STRACOM
How to reach one billion people
When clients ask us about thought leadership at Stracom, they’re usually thinking of a centre-piece profile in The Times. Sandwiching their thoughts on LinkedIn, in between posts telling the world they are ‘thrilled AND EXCITED to have completed my ergonomics for beginners class’? Not so much.
But we do both. Because as LinkedIn surpasses one billion members, ignoring their huge reach is at best reckless, and at worse, damaging. And if you’re going to dive in, make the effort count.
​
LinkedIn displays posts to other members according to their algorithm which unsurprisingly they don’t publish. However, thanks to the comprehensive Algorithm Insights 2024 report which studied over a million posts and tens of thousands of profiles, they have crunched the numbers so you don’t have to. But at 123 pages, we thought a summary might be useful.
​
So here are the key takeaways for producing a perfect post in LinkedIn’s most popular format – that’s a plain text post with an image – to generate the most reach and engagement. As ever, these are guidelines, not absolutes but very, very useful to know.
-
Short sentences under 12 words perform best.​​
-
The perfect length is 900-1200 characters. Drop is for every 300 characters you go over. NB 1800-2100 character limit if without images.
-
Strong hook or opening is effective (30% applies to text only posts)
-
Ending posts with a question gives a 20-40% boost to engagement (applies to text only posts)
-
Salesy posts - overly promotional. You know the ones.-S​​​​
Perfect content
Perfect visuals
-
The best images are relevant - preferably including people which will give a 15-20% increase in reach.
-
Selfies are event better with a 30% increase.
-
If you choose personalised images, your engagement will increase by 45%
-
More than one photo will see a 5% increase in reach but only to a maximum of 5
-
Unsurprisingly, using branding increases brand recall
-
Vertical images work best as 65% of users are on mobile.
Perfect publishing
-
For text and images, the most effective window to publish is Monday to Friday 7-10:30am
-
How much you engage with the post will determine reach for the next 6 hours
-
How much you engage in your post will determine the following 18 hours. So keep nurturing your post once published in these early hours
-
Use hashtags and keywords (three to five) but never @morethaneightpeople else you'll trigger the LinkedIn spam filter