2

Credits & Disclaimer

CREDITS DISCLAIMER

Just Connecting is proud to share the Algorithm Report with you Unless otherwise indicated, this report is explicit property of Just
for the fourth consecutive year. Once again we exceeded previous Connecting HUB, trade name of Sawa Training Holding BV, based in
years by, examining more posts, more users and more different the Netherlands. You are prohibited from copying, reproducing,
elements than previous years. moderating, translating, displaying or transmitting any of the
content, without explicit written consent from us. If you want to do
For the 2022 edition, we examined more than 9,500 posts from 200 any of the above, please send an e-mail to [email protected]
different members (coming from more than 30 different countries). In and we will process your request.
total, our team spent over 1,100 hours on the research, which led to
some remarkable new insights. You may use this original report or individual slides to post or
reshare on LinkedIn, without editing and with an explicit referral to
This research was conducted by team Just Connecting, with the the official source of this report.
support of tools like Shield, SproutSocial, Hootsuite and LinkedIn itself.
We thank Blisspoint Consultancy and V3Stent Group for their support The sample of this study, despite being significantly enlarged again,
in the creation of this report. Special thanks to Evronil Aldie Vilan and is officially not representative of LinkedIn's 850 million members.
Nurjesa Shehadeh for the great design Conclusions and recommendations in this report are therefore not
absolute; implementation is entirely at your own expense.
And of course, last but not least, to all our clients for asking impossible
but super interesting questions around the algorithm, reach and But rest assured, many of our clients have been benefiting from
conversion. You challenge us to outdo ourselves every time. these insights for years and are experiencing a significant
improvement in their results on LinkedIn.
Best regards,

Richard van der Blom

Founder Just Connecting
 3

Algorithm Change Early September (!)

During the time we conducted our research for the 2022 report LinkedIn continued to evolve adding new features almost every
week. During the summer months (July & August) it is a common phenomenon that both reach and engagement decline due to
holidays and less activity on the platform. But in early September, we observed that LinkedIn made some significant updates
to the algorithm. The updates below were not explored as deeply due to the short timeframe, but should definitely be factored
into your strategy.

Five recent changes in the LinkedIn Algorithm you need to know and understand:

1. For the first time it’s possible that the same content creator shows up with 3 or 4 posts in the same scroll session

2. LinkedIn now gives more reach to heavily active content creators (with large follower base) than to members that have just
begun to publish content or are less active. This is a change from what we have seen over the past 2 years.

3. 99.9% of all members have experienced a drop in reach of about 15% and a drop in engagement of about 10%. Opposite to
this, Content Creators have seen an increase in reach (about 20 - 25%) and engagement (about 15 - 20%)

4. Content Creators, because of their large number of followers, accelerates growth right after they post. We are seeing
followers who engage often now get priority in the first test batch of recipients. In addition, Content Creators with large
followings often have a high number of people who have subscribed to notifications via the bell.

5. Dwell time has lost importance compared to last year. Shorter posts perform better and slide decks have lost some reach.
The engagement in the first 90 minutes continues to be the deciding factor.
 4
Building Your Feed - 1
Compared to 2020, LinkedIn has made drastic changes in
terms of the content we see in our timeline. Before we dive
deeper into that, here are some statistics:

Mobile User (58%)

● Average time per session: 1.55 minutes

● Average time per month: 13 minutes
● Average number of Posts (while scrolling) per visit: 16

Desktop/laptop user (42% of all visits):

● Average time per session: 3.15 minutes

● Average time per month: 18 minutes
● Average number of Posts (while scrolling) per visit: 9

FACT: On average the LinkedIn User will not

see more than 16 Posts per session
 5

Building Your Feed - 2

How our Feed was built in 2020 vs 2022:

● Organic company posts now make up 3% of our feed,

compared to 6% for organic company content in 2020.

● We see more picture Posts (both single and multiple), more

Document Posts (PDF / Slide Deck) and more LinkedIn
Service related posts (Ads for Jobs / LinkedIn Learning)

● Text Posts are still popular (being 1 out of each 10 Posts), as

is Video but both did lose ground in the timeline compared
to 2 years ago

● Less reach for the use of external links (7% to 9%), the
further decline of Polls (which had already started in 2021)
and the almost complete disappearance of
articles/Newsletters in the timeline.
 6

Who You See In Your Feed

LinkedIn now uses about 22% of the Feed for Promoted Posts ● LinkedIn analyses the type of content
(Ads by Companies and/or by LinkedIn itself), which leaves us you are consuming. Basically, if you
with 78% of the Feed that we can influence with our actions: watch videos, LinkedIn will show you
more. If you skip answering Polls,
Here is what Influences your Feed: LinkedIn will stop entirely showing you
Polls.
● From new connections, you will see all new posts for the
first 2 weeks. ● Visiting a Profile of a connection, will
bring the first Post they publish after
● Liking a Post increases the chance of seeing the next post your visit back to your feed
from this author by 30%
● Content related to people and
● Commenting on a post increases the chance of seeing the companies you have saved as Leads &
next post from the same author by 70% and 80% for Accounts in Sales Navigator are also
shares prioritized

● Sending a direct message via LinkedIn increases the ● If you endorse or recommend a
chance of seeing the next post from the recipient to 85% connection, their content will appear in
your feed again.
● Saving a Post prioritizes the content from this Author in
your feed

● Following a company page will show you the first post

published afterwards by the company.
Frequency of Posts 7

Publishing a new Post within 18 hours from a previous Post will negatively impact
the growth of both Posts (!). Although more posts a day will likely grow your overall
reach, your average reach per post will decrease.

