• Yes, LinkedIn is a bit cringe. But don’t let that put you off.
• The 4 reasons why LI is so valuable.
• Confidence is the factor that stops people from using LinkedIn effectively. 
• Activity and persona: Which LinkedIn archetype are you? 
• How do we use the algorithm to maximize visibility and engagement?
• What are the most successful frames and formats?
• 6 key questions to get you started with a Simple Strategy Statement. 

Let’s be honest, LinkedIn is a bit cringe

LinkedIn is a platform with huge potential. The thrust of this piece is that it isn’t hard to get more engagement on LinkedIn. But in common with other social platforms, it encourages a form of one-upmanship, which many find irritating: 

• Self-promotion and humble-bragging are where individuals attempt to disguise their self-promotion as modesty.
• Toxic Positivity is when users present an overly rosy picture of their work life, downplaying challenges and setbacks.
• A hustle culture that contributes to the sense you are constantly being sold something. 
• Performative behaviour: Users often engage in “virtue signalling” by publicly aligning themselves with popular causes or ideas.

All of this is cringeworthy. But don’t let it put you off. 

• You’re not alone: many parody accounts have popped up to satirise LinkedIn’s self-aggrandisement. Refer to these when the lack of self-awareness gets too much:
  • CrapOnLinkedIn (X)
  • Ken Cheng (LinkedIn)
  • LinkedIn Lunatics (Reddit)

• Reality check: Comfort yourself with the thought that LinkedIn is a concentrated version of how people are in real-world work environments. It perhaps looks more stark when written down in black and white, but this is what people are like.

The 4 Reasons Why LinkedIn is so valuable

If you can stomach the performativeness and self-aggrandisement, then there are some powerful reasons why you should put more into your LinkedIn network:

1. Networking: LinkedIn has powerful network effects, there are alternatives, but it is more likely than not that your colleagues, peers and targets are already on the network.

2. Safety: Using real names with career histories means that ownership of accounts is transparent. This doesn’t guarantee that behaviour is always professional, but LinkedIn is by far the most civil of social platforms. 

3. Uncrowded: LinkedIn has been around since 2003, making it the oldest of the largest English-language platforms. However, it wasn’t initially set up as a user-generated content platform; instead, it was more of a jobs market. And that’s reflected in a relatively muted contribution culture.

A Gallup survey from 2022 showed that 5% of users were posters on LinkedIn, against 11% for Twitter/X, 20% for Instagram, and 35% for Facebook. Only TikTok was less participatory.

4. Solid Engagement: LinkedIn isn’t as closely analysed as the other social media platforms, and comparable data is hard to find. Of the two studies I found, LinkedIn comes at the top of one for engagement and towards the bottom of the other!

Engagements/ reach %	TikTok	Instagram	Facebook	X	LinkedIn
Agency Analytics		5.03	1.06		6.2
Hootsuite	3.5	5	3	2.3	2.4

My experience is that customers see their best engagement on LinkedIn, which still delivers solid traffic to websites, unlike the other social platforms. 

3. What stops people from using LinkedIn more effectively?

These hurdles are all related to confidence:

• Fear of being judged
• Impostor Syndrome
• Fear of being rejected
• Comparison anxiety

Judgement: When I comment on a post from someone with a big network, I know many people will see that I have done so. I’m in a professional space and don’t want to look dumb. But I do want to add my thoughts, and I want people to see me as knowledgeable and thoughtful. 

Impostor Syndrome: Surveys suggest that over half of professionals suffer from this. This is highly correlated with perfectionism – the best way to deal with this is to focus on the topic. OK, you’re not a highly experienced expert in every possible subject related to your profession, but do you have something to add to this particular aspect?

Fear of being rejected. Perhaps this has happened to you – you’ve requested a connection with someone, and the request has gone unanswered. And that can become offputting. But active members treat requesting connections as a percentage game – it’s the point of the network, and members are inclined to accept invitations. Smart connectors are subtle – they follow first, then like and comment on posts before making a request.

