Allison C. Johs, Esq., is the President of Legal Ease Consulting Inc., where she helps lawyers build productive, profitable, and enjoyable practices. A former litigator and law firm administrator, Allison draws on more than 15 years of legal experience to coach lawyers on marketing, business development, productivity, and practice management. She’s also the co-author of How to Do More in Less Time and Make LinkedIn Work for You.
LinkedIn now rewards relevance over recency, so consistent, value-driven posts and meaningful engagement are key to visibility.
Authentic interaction—especially thoughtful commenting—builds stronger relationships and authority than self-promotion alone.
Using varied, mobile-friendly content formats and tracking analytics helps you reach a wider audience and refine what resonates most.
Whether you’re seeking new business opportunities, building your personal brand, or expanding your professional network, understanding how to adapt your LinkedIn engagement strategies can make a significant difference in your results. With algorithm shifts, evolving features, and increasing competition for attention, it is harder to get your content in front of the right audience and drive meaningful engagement.
This article explores six practical ways to optimize your LinkedIn approach so you can maximize your impact and achieve your LinkedIn goals.
You may have noticed when reviewing your LinkedIn News Feed that you are probably seeing more posts in your feed that are several days or even a week old. LinkedIn is shifting focus from emphasizing only the newest posts to highlighting the posts it considers to be the most relevant, regardless of whether you have your feed sorted by “recent” or “top” posts. The more relevant LinkedIn considers the post, the more people see that post in their feed.
LinkedIn’s algorithm determines relevance to you by looking at a number of factors. These may include who is in your LinkedIn network, your interests, who you regularly interact with on LinkedIn, and what content you interact with. But LinkedIn also evaluates the content itself for overall relevance. Content that demonstrates knowledge or provides guidance or advice is likely to be considered more relevant than content that is more promotional or content that is unrelated to your industry or area of expertise.
As a consumer of content on LinkedIn, you need to be more proactive in curating your LinkedIn feed to give LinkedIn the information it needs to provide content that is relevant to you.
Curate your feed by:
Spending more time on the posts that are relevant and interesting to you.
Taking the time to react, or even better, to comment on content that you find valuable (Comments are twice as important to LinkedIn as likes on your post in determining relevance).
Use the “not interested” or “unfollow” buttons to reduce unwanted content in your feed.
As a content creator (or sharer) on LinkedIn, make sure that you are connected to people in your target audience, that you post consistently, and that the content you post on LinkedIn provides value for them. This makes it more likely that they will interact with your posts, a signal to LinkedIn that your post is relevant, getting it shared by more users.
LinkedIn will typically show your posts to your connections first, before people who are outside of your network. If your connections are interested in the post, spend time reading it, engage with it by joining the conversation in the comments or sharing the post with their network, which signals to LinkedIn that your content is useful to them, and LinkedIn’s algorithm will show that post to more users, including those outside of your network.
Although relevance is emphasized over recency in the feed, the timing of your posts is still important. LinkedIn weighs the engagement your post receives during the first few hours, including how much time is spent on the post and how many reactions and comments it receives. Posting when your target audience is most likely to see it will increase the likelihood that you will get those important interactions soon after you post.
LinkedIn prioritizes content that encourages users to spend more time on the platform because its goal is to keep users on LinkedIn as long as possible. The more time users spend on the platform, the better it is for LinkedIn’s advertisers, and ads are one of LinkedIn’s main sources of revenue.
If your content pushes users off of LinkedIn, it will be visible to fewer people. For example, sharing links to articles or other resources has been a popular way of sharing content on LinkedIn. But more recently, LinkedIn has been disfavoring posts containing external links, mainly because external links take users away from LinkedIn and to another site. Some experts even recommend that if you do include a link in a post, you remove the link preview.
But that doesn’t mean you should never include links in a LinkedIn post.
First, consider your goal for the post. You may not need to reach a wide audience. Reaching a few of the right users may be enough if your goal isn’t just visibility. If you want a few users to take a specific action, such as visiting a specific resource or signing up for an event, it might make sense to include the link. If you post consistently and you vary the type of content you post (see below), posting external links occasionally shouldn’t affect your overall effectiveness on LinkedIn.
Second, if you include multiple links within your post, as opposed to a single link, it can demonstrate that you have a deep knowledge of the subject and that you are a useful resource. LinkedIn may view that post as more authoritative, and therefore more, rather than less, relevant, resulting in publication of the post to a wider audience.
If you want your content to get noticed, consider one of these alternatives to external links:
Post a PDF of the document or article right in the LinkedIn post.
Write the article on LinkedIn’s Publisher platform and link to that instead of linking to the external source. LinkedIn generates a unique URL for any article you publish on LinkedIn, so you can include a link in your post without being penalized, since the link keeps users within the LinkedIn environment. (You can still include an external link to the original, external source within the article).