The new Feature of “Reposting” a post will reduce your Reach in the same way
since LinkedIn considers sharing and reposting the same as posting your own
Content. The same for Shares. Be careful that interacting with other People’s
Content does not lead to Loss of Reach for your own Posts.

Best Times to Post:

 8

Nurturing Your Post

Successful content publishing on LinkedIn is not achieved by ● Nurture your post by responding to received Comments
simply clicking "Post". After publishing your Post, several with your own Comment, especially in the first 12 hours
actions can make or break your Post. (#interaction)

NEW: LinkedIn now has two Engagement* Phases to analyze ● Leave a ”new and insightful” Comment on your own Post
the relevance of your Post. after 24 hours for better Results (#newinsight)

NEW: Invite People to Ring the bell on your Profile. It will

● The fast growth in the first 8 hours is based on the
Kick-Start the growth of your Post, because of LinkedIn
Engagement in the first 90 minutes after publishing. notifying all these people instantly after publishing.
● The constant growth over multiple days is based on the
Engagement received between the first 90 minutes and
about 8 hours.

● Edit your Post in the first 10 minutes. This results in 10%

(*) Engagement: the total of all clicks, likes, comments, shares on
reduction in reach and possibly as much as 40%
your post as well as dwell-time
● Comment on your own Post first. This reduces Reach by
20%. Be careful not to “Pin your Comment” too fast.
 9

Do’s en Don'ts for Posting

● Use hashtags, but no more than 10

● Use more than 10 hashtags
● Use tags if you are sure that people/compa
● Use of 2 or more consecutive blank lines
● Use emoticons to increase readability, but no more than
10 (and no more than 4 on one line) ● Use only 1 line of text (and multiple white lines) before
LinkedIn displays the "see more" option
● Post Selfies (in personal posts) to deliver 3x more
engagement and up to 2.5x more reach ● Use more than 3 lines of other font types

● Create posts with the ideal length of between 1,200 and ● Use each line of text followed by another white line
1,600 characters (was between 1,500 and 2,500 in 2021)
● Use less than 4 lines of text (missing dwell time and "see
● Set both “who can see your post” and “who can more" option)
comment on your post” to “Anyone”
● Post bilingual (meaning the same text in two different
● Develop a personal hashtag. Having over 1,000 followers languages in the same Post
influences reach substantially because it offers your
audience the opportunity to engage with multiple Posts
How To Get More Reach? 10

In addition to receiving Engagement in the first two hours there are

multiple actions, both from yourself and your network, that accelerate
the success of your post in terms of reach.

This will help your Post get more Reach:

● After you have published your Post, make sure you stick around to
engage with at least 3 Posts from your network. (+20% reach)

● While the reliability and correlation of the S.S.I. score with your reach has
further decreased, you still receive +25% reach if your S.S.I. score is
above 70.

● Quality above Quantity. The Algorithm remembers the relevance (by

engagement, dwell time and clicks) of your last 10 - 15 posts. Publishing
multiple posts in a row with poor engagement rates, makes LinkedIn
reduces the reach of the next Post..

● Tag “accelerators” in the Comments (after receiving about 3 - 5

comments from others), but make sure they are going to engage

● People sharing a Post (including Reposts) will substantially increase

the reach of the original post

● Getting more people to Save your Post will cause LinkedIn to prioritize
your content in their feed
 11

Thank you BlissPoint Consult

for your support

BlissPoint Consulting is a Social Media training and

consulting company that advances the behaviors of
Digital Executives and the social selling effectiveness
of Sales Teams.

http://www.blisspointconsult.com
 12
LinkedIn Creator Mode
Creator mode is a profile setting on your dashboard that can help you
grow your reach and influence on LinkedIn. You can turn on creator
mode to get access to additional tools and features that help you create
content and grow your audience base on LinkedIn

What will you get?

● The ability to select and display five different hashtags below your
headline showing followers the topics you focus on.

● You can film a 30-second video as your profile picture that

automatically plays when someone lands on your page.

● Instead of a "Connect" button, it's turned to "Follow," and for every

post you create, a "Follow" button is placed at the top right corner.

● Your profile's "Feature" section is placed higher at the top featuring

selected posts encouraging people to follow your content.

● The "Activity" section features your posts instead of your

engagement activity.

● Access to LinkedIn Live to broadcast live from your profile

● Ability to create a LinkedIn Newsletter

 13

Impact of Enabling Creator Mode

Whether LinkedIn Creator Mode contributes to achieving your goals
depends on a number of factors.

Measurable facts for Creator Mode enabled

● Members with Creator Mode enabled receive on average 15 - 35%

more reach

● Followers (and Bell ringers) can see your content in the feed
directly after publishing. Without Creator Mode this is limited to only
your connections

● You will grow your followers faster than connections based on how
often your Publish

A. 1 or 2 a week > 3x more Follower growth

B. 3 or 4 a week > 5x more Follower growth

C. 5 or more a week> up to 8x more Follower growth

● The use of your Featured Hashtags in your content will only lead to
5% increase in reach (this was 15% in 2021)
 14

Impact of Enabling Creator Mode

Non measurable facts for Creator Mode enabled

● Featured and Activity placed higher on your Profile will have a

positive impact on your Brand Awareness.

