How To Get More Impressions on LinkedIn

Ah, the LinkedIn algorithm. The subject of never-ending complaints.

Creators put in tons of effort, and… crickets. It's the worst. But simply asking "how do I get more impressions?" is a bit like asking "how do I get more money?"

It's something that results from having done other things well — and it's also not entirely in your control.

Let's go through it step by step: how LinkedIn decides if a post gets more or less visibility, what to do if your reach has dropped significantly in 2024–2026 vs prior years, and a few tactics to think about today. By the end, you'll have a solid understanding of how to leverage LinkedIn's algorithm to give you more visibility.

What LinkedIn "Wants" You To Do

Let's first cover the technical fundamentals of when a post gets reach, as well as how this can depend on the industry and what role LinkedIn's vision plays in all of this.

This part is less actionable, so if you're already familiar with the foundations, jump straight to the tips below.

LinkedIn's Mission Statement

"Connect the world's professionals to make them more productive and successful." — LinkedIn wants to encourage interaction between people on the platform.

By knowing what LinkedIn wants and how its algorithm was designed, we can dig deeper to see how they decide who gets reach and who doesn't stand a chance. Impressions are a key metric for evaluating content performance and understanding how well your posts are resonating with your audience. Reach and engagement can vary widely, and this is often due to different factors affecting LinkedIn impressions — post timing, content relevance, and audience interaction.

And what does LinkedIn want? They want you to stay in the feed, liking and commenting on posts. They know that if you do this, you and others will engage with their advertising products, premium offerings, and more.

To figure out how to create content that gets seen, reverse that: you want to create content that has a higher chance of more people reacting to it and commenting on it. Easier said than done, right? But there's a subtlety here: a lot of people don't create content with an inherently high chance of getting a reaction. Instead, they rely on generic AI-generated posts, or they share blogs from their company page, or they just write whatever they feel like.

Later on, we'll talk about how to blend what message you need to share with the market, and what message is going to resonate with others.

How The LinkedIn Algorithm Works

The LinkedIn algorithm works in layers. The first layer is a detector of "viral spam", and it works like this:

1. Does it match past 'spammy' posts? If so, the post immediately gets flagged. This is sometimes called "shadowbanning".
2. If not, it moves to the "continue displaying" stage below.

Get Early Engagement Signals

Assuming your post doesn't hit the initial spam filter, LinkedIn starts by showing your post to a cherry-picked audience of people who are online and most likely to engage. Let's call this your "core network." To maximize early engagement, you need three things:

1. To have a strong core network of people who support you
2. To post when your core network is actually online
3. For your post to give your core network a reason to engage

In short: do you have a "LinkedIn crew," big or small? Are you creating when they're online, and are you creating what they want to engage with?

If you are new to LinkedIn and don't have this yet, go out and make friends. Help people get to know you. Support them. Build community.

Increase Dwell Time & Engagement Rate

The main things you want people to do when they see your post in their feed are:

1. Spend time looking at it — literally have your post on their screen, aka "stop their scroll"
2. Engage with it at a high rate

Make 'em stop, make 'em stay, make 'em mash the like button and feel compelled to leave a comment.

Observe yourself for a bit as you scroll LinkedIn. What makes you stop? What makes you engage? A little self-observation goes a long way.

Note: LinkedIn impressions refer to the number of times your content appears on someone's feed, regardless of whether users interact with it. Every time someone views your post for at least 300 milliseconds or your content is at least 50% in view on their screen, it counts as an impression.

Become Their Favorite Show

When you create content consistently, your core group learns to love — and in a way, depend on — seeing your content. They're watching your posts because you have become a familiar source of infotainment to them, in the way that any of us might tune in to a favorite series every week. In this way, you grow your core network over time.

So, assuming your core network is engaging with your post… what happens then? It gets shown to a slightly wider audience.

When LinkedIn runs out of cherry-picked core people to show your content to, it has to reach a little. Eventually, to truly "go viral" — seen by millions — it has to be confirmed by a human editor. There's an editorial team that decides what content themes they want to amplify, and posts that resonate with their goals get the viral push.

Pro Tip: When content appears in someone's feed, it can generate different types of impressions: organic impressions occur naturally; paid impressions come from sponsored content; and viral impressions happen when your content is shared widely and reaches new audiences.

Play The Algorithm Game

Now that you understand how the algorithm works, you know you need to:

→ Create content that your core network loves
→ But that your wider audience can also resonate with

And if you want to go viral?

→ You need to publish what just about anyone can enjoy
→ AND it needs to align with LinkedIn's preferred editorial themes

If that sounds a lot like watering down your content and playing into the trend of fluffy posts that just about anyone can mash the "like" button on… you're right. That's the cost of chasing virality every time: you water down your core message.

So, what's a creator to do? We think that 95% of the time, you should try to go semi-viral. Create for your initial core network and your broader industry, but not for the "general professional public." Less than 5% of the time? Play the trends. Just don't expect a feel-good post to drive pipeline.

A Simple Guide To Increasing Reach

When it comes to improving your impressions on LinkedIn, it mainly depends on two factors: the technical aspect of posting, and your content strategy.