Break the article or resource up into a series of long-form posts and post them as text on LinkedIn.
Repurpose the content by turning it into an infographic or carousel post.
Develop a LinkedIn newsletter and include your article in the newsletter.
Another way to grow your audience and your influence on LinkedIn is to vary the format of your posts. LinkedIn allows a variety of content formats, including text, images, documents, slide presentations, and videos.
By choosing different ways to convey your expertise on LinkedIn, you can demonstrate the depth of your knowledge and connect with various segments of your audience, each with their own preferred ways of consuming content.
Remember that posting on LinkedIn isn’t (and shouldn’t be) limited to sharing your own original or branded content. It is also important to share content from other users and content creators that would be helpful for your audience.
Some LinkedIn preferences to keep in mind:
Native video is preferred over video posted from another platform (like YouTube).
The more authentic and human your content is, the better. When your content looks like it was written or created by a bot, not only do you run the risk of alienating your audience, but you also could potentially face penalties from LinkedIn itself.
Videos or carousel posts that tell stories or explain concepts can do very well on LinkedIn. Clear images and video get users’ attention and pull them out of their “doom scrolling” mode. They also put a face on your content, making it more human and relatable.
Consistency is key. Not only will it help the LinkedIn algorithm to recognize you as a valuable contributor, but it will also help your LinkedIn audience and your connections to expect and look for content from you on a regular basis.
Recent research has revealed that over 70% of LinkedIn use occurs on a mobile device, rather than a desktop.
To improve the engagement and reach of your posts, you’ll need to ensure that they are optimized for mobile viewers. Using a tool like AuthoredUp's Post Preview Generator that allows you to see how your content will be displayed on different devices can help you ensure that your LinkedIn network will get the best possible experience viewing your content.
Mobile readers don’t like large walls of text. What looks like a short paragraph on a desktop might seem like War and Peace on mobile. Write short paragraphs, leave plenty of white space, and use bullet points to break up paragraphs. Post vertical images or video for the best mobile user experience.
LinkedIn prioritizes content from users who engage, rather than just dumping their content and leaving. LinkedIn wants users to engage in conversation and exchange ideas (thus keeping them on the platform longer). It is a networking platform. If you were networking “in real life,” you wouldn’t walk into a room, make an announcement, and leave immediately. You shouldn’t do it on LinkedIn either. You’re there to make conversation, to listen as well as to speak. The goal is to interact with others and to build relationships.
One of the best ways to interact with others on LinkedIn is through comments. And if you’re concerned about consistently generating content for LinkedIn, commenting may be your LinkedIn strategy of choice. In fact, some experts say that the fastest way to grow your audience and your influence on LinkedIn now is by commenting, rather than posting.
Commenting gives you access to an audience (your connections’ connections) you might not be able to reach otherwise. Commenting on a variety of users’ posts means you won’t look like a spammer or annoy your own connections with too many posts.
But all comments are not created equal. Comments like “great post!” without more are of limited value to the post’s visibility and don’t add much to your own authority either. Make sure your comments add value to the conversation, rather than just wasting time. Revisit the post to see whether other users have commented on your comments or added anything to the discussion you’d like to respond to.
Along the same lines, make sure you respond to comments you receive on your own posts. Sometimes, the conversations that occur in the comments section, the insights you receive from other users, the inspiration for further posts, or additional guidance you can provide far outweigh the value of the original post.
How often do you look at your LinkedIn analytics? LinkedIn provides you with detailed analytics to help you determine which content resonates most with your audience and which content LinkedIn views as most relevant. To find this information, navigate to any of your posts and click on the View Analytics link at the bottom of the post.
You can see not only how many impressions your post received on LinkedIn (how many people were shown your post in their feed—an indicator of relevance), but also more important metrics about the post, including how many people viewed your profile from that post, how many followers you gained, how many people reacted (i.e. like, celebrate), commented, shared it, sent it to others on LinkedIn, or saved it.
LinkedIn now also allows you to see some metrics on the comments you leave. If you go to the post or to Comments in your Activity on your LinkedIn profile, you can see the number of impressions your comment received. This information is visible only to you.
Armed with this information, you can analyze your best-performing posts to see what elements you want to repeat in the future, what subjects your audience is most interested in, and how you approach new content you create.
Regardless of what you post on LinkedIn, focus on providing value and engaging thoughtfully and consistently with your audience and other LinkedIn users. LinkedIn is more than just a platform for sharing your content and ideas. It is an ongoing conversation. Invest the time to actively participate and analyze your results, and you'll build stronger relationships, expand your reach, and position yourself as a trusted voice in your network.
For more insights into how social media can help your law firm strengthen client relationships and expand its reach, read Making Social Media Work for Law Firms.