Write from your heart. Speak to your audience. Refine for the algorithm.

In October 2024, the newest updates for LinkedIn hit the scene, courtesy of Richard van der Blom and Just Connecting. The results are based on an analysis of 621,833 posts across 27,705 personal profiles and 10,750 company pages.

Purple Page Marketing learned the original report back to front upon its release in February 2024. Since the update’s release, we have refined and optimized our LinkedIn content preparation standards even more.

We think you should know the following to make your LinkedIn content work and position you in your target audience. There’s too much great material here to fit into just one article, so we’ll be doing a few of these in the coming weeks!

Feed him… the Feed Composition

The report opens up by outlining, almost disdainfully, that commerical purposes drive 47% of all posts appearing in users’ feeds. Promoted content has jumped to 34% (from 28%), while LinkedIn ads now occupy 13% (up from 11%).

Single-author and multiple-author posts are down, and organic company page content is almost negligible, at just 2%.

Video Posts

But we know what LinkedIn loves… video content. While most content types show declining reach, native video has bucked the trend with a 25% increase in reach. They released their new video feed feature a few months ago with the goal of increasing engagement for the mobile app.

The goal, we think, is to work toward changing LinkedIn’s perception from a platform you use just at your desk, to a platform you integrate into your day-to-day life. This is further evidenced by the fact that short-form, vertical content performs 2.2X better than horizontal.

Best Practices:

• Keep characters between 500-800
• Aim for 30-90 seconds
• Use captions for people scrolling without audio

With personal posts getting less visibility and commercial content taking over the feed, marketers need to find new ways to stand out without coming across as too promotional and risking alienating their audience.

Other Content Formats to Dish Out

A LinkedIn presence cannot live on video alone.

Well, it could, but that’s not going to be effective for a B2B company. You need a healthy mix of content formats as part of a well-balanced marketing breakfast.

Carousels

Unlike Instagram, carousels on LinkedIn are documents, or PDFs instead of images. These are great ways to repurpose and stretch out content, but they can be challenging to get just right. With a 43% decline in reach from March 2023 to March 2024, is it even worth it?

Yes. Because total engagement from carousels only dipped 14%. Not bad, considering the drop in reach for all content types across the board.

Best Practices:

• Create 6-12 slides for optimal engagement
• Limit text to 25-50 words per slide
• Emphasize educational and process-focused content

Images with Text

It’s the go-to, default, always reliable LinkedIn post type. While not particularly volatile, image posts remain relatively stable in terms of reach. 

Every LinkedIn presence needs a hearty diet of Image posts to consistently bring a brand presence (personal or corporate) to life. People like them, the algorithm likes them, marketers like them. So keep them up!

Best Practices:

• Use infographics, (relevant) selfies, and flowcharts
• Encourage engagement with multiple photos (3-5)
• Keep the character count between 900 and 1,500 characters

Text-Only Posts

Reduced-fat hasn’t been popular since the early 2000s. LinkedIn wants the good stuff. While it can be challenging to get text-only posts to succeed, they’re a great addition to a well-developed content strategy.

That said, reach for text-only posts is down 35% and engagement is down 22%.

The most important thing is to have a good hook so the viewer will click “more” even without an accompanying piece of media. Keep the beginning unintimidating for the reader and guide them through the post from beginning to end by breaking up the text into shorter sentences.

Best Practices:

• Stick with 12-20 lines rather than long paragraphs
• 600-1,200 characters, or as many as you want
• Be certain of yourself and your ability to take risks on low performance

Polls

Do you actually want to have a discussion, or do you just want to hear yourself talk? Ask yourself that question before posting a poll these days on LinkedIn.

Polls saw a 20% drop in reach which isn’t the worst, but isn’t that great either.

It’s hard to say whether you should keep your polls confined to the table of your industry, or relax with your people on LinkedIn’s couch.

Ok we really beat that metaphor to death. We’re trying to say that you should keep in mind whether your audience wants to participate in polls that are there just for fun, or whether they want to contribute a piece of their experience by answering.

Instead of just asking what’s your favorite food, ask what’s your favorite cuisine to enjoy with a client.

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The algorithm isn’t the only thing to consider when you’re using LinkedIn to build your network and support your personal brand. It may be important, but it’s not nearly as important as posting authentic content that represents who you really are.

Don’t feed into the commercialism! Keep your posts a positive addition to users’ feeds. It’ll work wonders for growing your B2B business.

In the next article, we’ll get into the differences between posting to be above average, and posting to reach the top 5% on LinkedIn.

Yes, there are differences. It’s riskier and harder, but it pays off.

Until then, keep experimenting with these content formats, measure your results, and remember: write from your heart, speak to your audience, and refine for the algorithm.

Key Takeaways

• Feed Composition: Commercial content now dominates LinkedIn feeds, with promoted content and ads taking up 47% of users’ feeds
• Video Content: Native video has seen a 25% increase in reach, with short-form vertical content performing 2.2X better than horizontal.
• Content Strategy: Maintain a balanced mix of content formats for effective B2B marketing on LinkedIn.
• Authenticity: Prioritize authentic content that represents your brand, rather than solely focusing on algorithm optimization.
• Engagement: Create content that adds value to users’ feeds and encourages meaningful interaction.