● Video converts up to 4x times more, so having a 30-second profile

video might be an excellent opportunity to welcome new clients

ADVICE: Enable Creator Mode if you can publish

original content at least twice a week
 15
LinkedIn Newsletters
There are currently +40,000 LinkedIn Newsletters. The criteria for
Newsletters access are:

● Creator Mode enabled

● More than 150 connections (or Followers for Pages)
● Created at least 2 different styles of content in the last 3 months
● A history of abiding by LinkedIn’s Professional Community Policies

Compared to 2021, LinkedIn Newsletter’s

● Subscribers growth has has dropped 75%

● Reach of a new Edition has dropped 65 - 70%
● Engagement rates has dropped 80%
● Best performing frequency is bi-monthly
● Best length of an Edition is between 1,100 and 1,300 words
(less than 1,400 – 1,600 last year)
● Embedded video performs 30% better than
those without video
 16

LinkedIn Newsletters
Some Tips on how to Grow your Newsletter (in reach & subscribers)

● Use LinkedIn Live from your profile to increase the visibility of your
Newsletter by 15 - 20%

● Highlight your Newsletter in your Featured Section

(+ 15 - 20% growth)

● Repurpose a single Newsletter into 3 or 4 snackable content items

TIP: Just Connecting has a complete database

of all LinkedIn Newsletters with filters on
topics, language and subscribers. Interested?
[email protected]
 17

Different Formats, Different Results

On LinkedIn members can publish Content in many ways and formats. The
preferred format still is a text Post combined with one picture. But
choosing the right format is not just a creative choice. It directly influences
the airtime you get from LinkedIn in your network's feed, and so can make
or break your reach/impressions.

Definition of Views/Impressions

● Regular Post: The number of times LinkedIn has shown your Post in the
timeline of your Network (low quality K.P.I.)

● Articles / Newsletters: The number of times people have clicked on

your article to read it (reliable K.P.I.)

● Native Video Content: The number of people that have seen your video
(clicked or via Autoplay) and watched at least 6 seconds of it (high
quality K.P.I.)

Important: Although Impressions are a good indicator to measure the

success of your Content, getting Engagement and seeing the desired
Conversion is what it is really all about.
 18
Different Formats, an Overview
Comparing performance by Format compared to a Text Post with
one single Image

Reach Boosters:

● Document Posts 2.2 to 3.4x more reach

● Polls 2.1 to 2.9x more reach
● NEW: Carousel Post 1.8 to 2.3x more reach
● Text & Multiple Pictures 1.2 to 1,6x more reach

Reach Drainers:

● Video Posts (*) 0.5 to 0.8x of average reach

● Post with 1 External Link 0.4 to 0.5x of average reach
● Celebrate an Occasion 0.3 to 0.6x of average reach
● Newsletters (*) 0.2 to 0.9x of average reach
● Post with more than 1 Link 0.2 to 0.4x of average reach
● Articles (not being Newsletters) 0.1 to 0.2x of average reach

(*) definition of views is different (see previous slide)

 19
Document Posts
A Document Post (aka Slide Post) are a perfect way to get more eyes on your
content. Together with relevant text in the accompanying post, Document
Posts result in between 2.2 and 3.4x more reach than average.

More Stats to Improve your Reach using Document Posts

● 7 Slides for optimal result (don’t use less than 4 or more than 11)

● Use few words per Slide (60 maximum)

● Include a strong visual on the first slide & less than 15 Words

● Write a Post with max. 2,000 characters to guide your Slide Deck

● Don’t share PDF’s of regular magazines, that are not designed specifically
for LinkedIn > up to 8x less reach

● Avoid using slides with only words

● Include an engaging (non-commercial) CTA on the last slide

● Include a picture of yourself on one of the slides. This will increase reach by
up to 80-90%

Fun Fact: The colors black, yellow and red are often used on successful
Document Posts
 20

Slide Decks – The Stats 2

The Impact on the Reach compared to
Optimal Reach of 7 slides
Polls 21

Polls were reviled by many in 2021, but are now less frequent in our
timeline. This format, when asking the right relevant questions, is an Tip! Try to ask the Question in such a way
excellent tool as a conversation starter with customers and candidates.
that you have a large potential audience
Compared to text/one picture post, Polls have 2.1 to 2.9x more reach.
The main reason for this is that every vote, counts as a separate
engagement (click)for the algorithm

More Stats to Improve your Reach using Polls

● Best Performing Polls have only 2 answer options

● Polls with 4 answer options get up to 30% less reach

● Best duration is one week, choosing 2 weeks will generate more

views but less votes per 1,000 views

● Creating a Poll will result in seeing more Polls in your feed, the
same if you engage with a Poll

● Polls on Company Pages get 50 - 60% less reach compared to Polls

on Individual Profiles (when Connection/Follower audience is more
or less the same)

● Keep Posts with Polls simple and short. Polls with more than 1,000
characters perform less.
 22
Post with External Links
Creating a Post with an external link on LinkedIn is simple,
however, various independent studies show that this leads to
significant loss in reach.

According to LinkedIn this has less to do with the algorithm, but

more with the behavior of members using the platform. “They
don’t want to leave, so they don’t click”.

Less clicks means less reach. But when the primary goal of
publishing a link is to drive traffic to your website, you might take
the loss of reach as long as people convert on your website.

What options do you have with External links?

Method #1 Including link with original post.

The most natural and the easiest way to use links. You will see
about 55 - 60% less reach compared to a Text Post / Single image

Method #2 Edit post and add link after post goes live.

