LinkedIn API tutorial: how to get access and use LinkedIn API efficiently

Intro

LinkedIn is one of the largest social networks (along with Facebook, Twitter, and Google+) with over 460 million users worldwide. So, it is a gold mine of information. Business uses LinkedIn to find links and then convert them into clients. That is why it is so important to get LinkedIn data API.
LinkedIn API is the basis of all programmatic interactions with LinkedIn. Using LinkedIn API, you bring the power of the world's largest professional network to your business.

In this guide, we will tell about the LinkedIn API key and what it is for, the integration process, and provide a small block of information on how to test our API. Also, you will find out how to use the LinkedIn API – what is the request format and its parameters, as well as the response format and what LinkedIn data you can obtain.
At the end of our tutorial, you will get a practical sample to use our API using a search example for a post.

LinkedIn API requests architecture

LinkedIn API by Data365 is based on HTTP. It is a standard protocol on the Internet designed to carry hypertext. Now HTTP is widely used to send out various types of data. Each object on the server in HTTP has its own unique URL in a strictly consistent format.
Our LinkedIn API has applied two key HTTP request methods that are used to act on objects on servers:

POST (add or replace data in the Data365 database).

GET (getting information about data or a list of objects after the POST request was finished).

Keep in mind that billing is charged for POST requests and you are not billed for GET requests.

For API requests, you can specify two types of parameters – Path parameters and Query parameters.
Path parameters are required ones that allow us to identify the endpoint for which you want to get data. It can be an ID (for members, companies, groups, posts, comments), a username (for members and companies), URL (for posts).
Query parameters enable you to customize the query for your purposes. These options let you:

download additional data (load_activities – fetching of items from the feed of the member, load_comments – fetching of comments for every post, load_feed_posts – fetching of posts from the company's feed);

limit uploaded data (max_activities – set a limit for the number of items that will be fetched for the member, max_feed_posts – set limit for the number of posts that will be fetched for the company);

filter and sort the received data (from_date and to_date – filter items by date, query – filter items by the text search query, order_by – order items by and sort direction), and much more.

You can learn more about the options for each endpoint in our documentation.

You can also combine some of the options to customize custom requests.
The official LinkedIn webhooks API has a setting that permits you to gain real-time HTTP notifications for subscribed events.
With Data365 LinkedIn API, you can also set up to obtain information about new data regularly. You only need to specify the auto_update_interval parameter, which will monitor the emerging new data. And the callback_url parameter to transmit new data to the user's address (URL).
For example, you can regularly receive new posts from the person whose opinion you follow, get vacancies from a company you are interested in, and much more.

LinkedIn API response format

Data365 LinkedIn API provides a wide variety of data considering the LinkedIn network specifics as a professional platform.
You can not only obtain information about profiles and posts but also about companies, vacancies, and thematic groups. For example, we can ensure you the highly demanded data such as information about people and companies.
Popular member data includes information about work experience (industries, positions), training, experience and skills (certifications, courses, education, honors, languages, skills), location (location_name), and much more. The company`s data in the great request include information about the company's location and its main offices (headquarter, locations), the scope of work (industries), the number of employees, in particular on LinkedIn (employees_on_linkedin_count), parent and subsidiaries (parent_company, affiliated_companies), etc.

It should also be noted that users receive responses to their completed requests in LinkedIn API JSON. The JSON format is extremely popular among developers because of its significant advantages over others. The key ones are compactness and easy implementation.

The search for posts also remains very popular. LinkedIn API from Data365 ensures you an efficient keyword post search that provides comprehensive data. Search results you can sort by most_recent and most_relevant parameters, filter by publication date (past_month, past_week, past_24h). In addition, you can specify the companies parameter in the search query, and as a result, you will receive posts mentioning the desired company.
You can view data on posts and other endpoints at https://data365.co/data#linkedin-data.

We will show you how to find LinkedIn posts by keyword and download their data with comments in this section.

Send a POST request to search and download posts:

This query will create a task to download the latest 100 posts that have been published in the last 24 hours by the keyword "javascript". Also, 50 comments for each post will be found and downloaded.

Status "accepted" means that your request has been taken for processing.

Its approximate cost is 7 + 1 * 100 * 5 = 507 mentions. 7 mentions are charged per search query, 1 mention is the cost of one post, 100 mentions is the number of posts we want to receive, and 5 is the cost of a post with 50 comments (1 mention per 10 comments). So 507 is the estimated request cost.

Moreover, if only 70 posts are found for the query, 30 of which have no comments, and 40 posts have 75 comments each, then the approximate cost of the query is 7 + 30 * 1 + 40 * 7 = 317 mentions:

7 charged per search query

30 * 1 is the cost of 30 posts without comments

40 * 7 – the cost of 40 posts with 75 comments

As you can see, you only pay for the actually received data after a POST request has been created. A guide on how to count mentions you can find in the API mentions quota paragraph of the documentation. You can also see mentions estimating examples on the page LinkedIn API pricing.

Send a GET request to check the status of the request created in step 1:

It is available six possibilities for the request status: created, pending, finished, unknown (the request has not yet been generated), failed (the request could not be completed due to an error), and canceled (the request has been annulled). The time of request usually takes about 1–5 minutes. But you should keep in mind that the query process time can change depending on the number of requests and the volumes of data in each request.

Send a GET request to get a list of found posts with all their data:

We added order_by=date_desc parameters to the request (it sorts posts from newest to oldest) and max_page_size=100 (allows you to get all the posts we requested in 1 GET request). Thus, in the response, you will receive a sorted list of all posts with data that were found by the original query (paragraph 1).

Send separate GET requests for a list of comments for each post:

We have given an example of a GET request to get a list of comments for one downloaded post (post ID = 6928098575390257152). To get comments on all posts, you need to send another 99 similar GET requests.

Since LinkedIn is considered a goldmine for getting business information, almost every big and medium-sized business uses this network to find LinkedIn links and convert them into consumers. We are confident that applying our LinkedIn API reference you facilitate great opportunities for your business growth.

As you can see, Data365 LinkedIn API is a reliable tool that provides secure access to this professional platform to get a large amount of LinkedIn data, apply advanced searches by keywords, and filter results by different options.