Comparison anxiety: We work in hierarchical organisations. LinkedIn is a network which acts as a leveller. It leads some people to worry about crossing boundaries. The mental frame I use when feeling this way is that LinkedIn is like a great big business conference. You’ve got big names up on the stage telling you what’s what, and then the chair asks the audience for questions and comments. 

4. Activity and persona: Which LinkedIn archetype are you? 

There are as many different personality types on LinkedIn as there are members. Still, it’s possible to identify a relatively small number of archetypes that seem to do well on the network. 

The minimalist is passive and does the bare minimum. Driven by a fear of missing out and probably really only interested in job opportunities, creating a profile and connecting with people you already know is enough for most people to start receiving job recommendations and potential collaborations. 

Most of us are not very good at selling ourselves, but we know when we’re being sold, and we can spot the Salesperson within seconds of reading a post. LinkedIn is full of them because it’s a highly effective sales platform that generates the most sales leads from social media.

The Teacher attracts loyal followers with their ability to simplify and illustrate their content. One of the top-performing formats on LinkedIn is the ‘how to’, and educational content is one element used by nearly all of the most successful accounts. 

The Connector shares others’ content, is a conspicuous commenter and constantly pops up in your feed. No one is going to forget that they exist. And they seem to know what the buzz is. I expect you know a few. 

The Raconteur likes to be the centre of attention. They tell good stories, usually about themselves, and ooze confidence. Not quite the same as a LinkedIn influencer, but tends to have a large following. 

The Thought Leader: This is how LinkedIn started its content ecosystem by inviting successful business people like Richard Branson to share their thoughts. At its best, thought leadership provides vital lessons and insights. At its worst, it commits all the cringiest behaviours mentioned in section 1.

Do any of these archetypes sound like you?

Unlike other social platforms, becoming a power user on LinkedIn doesn’t require massive effort. If you look at LinkedIn daily, you’re in the fourth quartile. If you’ve got more than 3000 connections, you’re in the 90th percentile. And, if you can find the time to post something weekly, you’re in the 99th percentile.

How often used?		Posting frequency		Number of connections
Monthly	87%	Quarterly	7.10%	Average	1300
Weekly	63%	Weekly	1.10%	>3000	10%
Daily	22%			>10000	1%

Sources: 99firms, Algorithm Insights

5. How to get more engagement and visibility on LinkedIn by understanding the algorithm

If you do nothing, the LinkedIn algorithm will display posts from people you know and on topics that seem related to your interests. If you’re a passive user, you will send relatively few signals about what you like, and your feed may be less interesting. The more active you are, the more signals you send, the more likely your feed will be relevant and interesting. 

What follows is a guide to the available data and draws heavily on Richard van der Blom’s 2024 Algorithm Insights and the 2025 update – the best guides I can find.

The basic rule is that if you don’t interact with a member’s content, posts from that member will tend to appear less frequently in your feed.

• New connections: When you first connect with a member, their posts appear prominently in your feed for about a fortnight. If you don’t interact with their posts, the chance of a new post appearing in your feed falls.
• Engagement with creators: The more you engage with a member’s posts (reading, liking, commenting, sharing), the more likely you will see all they create. Saving a post is also a robust signal.
• Time spent on posts: If you dwell on a post, then the algorithm will take this as a signal of high interest and show you more from that member and/or more of that kind of post.
• Formats: If, for example, you spend much of your time watching videos, the algorithm will show you more videos in your feed.
• Profiles: If you visit a member’s profile, there is a strong chance that their content will appear in your feed.

The upshot of all this is that everything you do on LinkedIn helps to streamline your feed. But to get a focused feed, you need to start interacting with the content, even if that is just liking posts.

The importance of followers: It may surprise you that the LinkedIn content distribution system favours followers over connections. Typically, a post will be seen by just 10-15% of your connections but by 25-30% of your followers. That’s because the LI content ecosystem assumes, presumably based on evidence, that followers are more likely to engage with your content than connections.