The penalty for editing your Post is not that high anymore (loss of
10% reach, compared to 25% 2021),
 23

Post with External Links

Method #3 Posting the link in the comments

Penalty for commenting on your own Post first increased from 15% in
2021, to 20% now. And there are more things to think about when you use
this method

● Multiple comments causes your comment with the link not being
featured as first comment anymore

● When people share your Post, the comment containing the link is
not shared

Method #4 Use a picture to attach a clickable link

LinkedIn recently (May’22) introduced the feature to attach a visible link

to a picture in your Post. Although the link is not written in your Post, this
still leads to a drop of 25% in reach
 24
Video Posts
On LinkedIn, you can share video in two ways. Via an external link to YouTube and
Vimeo or by uploading the video natively. We have already shared the data
regarding Posts with external links, so the statistics below relate to Video being
natively uploaded.

Stats on Video Posts

● For the 2nd year in a row we see less (native) Video Content, -20% compared
to 2021 (and that year was -30 / 40% compared to 2020)

● More visibility for Video Ads (+ 25%), which confirms that LinkedIn is using
more space in our newsfeed for paid posts.

● Reach has declined further by 15% and engagement has dropped by almost
25%. While it is still a favorite way of sharing content the audience is no longer
engaging.

● Only 45% of all posted Videos are captioned (subtitles). Captioned videos on
average outperform non-captioned by 35% on reach and 25% on engagement

● The impact of Dwell Time (see the slide on Dwell Time) has decreased
dramatically which could be an explanation for the loss of reach/engagement.

● Average length of native videos on LinkedIn is 80 seconds.

 25

Video Posts
Tips on Video Post

● Go for native Video, but if you don't have the file native, choose Vimeo
which gets about 2.2x more reach within LinkedIn than YouTube

● Length between 20 and 60 seconds, don’t do more than 3 minutes (you

will lose 95% of your audience)

● Captioned and Square Format for best performance

● Use an engaging Thumbnail to start your Video

● Videos where you play the lead role will yield better results compared
to videos with people your audience doesn't know (-40%) or that have no
people in it at all (-75%)

FACT! FORMAT of VIDEO POSTS

● Horizontal Format 42%
● Vertical Format 34%
● Square 24%
LinkedIn Live 26

Members with Creator Mode enabled have access to broadcast live on LinkedIn. The Live
session is visible in the banner picture on the individual profile (or Company Page), which is a
great way to drive more engagement to your profile based on (live) video content.

Unfortunately, for those who couldn't join live, it is still very difficult to find the engagement
(likes and comments) that were given during the session.

Some Stats on LinkedIn Live (compared to 2021):

● New LinkedIn Live users increased with 74% (personal profile) and 126% (Company Page)

● Average engagement is 2.5x higher than on a native video post in the feed

● LinkedIn Live videos are almost invisible in the news feed

● Average LinkedIn Live duration is 28 minutes (an increase with almost 4 minutes from 2021)

● LinkedIn Lives shorter than 15 minutes perform poorly (-3x engagement)

Tips to get better results with LinkedIn Live:

● Promote your Event multichannel, tagging speaker and using the hashtag #LinkedInLive

● Use at least two devices and moderators to respond live to engage your audience and keep
them hooked

● Create a Series of LinkedIn Live and repurpose the content

 27

LinkedIn Live
Engagement metrics of LinkedIn Live Sessions

● Average engagement rate is 3.4% (minus 0.2% from 2021)

● Interviews external Peers / Thought Leaders (5.6 - 8.0%)

● Coverage of Live Events (4.2 to 6.8%)

● Employer Branding related content (3.2 to 5.2%)

● Interviews internal Peers / Thought Leaders (2.6 to 4.4%)

● Celebration of Milestones/Activities (2.0 to 3.6%)

● Product / Solutions related Content (eg. demo’s) (1.4 - 3.0%)

Fact! Using LinkedIn Live from your

Personal Profile will boost your next 3
posts (regardless of format/type) with an
additional 10 - 15% reach!
 28

More Formats and Stats

LinkedIn launched Native Carousel Options, a new way to share a
series of videos and swipeable photos/pdf’s. It’s currently still in beta
test, but more and more content creators are reporting that they have
access.

Unfortunately for this research we weren’t able to collect enough data

to provide you with reliable data and statistics on the performance, but
it’s likely that:

● Both reach and engagement will be high, as it is a great opportunity

to combine video and photo content

● It’s favored by the algorithm, as LinkedIn always boosts new content

types to their audience

A Multiple Photo Post will bring you up to 1.2x to 1.6x more reach than a
post with only 1 photo.

Some stats:

● 4 photos optimal reach, more than 6 is not advisable

● Photos showing people (events/meetings) get up to 4x more clicks

● Every click is seen by the algorithm as a positive engagement

 29

More Formats and Stats

With Celebrate an Occasion LinkedIn is trying to encourage the Silent
Community (over 60% of all members) to publish a Post. Members can
choose up to 7 different categories like “Give Kudos” and “New
Position”, and will be guided through the entire process including a
(drawn) picture and hashtags

Since these Posts all look the same and often are not optimized for
engagement they perform poorly. On average you’ll receive 0.3 to 0.6x
the reach of a Text Post with 1 Photo.

Three negative signals for the Algorithm to slow down growth

The below actions on your content by others will harm the growth of
your post:

● Click on Unfollow [ name member ]

● Click on Report/Block (regardless the outcome)

● Select “Remove Mention”

 30

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LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index 31

Social Selling Index

After the introduction of LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator in 2014, the Social Selling Index (SSI)
was added two years later. With the SSI, LinkedIn analyses and indexes our activity and
presence every day. Although this score is integrated in Sales Navigator, everyone can
find their own score via www.linkedin.com/sales/ssi.

The aim of this index was to give people guidelines on how to successfully use LinkedIn for
lead generation and sales. Many companies have shown that a score above 75 significantly
contributes to more commercial success, which can be traced back to LinkedIn behavior.