Technical Details

Best time to post: To determine the best time to post on LinkedIn, you need to understand your audience — what they do, how often they use their devices, and when they're likely to open LinkedIn. People tend to scroll LinkedIn during weekdays, right before getting seriously into work (tea breaks, lunch breaks), and Friday mornings. For North American professionals with a somewhat global audience, these times tend to work best:

The kind of connections you have: Your connections greatly impact your reach and impressions. If you have lots of connections who don't care about what you share, they're most likely to skip your posts entirely.

As a general rule, always add relevant connections and routinely prune connections who are inactive or not part of your main ecosystem:

• People who are from your industry
• People you wish to work with
• Your target audience
• Your peers who do the same work as you
• Decision-makers you would like to impress with your content

You can also keep your profile in good health by withdrawing pending connection requests older than 3–4 weeks — if someone was going to accept, they probably would have by now.

Your consistency: Being consistent in posting pays off on LinkedIn. Create a posting schedule and stick with it. Plan and batch-create your posts in advance and use a scheduling tool to stay on schedule.

Your LinkedIn Profile: While we're talking about impressions, your profile has a lot to do with how your audience reacts when stumbling across your posts. People have thousands of connections — they might not remember everyone. When they come across your post and find it interesting, they'll check out your profile. And your profile helps them form an impression about you.

• Upload a clear, professional headshot — do not leave the profile picture blank.
• Write a proper headline that showcases the work you do, your personality, and your mission.
• Talk about your professional journey in your About section and mention your past experiences.

Liven Up Your LinkedIn Content Strategy

Content Pillars: Having defined content pillars is essential for a focused LinkedIn strategy. They help you target different pain points of your audience and keep your content varied. Some ideas:

• Behind-the-scenes content
• Educational content
• Strategic narrative content
• Motivational content
• Thought-leadership posts from the founder

Content Formats: Different content formats get different impressions and engagement on LinkedIn. If you've been posting a specific kind of content for a while and still not seeing results, it's time to mix up the format. Here are your options:

• Text posts as a listicle or narrative — something intriguing to read and easy to follow.
• LinkedIn newsletters are a great way to repurpose blog posts, social media posts, and videos when you need more length to unpack your ideas.
• Polls generate curiosity around a topic and ask people for their opinions.
• LinkedIn videos help you stand apart from the crowd and get noticed by your target audience quickly.

• Image posts and carousels have a lasting impact. These are the kind of posts that urge people to save and share. Carousels in particular perform extremely well for reach and dwell time.

• Posts that showcase your wins and achievements — pair these with a relevant photo to increase visibility significantly.

• Short one-liners drive engagement like nothing else — just bring your personality, or bring out your funny side.

How To Increase Impressions By Boosting Your Content Performance

All of the following tips can't guarantee your post will take off, but they are designed to help you achieve more LinkedIn impressions over time. These strategies will help you improve your content performance in the long haul.

Create Content That People Engage With

Engagement is important. Remember: you can have a lot of impressions but reach people who aren't relevant to your goals.

People only engage with posts that are valuable to them — either entertaining or educational. Post content that aligns with your content pillars and positively showcases your personal brand.

For example: you might post a funny GIF. Does that help you with your business? Probably not.

How to write engaging content:

• Use active voice, write in simple language that's easy to skim, and use short sentences to make your posts more readable.
• Experiment with different content types for your industry and audience (text only, video, image, PDF) and measure what works best for you.
• At the end of the post, ask a relevant question.
• Tag 1–3 connections in the post or comments to ask for their opinion. But make sure these are people who will comment — if they don't, you'll get dinged.

Increase Your Post Dwell Time

Dwell time is the time a user spends on your post — viewing it, reading the comments, etc. You want that time to be as long as possible, because it signals to LinkedIn that your content is relevant, so it rewards you with more potential reach.

How to increase dwell time:

• Engage with the comments you receive — as quickly as possible. Avoid generic replies. Be engaging, share valuable insights, ask open-ended questions.
• Experiment with longer content — share an engaging story with a moral, a concept you have strong opinions about, or a detailed case study.
• Use line breaks to make your content more readable and extend scroll duration. Leverage bullet points, shorter paragraphs, and formatting when possible.
• A video, PDF carousel, or infographic may also increase dwell time. Your objective is to grab the user's attention right at the beginning to make them click through.
• Bonus tip: Images or infographics that are intentionally information-dense and hard to read at a glance work very well for maximizing dwell time.

Skip The Hashtags

Hashtags used to help expand your organic reach and make your content reach your target audience. However, as of 2024 and beyond, hashtags are no longer a meaningful factor in post reach. You can skip them.

Repurposing Content To Multiply Your Impressions

One of the smartest ways to increase your impressions on LinkedIn is by repurposing your existing content. Instead of always starting from scratch, take your best-performing blog posts, articles, or videos and adapt them into new LinkedIn posts, infographics, or short video clips. This approach lets you reach a wider audience by presenting your ideas in different formats that appeal to different types of LinkedIn users.

Summary: How To Write Content That Generates Reach

In the end, it all comes down to two things:

• Did I write content that appeals to my target audience?
• Have I made the effort to optimize my content technically?

When you can tick both boxes, chances are that your post will generate a fairly good amount of impressions.

But don't be fooled: even if you did write great content and optimized it technically, your post can still disappear in the feed. In this case, you can repost your content — yes, that's possible — or share it via one of your brand pages.

Write content that matters and make sure it's easy to interact with. And if you want to understand what's working and what isn't, start by grading your posts to get concrete feedback on what to improve.