There’s a rough hierarchy for how LinkedIn displays your posts:

1. Those who have asked to be alerted to new posts
2. Regular engagers with your content
3. New followers and connections 
4. Your followers who are active on LinkedIn in general
5. Your connections who are active on LinkedIn generally

The obvious conclusion is that you should aim to create highly shareable and commentable posts. And that means focusing on the frames and formats that get the greatest traction.

12 Low-effort tactics to boost your engagement and visibility

Tactics to make your feed more interesting:

1. Like posts you like, it’s almost effortless, but it tells the algorithm what you want and the poster you exist.

2.  Follow people you find interesting: They will be alerted that you have started following, and this is the best way to begin to develop a connection.

3.  Interact with the content of those you follow if you want to see it appearing in your feed. A simple read is enough but likes and other engagements are good. 

4. Connect with people you meet. This sounds obvious, but few practice the modern-day version of exchanging business cards; connecting on LinkedIn. 

Tactics to improve your visibility on the network

5.  Join professional groups. Members who are active in groups discover more interesting potential contacts, get more profile visits when they contribute, build their networks faster, and see their profile posts get 15-20% more engagement. 

6.  Understand how engagements affect your reach: Each type of engagement affects the original poster and the person who engages differently: 

Source: Just Connecting Algorithm Insights 2024

The algorithm wants to see rapid comments and shares after you post. The table shows what engagements are worth if a ‘like’ is scored as a ‘1’.  A comment is worth 15 likes, a rapid repost is worth 10, and a ‘save’ is worth 8.

7. Mount connection campaigns: Sending a connection request to someone you don’t know is risky. It is better to follow first and start interacting with their content so that when you make a connection request, there will be some kind of recognition.

8. Get tactical with reposts: Reposts are relatively underused on LinkedIn compared to other social networks and should be part of your engagement strategy.

• Repost without a comment if you want to help the poster
• Repost with a comment if you want to attract some attention yourself. 

Tactics to boost the reach of your own posts

9. Mention other accounts: Not mentioning any other LinkedIn accounts is associated with a 10% reduction in reach, whereas tagging up to four profiles can boost reach by 48%. If a tagged member goes on to comment on your post, then there’s an additional boost to reach. However, if you mention a large number of accounts (5+) then there will be a tag penalty if few of them interact with your content. If you want to pursue the mass-tagging tactic, use a comment.

10. Like, comment, and repost your posts: This sounds like it ought to be ignored by the algorithm, but the evidence suggests that if you like your post, it increases reach by around 8%. 

11. Ask for likes, comments and reposts: There doesn’t seem to be any penalty for those asking readers to engage with your content:

• Every ‘like’ you get is associated with another 1.4% of your connections seeing your post and 2.5% of the network belonging to the person who liked the post. 
• Each comment you get increases reach within your network by 5% and is shown to 2.8% of the commenters’ network. Try to frame your request for comments with a question that is easy to answer.
• An instant repost (i.e. without any comment) can boost reach by 40% and is 12 times more effective than a repost with comments. An instant repost gives you a 4% increase in reach but provides the reposter with virtually no increase in visibility. It’s possibly the only area of LinkedIn where there is no mutual benefit. The implication is that you should encourage your connections to repost in the hope that most will do an instant repost. 

12. Immediate post-publication tactics

• Respond to comments: The crucial period is the first hour after posting, when you should respond to any comments. 2-4 comments from the author after the first hour, preferably in response to others’ comments, generates an estimated 25% increase in reach. Best practise is to respond to comments as quickly as possible, especially in the first 6 hours.
• Stimulate interest from your network: Tagging individuals in your post or a comment helps raise visibility of your post and reach. A less obvious tactic is to engage with the content of key connections after posting, which can increase your reach by 15%.  

A note on hashtags: These used to be very important, but now that the LI algorithm has become much more competent at working out what posts are about, they are much diminished. LinkedIn still recommends using 2-3 hashtags, but the evidence is that they have a modest impact on reach. Only above 20 hashtags does reach start to suffer.