In our first algorithm report (2019), we reported a correlation between a higher score and
more reach for your content on LinkedIn. However, over the last year, the SSI has regularly
struggled with glitches and unexplained drops, which has caused
the tool to lose credibility.

Fact! We still see those with an SSI of 70 or more have an average increase in reach of 25%

Good to know:

1. There are rumors that LinkedIn is working on a new tool that members
can use as a guideline to make their Sales Navigator activities
more successful

2. There is a delay of 3 days. Meaning the score you see on a Friday is based
on your activities through the Tuesday prior.
How to Grow your SSI 32

The distribution of points below is indicative and not confirmed by LinkedIn Build Relationships

Establish your Personal Brand Multiple device use, Response to notifications, messages
and invites, your engagement on Feed Posts, time you
● 19 points for the way how you build your profile: Including visuals, Featured, spent on LinkedIn, number of monthly logins.
About section, keywords, skills and recommendations
● 4 points from your network: Received endorsements and recommendations
● 2 points for published articles

Find the Right People

● 18 points in the “Free LinkedIn” based on Number of Searches you make,

number of 2nd and 3rd degree profiles you visit, acceptance rate on sent
invitations
● 7 points from Sales Navigator and the number of Lead/Account searches,
Saved Searches, acceptance rate Inmails

Engage with Insights

● 18 points based on your own Content: Received engagement, diversification

of content, Group Activity, newsletters and/or articles
● 7 points from Sales Navigator using Inmails and Smartlinks, Buyer Intent
Hashtags 33

LinkedIn has an evolving relationship with hashtags. Adopted much later

than other platforms, over the past 3 years, many independent studies
showed that posts with 3 - 5 hashtags performed best. LinkedIn also
communicated the use of 3 hashtags for best results in official blogs.

This year’s research shows little changes, although we don’t recommend

using less than three hashtags or using more than 10 in your post.

● LinkedIn has a database of related hashtags. Using for example

#SocialSelling will also make more content available for you about #Sales

● Hashtag related posts are almost not shown in the organic feed. Scrolling
past the first 30 (mobile 25) posts will increase the chance of finding
hashtag related posts by 50%

● Hashtags in comments are searchable, but don’t influence the reach of

the post

● Position of hashtags (middle of the text, bottom vertical or horizontal

row) does not change the engagement/results.

● The hashtags listed in your profile in Creator Mode no longer have any
influence when used in your Posts (2021: +8% reach)

● The best combination when using more hashtags is combining unique

ones (with lower followers) with those who have high follower numbers.
Tagging on LinkedIn 34

How to use Tags wisely.

Compared to last year’s research we have seen some interesting

differences on the impact of tagging people in your posts.

1. Each tagged person or company that engages with your post, has
a positive impact on the growth (also a simple ‘Like)

2. When a Company responds with a comment it will drive about

2x more additional reach than from an individual profile.

3. However, any person or company that fails to engage

significantly slows down growth. The loss in growth levels the
growth of 3 people who did respond to the notification

4. There is never a penalty when you use tags in the comment

sections that doesn’t lead to engagement

5. Every person who chooses "remove mention" slows down your

growth 4x more than people who just don't respond.

Tip! Do not tag more than 15 people/companies, because

LinkedIn will seriously reduce the impact of their
engagement.
Company Pages 35

A lot of the previous stats and conclusions are relevant for Personal
Profiles, but of course we have also researched the use and reach of
Company Pages.

First and most important conclusion is that overall reach of

organic posts dropped for the third consecutive year (from 3.2% of
followers now to around 2.4%). But there is also positive news,
because average engagement has grown to 15% compared to last
year.

The main reason for this is probably that more and more companies
have an Employee Advocacy strategy*. It becomes easier for
employees to engage with company posts.

When it comes to Employee Advocacy, please know that:

● When using “Recommend to Employees” LinkedIn will notify

about 80% of all employees (who are connected with the right
Company Page).

● This is only 65% when using “Notify Employees”

● We could not find a clear reason (in our survey results or through Tip! We recommend you to invest in an external Employee
LinkedIn), why these percentages are not 100%.
Advocacy tool to make sure you reach all employees, also those
(*) Interested in our Employee Advocacy Program (including Analysis who are less (or not at all) active on LinkedIn. You will see up to 4
or 5 times more results compared to only using the LinkedIn tools.
and overview of Tools)? Send us a message (see last page)
Company Pages - Content Strategy 36

Over the last three years, we see that many companies have adapted their content strategy to
achieve multiple objectives. For this research we have looked at over 400 company pages that we
have been following since 2019.

Below you will see the seven most used content pillars in successful content strategies with
also a rate on how they score on Reach and Engagement (1 being very poor, 10 being the highest)

Successful Content Pillars:

1. Personal Stories (9) - storytelling on employees or clients, informal activities, team building,
courses etc.

2. Thought Leadership (6) - white papers, research, in-depth articles, downloadable content and
e-books etc. (aka the corporate content created by Marketing department)

3. Product / Service related content (3) - articles, post and videos on product specs,
new releases, demo’s, etc.

4. Industry related content (5), this pillar is ideal to re-use 3rd party content, to inform your audience
about developments, trends in the industry without always having to use your own content

5. Events (4) - to inform your audience which events/activities your company is organizing
(offline / online) and how people can attend. But also which events your own
employees (sales) is attending and why

6. Employer Branding (7) - often content from “Personal Stories” can be repurposed here.
Information about career opportunities, open jobs, projects and what to expect when
working with us.

