Power BI LinkedIn analytics

This post explains how to use Power BI to analyze your company LinkedIn page stats and present them on a dashboard. It is also possible to do the same with Analytics & Tools from a personal LinkedIn account.

Similar mechanics used in this post can be applied to other social media platforms that provide the option to export analytics data.

In this post, we will focus on analyzing statistics from a Company Page. So, the first step is to create a Company page, then download the analytics data.

After exporting, we will connect the data to Power BI Desktop, and we will create a dashboard with the most relevant information.

Finally, we will publish the dashboard in a Power BI workspace to share it, or to integrate it in a web page or Power App.

So let´s go to create it.

But firstly, we want to recommend you visit our webpage and know about our services and if more information is needed please contact us.

Steps on LinkedIn

Analytics are available to download from your LinkedIn Page. 

As you can see in the image above there is a tab called Analytics that will allow you to choose the date range you need the information, in our case we chose last 365 days. 

Next, click on the Export button. An Excel file will be downloaded, and it is ready to use.  

Once the information is in your computer, laptop, etc., it is time to load the data from the Excel file to Power BI Desktop. 

Save it in a folder called LinkedIn Analytics or similar so it is easier to find it later. 

Steps in Power BI Desktop 

First, you need to install Power BI Desktop. You can do it from this link: Download Power BI tools and apps. This is free software from Microsoft. 

Once Power BI Desktop is installed, open it and, from the Get data icon, select Excel Workbook, and select the folder in which you saved the file earlier. 

A new window, called Navigator, is opened it will let you select the data needed to create the dashboard. 

Navigator shows the data that is available in your data source (the Excel file in this example). By selecting a table on the left, you can preview its contents on the right as shown on the image below.  

Note: it is possible to extract data from various data sources.  

Next, click on the Transform Data button to make some changes. Use the Power Query Editor to apply ETL actions (Extract, Transform and Load). 

On click of the button, the Power Query Editor will open. We will perform a few common steps to transform data: rename columns, remove the ones that you do not need in your model, change the data type, etc. 

Remove columns 

You can remove columns in two different ways.  

You can select the columns you want to remove and then on the Home tab, select Remove Columns.  

Alternatively, you can select the columns that you want to keep and then, on the Home tab, select Remove Other Columns

Rename columns 

There are two ways to rename columns. One is to right-click the header, select Rename, edit the name, and then press Enter. 

Alternatively, you can double-click the column header and change its name directly there. 

Change column data type 

It is very important to check, and if necessary, change the data type of the columns. I encourage you to review and make sure you have the right data types set.  

You can check the current data type by selecting the column and checking the Data Type dropdown on the Home tab in the ribbon. If you need to change it, just select the appropriate one from the dropdown menu. 

Finishing Cleaning 

In the sections above we saw some examples on how to transform data in Power Query. There are many more actions available. If you want to learn more about how to use the Power Query Editor tools, you can check up the official documentation: Microsoft Power Query

Once you are done with the data transformation, save and close the Power Query Editor by clicking on Close &Apply icon (first on the left).  

When the data is cleaned and organized, you’re ready to build the LinkedIn report.  

Visuals in Power BI 

Now we are going to create different visuals to show the information from the LinkedIn analytics data. But first, the file from File tab. 

Visuals allow you to share data insights more effectively, increasing comprehension. Power BI has a variety of visuals available to use.  

Start by selecting two fields in the Fields pane on your right. Power BI Desktop will automatically select and show a visualization for you, depending on the data type of the fields that you selected.  

In the example below, the default visualization type is a column chart

Slicers 

Now, we will explain some of the visuals used in this report. You can use these or play around with others. 

The slicer is a special type of chart that is meant to filter other visuals on the page. It provides specific options that will allow you to configure how you want to apply the filters on your report. 

Line chart 

Line chart visualization is useful when presenting trends over time

Treechart 

The Treemap visualization displays data as nested rectangles, representing different levels of a hierarchy. Each rectangle’s size reflects a measured value, arranged from largest to smallest. 

Donut chart 

The donut chart visualizations divide data into segments to show the relationship of parts to the whole. 

Table  

The Table visualization presenting data in a grid format with rows and columns. It supports two dimensions, along with headers and a total row if needed. 

Q&A (Questions and Answers) 

The Q&A visualization allows natural language questions with visual answers. It helps creating filtering options on the report, represented as quick answers

Text Box and Insert Logo 

You can add different resources, like images and text boxes, from Insert tab >Elements in the ribbon.  

Result 

As a result, we obtain this report. 

Now you have your dashboard ready, it is time to save it again.  

Power BI Desktop gives you a variety of options for formatting and configuring visualizations. Take your time to explore these options to determine how they change the look and feel of each one. You can read about them here: Getting started with formatting report visualizations – Power BI | Microsoft Learn.  

The example presented here is a simple one, but there are lots of capabilities available in Power BI.  

Sharing 

A very common one is the ability to create relationships between tables, so the model works more efficiently. If you want to learn more about this option, you have available additional information on the link: Model relationships in Power BI Desktop – Power BI | Microsoft Learn

You can share the Power BI file, with .pbix extension, with other users, as you would normally do with other file types. Make sure that the person you are sharing with has Power BI Desktop installed, so they can open it. 

Power BI Service 

Another way of sharing your dashboards is using Power BI Service. This is not a free option; we recommend you look at Microsoft 365 Power BI license to know if it is available for you. 

The first step to share the dashboard through the Power BI service is publishing. To do so, click on the icon Publish so from Home tab> Publish button. 

Power BI is just one of the components of the Microsoft Power Platform family. The other components are Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents and Power Pages

Once your dashboard is published in a workspace, it will be available to be shared with other users.  

When you share, you make it available to other people to visualize it, export it, or use the underlying data to build their own reports. 

BI within Powers Apps 

Power Apps helps create applications to connect to business data. You can embed a Canvas App in a Power BI report to let your users act on the data being presented.  

The Canvas App then can leverage its functionality to modify the data, or trigger workflows when needed. 

Your users can visualize in the app a report, extract helpful business insights, and take immediate actions directly from your reports and dashboards. 

A very simple example of this could be a report where you summarize your warehouse’s inventory. You could embed a Canvas App that allows you to initiate the purchase of additional items for those products with low inventory. 

We will explain it in a next post, we recommend you subscribe Creativity Spark Newsletter to be updated:

Conclusion 

We hope you enjoyed this post. Try to create the report shown, it is easier than you think. On this one we used data from LinkedIn, but you can apply the same techniques described with other social media platforms. 

Enjoy Power Platform!!!

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