Be smart about how you add links: Adding a link within a post is associated with a 25-50% reduction in reach. An alternative is to add a link as a comment immediately after you have posted. However, this won’t appear in reposts. A better way is to publish your post and then go back in and add a link. 

Strategic commenting: There is some evidence that a strategy that focuses on commenting on other profiles is the most effective way of building a network. LinkedIn is filling up with bland, AI-generated comments, but those that are thoughtful and add something to the conversation are highly valued by the algorithm. Posting 5-10 such comments daily is associated with a 30% increase in connection requests and a 20% increase in content views.

6. What are the most successful frames and formats on LinkedIn?

If you plan to be active on LinkedIn, you must choose what content you will post, what angle to take, and how to package it for maximum engagement. 

Frames

Using the social listening tool Buzzsumo to look at the best-performing content over the past year, the list that emerges is heavily biased towards educational content. NB I have ignored ‘news’ content in this analysis.

• ‘How to’s’ and Explainers
• Trends analysis/insights
• Listicles
• Personal stories
• Thought Leadership

This aligns with changes made in the LinkedIn feed in 2023 to prioritise sharing knowledge and expertise. NB The ‘listicle’ category is horizontal and overlaps with the others.

How LI formats compare	% total	Reach vs median post
Text only	16	1.17
Text + single image	48	1.26
Video	8.2	1.21
Carousel	8.1	1.6
Articles	4	0.57
Polls	1.2	1.99
Source: Algorithm Insights 2024

NB The table does not include reposts and reposts with comments, which comprise about 15% of total postings and have below-average reach.

Text-only posts

• Length is ideally about 300 words. Posts under 150 words see a 25% reduction in reach. 
• Layout: smart formatting (short sentences, short paragraphs, use of white space, bullets, etc.) increases reach by up to 25%. 
• CTA: Ending with a question can increase engagement by 20-40%.

Text + image posts

• Length is about 150-200 words for best results. Every additional 50 words reduces reach by 10%. 
• Accessibility: Posts with sentences under 12 words perform 20% better. 
• Visuals: Personalised images do 45% better than stock photos. 
• Number of images: Every extra image increases by 5%, up to a maximum of five.
• Orientation: Vertical photos have a 15% higher CTR than square, which is 25% better than horizontal photos. 
• GIFs increase reach by 10-20%.

Videos

• Length: The optimum is somewhere between 1-2 minutes.
• Captions increase viewership by 40%, which makes sense given that most viewing of LinkedIn content is on mobile and that most mobile users watch videos with the sound off.
• Vertical video does 15% better than square and 25% better than horizontal.
• Shareability: Videos are the format most likely to be shared with one estimate it is 20X more shareable than a standard post.
• Degree of difficulty: Despite the arrival of AI-powered tools like Pictory and Veed, producing video remains complex and time-consuming.

Carousels

• Length: The ideal number of slides is 8-9  
• Text density: Post text should be less than 500 characters. Each additional 500 cuts reach 10%. Slides should have 25-50 words.
• Dimensions: Vertical slides are best; square gets 20% less reach, horizontal 35%.  
• Degree of difficulty: As simple as turning a PowerPoint into a PDF and allow for a richer kind of storytelling. .
• Conversion rates are higher than for video.

Articles

• Length: The optimum is 800-1200 words. Above 1500, reach falls 10% for every 150 words. 
• Formatting smarts can increase views by 50%. 
• Richness: The average article features 3.2 links, 2.1 tags, 4.5 pictures, and 0.3 videos.
• Frequency: Shouldn’t be over-used—once a month appears to be the optimum.

Polls

• Engagement: Get double the reach and engagement of the average post.
• Complexity: The optimal number of answers to offer is three. 
• Duration: The optimal poll length is one week.
• Promotion: Engaging with comments is a particularly powerful way of increasing reach. Another smart tactic is to make the last poll option ‘Other, see my comment.’