7. Social Responsibility (6) - how the company deals with sustainability, circularity, equality and
which norms and values are supported.
 37
Company Pages - 20 Stats
Are you an Admin of your Company Page? Check out these 20 Stats to
improve results on your own Page and increase Brand Awareness:

1. Recently LinkedIn has added new sections to a Company Page, like

“Workplace” and “Commitments”, Pages with these sections
completed score about 5 - 10% more reach

2. If you have added the “Lead Gen Form” to your Company Page, the
best option for Conversion is “Get Started”, followed by “Start Free
Trial”. The other options, “Request Free Demo” and “Contact Sales”
perform respectively 3 and 5x worse.

3. The use of your Community Hashtags (3 max. that are featured on

your Company Page) does not influence reach or performance.

4. Posts from a Company Page are shown on average to 2.4% of your

followers (in the first batch). Engagement from non-employees
increases the reach:

A. A comment is 8 times stronger than a like, 12 times stronger

than a Share and 6 times stronger than clicks on “see more”

B. However, when done by employees, we see about 30% less

impact on reach and performance. Of course they still
contribute to spread the news further
 38

Company Pages - 20 Stats

5. The different Admin roles have no influence on performance of
the post. All roles are treated the same.

6. When a Company has active campaigns (Ads running), we see an

increase of 15 - 20% on reach and engagement on organic
content. This might have nothing to do with the algorithm, but
could be the fact that after seeing the Add, more people will check
the Company Page for more content and information

7. Company Newsletters, although quite new, do not perform well.

Growth is 6x slower than personal Newsletters and both reach and
engagement are substantially less.

8. Average engagement on Showcase Pages dropped further.

Compared to 2021 (-30%) while 2021 to 2020 saw already a drop of
80%

9. Pages that are set up multilingual score 10% better on reach and
up to 20% better on engagement

10. Inviting connections to Follow your Page with the default

invitation is not successful. Acceptance rates are between 6 and
12%
 39

Company Pages - 20 Stats

11. You can post multiple Posts a day without harming the
(average) reach of the previous ones. This is not the case on an
individual profile. If you post more than once within an 18 hour
time frame on a personal profile you will be penalized.

12. However, the best frequency for a Company Page is to post 4

- 5 posts a week. Publishing less than 2 a week, will lead to
50% less growth.

13. Best engagement days for Company Posts, are Tuesdays to

Thursdays and Saturdays. Posting on Monday and Friday
reduces reach by 25% and a drop of 70% Sundays.

14. Using all different formats of content (Image, Video,

Document and Articles) will results in 10% more reach, with
image and external links being the most dominant content
shared by Pages.

15. The use of “Targeted Audience” is highly advised to

accelerate the growth of your post in the first 2 hours, since the
first batch becomes more relevant
 40

Company Pages - 20 Stats

16. Since last year LinkedIn has made it possible to engage from
a Company Page on other posts. Liking and Commenting on
Employee’s Post, Supplier’s or Client’s post will
significantly increase the visibility of the Page

17. Two comments a day will increase reach for your own Posts
by about 8% and five Comments a day will increase your
reach 15%

18. LinkedIn Live broadcasted from a Company Page has an

average engagement rate of 2.1% (compared to 3.4% from a
Personal Profile)

19. Visibility of LinkedIn Events on Company Pages dropped

tremendously, a result from not having the ability anymore
to create posts around the event and the difficulties with
having to sign up on another platform.

20. Compared to Posts published from an individual profile,

Polls and Documents perform less, but Video, external links
and multiple picture posts perform better.
 41

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 42
How to Improve Ranking in People Search
One of the main goals for many LinkedIn members is to increase
the visibility of their profile. To a new employer, client or customer.
Therefore, it is useful to know what has changed from last year in
how LinkedIn ranks profiles. Note! We have not been able to find out whether
this was done deliberately by LinkedIn, or whether
The biggest challenge is that your profile (except for your an update may be forthcoming regarding the
current job title) is no longer indexed for search ranking entire indexing of the various profile sections.
Here is what has the biggest influence on appearing in searches
on LinkedIn.

1. Current Job Title (use alternatives, use keywords, don’t use

internal job titles that are not commonly used)

2. Network Proximity

3. Mutual Connections

4. Location

5. All Star Profile (which LinkedIn now only shows to people who
have not reached that level yet))

6. Number of Followers

7. Headline (which is occasionally still indexed

 43
Profile Strength
Before the major layout change of personal profiles (March 2021),
LinkedIn showed your profile strength: All Star, Intermediate, Beginner.

Now it is only visible - under Resources - if you have left any of the
following 7 fields blank.

Profile Strength

1. Picture 5. 1 Education

2. Industry 6. 5 Skills

3. Location 7. About section

4. 1 Current Experience

Until last year having an All Star Profile had 2 main benefits:

1. More reach in your first organic batch (test panel), +30%

2. Higher ranking in Search results

However, currently we do not see both benefits confirmed, which may

explain why LinkedIn no longer gives the rating a prominent place
on our profiles.
 44
All about Likes
The easy thumb of the Like is maybe the oldest form of Social 5. The different Like options “Celebrate, Funny, Love, Curious,
Media engagement. Easy to give, without making an Support and Insightful” show no differences in impact.
extraordinary effort to really like it. Perhaps even a bit of social
duty towards your colleagues or customers. But does it really 6. Per session LinkedIn only rewards about 12 - 15 likes maximum,
help? after that there is almost no reaction anymore from the
algorithm. A possible reason for this could be to prevent people
Stats on Likes from using engagement pods (automated likes in great
numbers)
1. Liking your own Post does neither harm nor support the
reach, so it’s totally up to you if this is part of your strategy.

