address.

Guess what; it is even essential to know how to cite LinkedIn! Maybe not as important as in an ISI article, but still important. Since people can accuse you of plagiarism even if you have cited from a social media such as LinkedIn with no referencing back to the author.

How to Cite LinkedIn?

Well, maybe that makes no legal issues for you but think of the image! That is somehow your most valuable thing on the internet.

Citation can help you with this plagiarism thing, shows that you have a deep understanding of the title you are talking about, makes your arguments and opinions credible on a specific title, and lets other people identify the source of your claims.

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How to cite LinkedIn?

There are two parts that you can use for citation on LinkedIn. You can cite from a post or article or profile.

You can use a LinkedIn member’s name in the citation (if you’re going to cite them). LinkedIn doesn’t tell you when they published a post, but you can calculate the date by the information of how long that post has been published. Use the first twenty words of the post you are citing as the title. If the first 20 words include URL, hashtags, emoji, etc., use them as well.

As the APA style website says: “If a post includes images, videos, thumbnail links to outside sources, or content from another post (such as when sharing a link), indicate that in square brackets after the title.

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You can describe the post type in a bracket: [Post] or [Video]. Bring LinkedIn as the site you drove the citation from in the source elements and don’t forget to provide a URL.

APA style has an example for all of these:

  1. “American Psychological Association. (2019, December 9). Last month, APA joined more than 40 national and international psychology organizations to explore ways to collaborate and use psychological [Thumbnail with link attached] [Post]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/american-psychological-association_how-psychologists-are-combating-climate-change-activity-6609801161937612800-GvdC”
  2. “Goodwin, J. (2019, September). The best part of attending the American Psychological Association’s 2019 Convention in Chicago this year was having the opportunity to [Image attached] [Post]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jongoodwin3_apa2019-activity-6569581103441682432-CN98”
  3. “Parenthetical citations: (American Psychological Association, 2019; Goodwin, 2019) Narrative citations: American Psychological Association (2019) and Goodwin (2019)”
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As for citing from a profile, it is suggested to use that account’s section titles which you are citing. (e.g., Home, Experiences, Activities, etc.), don’t forget to bring the notion of the LinkedIn page in a bracket, provide a date for the citation since the source might get updated regularly, and provide a URL.

Take a look at the example below:

  • Boston Scientific. Home [LinkedIn page]. LinkedIn. Retrieved August 21, 2022, from https://www.linkedin.com/company/boston-scientific/
  • Parenthetical citation: (Boston Scientific) Narrative citation: Boston Scientific
  • Narrative citation: Boston Scientific

As we can see a citation means: “a quotation from or reference to a book📙, paper, or author, especially in a scholarly work.” and believe me when I say it is so vital to know how to cite LinkedIn, especially when you want to cite from it in your website or anywhere else.

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