7. Key Questions to Answer for a Sustainable Strategy

Taking all the insights above, how do you create a LinkedIn strategy to maximise your visibility and reach without committing to hours of effort each week? There is no one answer and a lot depends on what you are trying to achieve. Six questions are crucial:

1. What are your goals on LinkedIn? How will you measure success?
2. How much time are you prepared to invest?
3. Which members do you want in your network?
4. Which topics will you focus upon?
5. What frames and formats will you use for your posts?
6. What networking tactics will you pursue?

What are your goals?

There are several things you need to get straight if you want a coherent strategy:

1. Where do you want to be on the Engagement Arc? 
2. What sort of persona do you want to project?
3. What will success look like to you? Can you come up with 3 KPIs?

If you’re reading this, ‘passive’ isn’t what you would be comfortable with. But there’s a big difference between ‘engaged’ and ‘active’, and you need to be realistic about the effort required to make that jump.

An engaged member would like, comment, and repost regularly. They would post original content from time to time. And they would follow and connect with people they already know and meet. Active members are more strategic—posting original content regularly and nurturing relationships with key members.

Engagement tactics are also very different if your goals are centred on learning rather than visibility. Following and liking are crucial for tuning a feed for optimal learning. Active engagement with key individuals, as well as commenting and reposting, is vital for raising visibility.

How much time do you have for this?

There’s a time commitment. The average user (passive) spends about 20 minutes a month on the platform. An engaged user will likely spend at least an hour a week, and an active user might spend upwards of half an hour daily. How much time can you spare?

Who do you want in your network?

• Work associates
• Industry peers
• Potential collaboration partners
• Industry thought leaders
• Another definable group

The average LinkedIn user has a network of 1300 contacts, and it’s estimated that more than two billion connection requests are sent monthly. Typical users are reasonably effective at building their networks in terms of volume. 

But there’s a question about how strategic that network building is. And effective networkers need to be able to answer a simple question: ‘What are the groups of people I need to network with to meet my goals?’

A starting point is to have a look at your existing connections and think about which ones are most important to you. See if you can spot any patterns. Try to come up with some group categories.

Which topics will you discuss?

Lack of confidence is why most LinkedIn members don’t post regularly. But everyone knows valuable things that can be shared. And the exchange of knowledge is one of the cornerstones of the platform. 

Think about these questions to identify areas you should focus on:

• In which areas do you have specialist expertise? 
• What other topics interest you most?
• What problems do you solve that others find challenging?
• What do you know that most people don’t? 
• What trends/developments in your area excite/concern you most?
• What questions do you get asked most? 
• What mistakes or misconceptions do you see most frequently? 

What frames and formats are you comfortable using?

These are the most popular frames used on LinkedIn:

• ‘How to’s’ and Explainers
• Trends analysis/insights
• Listicles
• Personal stories
• Thought Leadership

If you had the time, which, if any, would you feel comfortable producing?

Looking through your history of comments and reactions (Click on ‘Me’ in the top navigation and then ‘posts & activity’), what frames do you respond to most frequently?

Considering the trade-off between effort and engagement described in section 7, what post formats will you use? 

• Text-only
• Text plus image
• Video
• Carousel
• Article
• Poll

What other engagement will you do?

The 12 low-effort LinkedIn networking graphic covers various things you can do to raise your visibility and increase engagement. Which tactics do you feel you’d enjoy and would be able to sustain? 

The Simple Strategy Statement

Taking your answers to these six questions should give you enough information to write down a statement of strategic intent. 

Here’s mine:
I aim to be active on LinkedIn using a Teacher persona to 1) build my network, 2) increase engagement on my posts, 3) deepen my knowledge about content marketing, and 4) attract consultancy enquiries. 

I will commit to 1.5 hours a week.

I will target decision-makers in media and purpose-driven organisations.

I will post on Content Marketing, Digital Strategy, and Demystifying Digital Media.

My primary frames will be ‘How to’s’, Explainers, and Data-led Insights, and I will specialise in visually rich formats like Infographics and Carousels, using short text posts.

My tactical engagement will focus on following interesting accounts, commenting and using instant reposts to make myself visible before making connection requests, and posting once a month something substantial and original.