2. When your receive a “Like” it will make LinkedIn show your

post to the next batch of approximately 1.2% (was 2.0%)
amongst your own connections. In addition it will also
become visibility to about 3% of the network from the person
that engaged.

3. Currently, a 'Like' has the least positive effect on the growth

of all actions (Comment, Share, "see more clicks") people can
do to engage

4. Internal Engagement; any act of engagement (including a

Like) that comes from a colleague (being someone
connected to the same Company Page) results in about 15%
less growth compared to engagement from non-colleagues.
Comment Strategy for Success 45

The most valuable action on LinkedIn is giving (or getting) a comment. It is

the strongest form of engagement, achieving several goals at the same time.
The algorithm loves "comments" as it is the basis of interaction.

For people who still struggle to self-publish content, a strategic comment

strategy offers a good solution. It leads to more profile visits, connection
requests and increased visibility of your own profile.

5 Ways to Use Comments Strategically on LinkedIn

1. Provide Additional Insights - State what appeals to you in this post and
add an additional insight based on your expertise.

2. Summarize the Take Aways - Your comment makes the original post
visible in your network. A good way to reinforce your brand is to make a
summary of the original post.

3. Be curious and Ask Questions - Use the post as a conversation starter.

Ask questions and engage in discussions with other members. Don't
forget to connect with people who add value

4. Share Emotions - Sharing and recognizing emotions creates a stronger

bond with your network.

5. Tag your Network to Provide them with a Stage - If you see a relevant
discussion regarding the expertise/knowledge of someone in your
network, then tag this person to give them the opportunity to contribute.
 46

All about Comments

Everything you need to know about Commenting

Stats on LinkedIn Comments

1. Commenting on your Post can either help or harm the growth of

your Post, depending on the timing.

2. Avoid giving the first comment on your own post, it will slow
down growth

3. To kick-start your own Post, comment on all received comments

in the first hour after publishing, result will be + 20% more growth

4. All “comments on comments” between the first hour and 24

hours will result in 8 - 10% additional growth.
 47

All about Comments

5. Every comment you receive will increase the reach of your post by
4% (was 8%) in your own network, and 3% in the network of the
person that commented (was 6%). Additional reach from
comments has been halved.

6. Short comments have half the impact of comments that contain

more than 12 words.

7. Adding multiple comments (2 - 4) as an Author, after 24 hours, will

relaunch the post in the feed again of all contributors, leading to
an average of +25% extra growth.

Engagement ratios:

When a simple Like would provide you with 1 additional view people
clicking on “see more” would result in 4 additional views a share
would result in 7 additional views and a Comment would result in 12
additional views is on LinkedIn
All about Shares / Reposts 48

Over the past year, LinkedIn has launched several options to make "sharing" content more attractive
and easier. First there was the feature to turn a comment into an own post with one click, and in July
of 2022 LinkedIn introduced the "repost". It seems these initiatives aim to encourage more people to
publish content on the platform.

Together with these initiatives, LinkedIn also improved the impact of a shared post.

Stats on Shares

1. When people “Share” your post in the first four hours after publishing, the impact on the
growth of the original post is huge. Up to 30% extra growth (compared to only 4% last year)

2. If you “Share” a post yourself, engagement in the first hour is a must to gain some visibility.
Without that engagement your post will achieve no more than 8 - 10% of normal reach. But
with this engagement, you might reach up to 20- 25%, still poor, but substantially better
than last year.

3. Shared posts, which are not accompanied by at least 2 lines of added own text, perform 3x
less.

4. When Company Posts are shared by employees, impact is about 30% less compared to
shared by external people.

5. Shared slide decks get the best results, followed by shared posts of multiple pictures.
Shared videos and Polls perform poorly.

6. A Repost will lead to 4% of additional reach for the original author, a lot less compared
to a Share.

7. When you Repost a Post, it will bring zero visibility to your own profile or content in the
algorithm.
 49

Hack the Share

The Hack we shared in our 2021 Report is still working to give you
better results when sharing a Post. Our International Partner Richard
Bliss discovered a hack to increase views on Shared Posts. Although some
of the steps have changed slightly.

Here are 5 Steps to have thousands see your Shared posts

1. Add at least 100 words of description to the shared post (was 150)

2. Add 3 - 5 unique hashtags (not the same as in the original post)

3. Tag the owner of the original post that you are sharing

4. Make sure the original owner of the shared post comments on your
post in the 1st hour.

5. Respond to all comments within the first 2 hours of posting

What happened to Dwell Time 50

Dwell Time was LinkedIn's response to the "Silent Community"

behaviour, implemented in the algorithm mid 2020. Over 60% of
members not only do not publish content, but also do not use the
traditional engagement buttons (like/comment/share). They scroll, read
and click, in short they consume content "in silence".

Until 6 months ago, Dwell Time was the most dominant part of the
algorithm, but its importance diminished, especially with special
format posts.

Some Dwell Time related Stats

● Dwell time still seems to be very important when sharing text posts.
We see that posts between 1,200 – 1,600 characters perform about
2.4x better in reach and engagement than posts with less than 1,000
characters

● However, with Document Posts (slides), Video and multiple Picture

post, the impact of dwell time has decreased. Less slides, less
seconds of video and less pictures bring the same results.

● LinkedIn Blogs are about 15% shorter compared to 2021, so maybe

they themselves are aware of less reading time.

● Several tests with exactly the same posts, re-published again during
this research (with now more followers than 2021) saw less reach
and engagement (-20%).
 51

Your Audience on LinkedIn

Again, we have compared some stats on our audience to one year
ago

2022 LinkedIn Audience Stats compared to 2021*

● 850 million members (was 774 million)

● Content Creators eg. People publishing posts from their own

profile 5.2% vs 4.9%

● Content Engagers eg. People using the engagement buttons

is 21.3% vs 18.6%

● Content Readers eg. People reading your content without

using engagement buttons 61% vs 64%

● Company Pages (+ 1,000 employees) sharing content weekly

74% vs 69%

● Average conversion on LinkedIn Ad Campaigns 0.42% vs

0.58%

(*) estimated numbers based on examining different independent

researches
 52

LinkedIn Groups
Communities have always been inextricably linked to social media. LinkedIn
Groups have been around since July 2005, but are hardly used by many
members. A pity because they still possess a lot of potential for networking
and positioning

Things you need to know about LinkedIn Groups

● Currently there are 2,310,000 LinkedIn Groups (0.3% growth)

● Approximately 94% of them show no activity in the last month (no new
discussions, members or admin activity)

● Posting in LinkedIn Groups does NOT influence the performance of the

content you publish in your feed directly

● However, never publish the same content first in Groups and then in
your feed. Always first in your feed, and after that consider publishing
it in groups that are still active.

● Publishing in more than five Groups at the same time, and not getting
any engagement (despite the reason for that), could flag LinkedIn that
you are a possible spammer. So choose wisely.

● Membership and activity in Groups has a positive effect on S.S.I. growth

 53

More Facts you Need to Know

Here are some loose ends that you might want to consider.

1. If you are a regular Poster (minimum two a week), and you stop
posting for more than a month, the first 4 - 5 posts will receive
about 30% less reach than before. So consistency is key!

2. Tagging yourself in the original Post, as more members have

been doing at the bottom of each Post does not impact reach
or engagement

3. For the algorithm, only the first engagement action counts.

For example, if you first give out a "Like", and immediately after
that a "Comment", the latter hardly has any influence anymore.
There must be at least 4 hours between the various actions by
the same person.

4. LinkedIn Events have suffered a major blow from not being able
to publish content anymore. Signing up for Events has
decreased overall by 25%. Especially the unclarity for attendees
whether to register also outside LinkedIn devalues this feature.
 54

More Facts you Need to Know

5. Posting on LinkedIn via 3rd-party software is no longer
penalised with reach loss. By the way, LinkedIn is working on
launching its own free scheduling tool (expected in early 2023).

6. The most converting Ad (in terms of clicks) at this moment is the

Lead Gen Form add. Average engagement rate 0.8% (compared
to 0.44% overall)

7. Product Pages (only available to Companies active in specific

industries) have a very low organic visibility and are hardly
used at the moment

8. Over the past 2 months LinkedIn is experiencing problems

with refreshing the Home Feed. Many members see the same
(old) post over and over again after refreshing. LinkedIn is
working on a solution, but this definitely has a negative impact
of reach for all of us.
 55

More Facts you Need to Know

9. There was a rumor that if you left LinkedIn after publishing a
post, LinkedIn would give you more reach to make you come
back soon. Not confirmed!

10. Last year we had evidence that there were actually 2 algorithms
active on LinkedIn, one for mobile app and one for
laptop/desktop. While it’s still true that LinkedIn show different
content device specific, and we see different engagement rates,
it seems fair to say that the differences are almost levelled out.

11. Be aware of negative engagement as it can break your

reputation on LinkedIn and as a result will provide you with less
reach for your future posts. Negative engagement can be:

● people unfollowing you

● people blocking/reporting you

● people disconnecting with you

● people removing a mention

 56
Let’s Connect!
Need help in implementing all the learnings in your Marketing
and Content Strategy? Want to deepen the knowledge and
accelerate the success of your sales team?

Invite me for an Inspiration Session or one of our many

tailor-made training programs like:

● Social Selling / Sales Navigator Program

● Marketing Program including Analysis

● Thought Leadership / Digital Leadership

● Employee Advocacy Training

Book any of the Programs above before December 31st 2022 and
receive a 10% discount by using “Algo Report 2022” in your
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Social Selling? Or do you want me as a guest speaker for your
Event, PodCast, LinkedIn Live or webinar.

I am one Digital Step away from you…

 57

Who we are…
About Just Connecting - LinkedIn & Social Selling HUB About Richard van der Blom

Why we are the right partner for your business! Founder of Just Connecting, Keynote Speaker on LinkedIn / Sales
Events in Dubai, Marrakesh, Boston, London, Copenhagen etc.
● 14 international operating LinkedIn experts and consultants,
100% dedicated to LinkedIn 10+ million views on LinkedIn in 2021, Member of a European
LinkedIn Think Tank, Initiator of the algorithm Report and author
● Covering all LinkedIn related topics like Social Selling, Sales of over 200 blogs and Carousels on LinkedIn
Navigator, Marketing, Advertising, Recruitment and Employer
Branding/Advocacy Founder of the TRIBE, a paid community to grow your business by
using LinkedIn effectively and strategically, offering 3 live online
● Able to provide training sessions in 7 native languages! training sessions a month, a vibrant Slack channel and a complete
library of materials, videos and checklists.
● Providing training sessions online or on -site

● Always with the latest knowledge on new and future features

and developments.

● Based on proven strategies, research, facts and stats. Enriched

with best practices from working successfully with over 850
international companies.

● All together we trained and inspired over 800.000

professionals in leveraging LinkedIn for their business goals