Latest LinkedIn Statistics on Personal Branding 

You can use personal branding to:

1. “Post five times per day”
2. “Post more video content”
3. “Post at 8:27AM PST!”

But I’ve not seen anything recent that supports many of these statements. 

Until now.

To answer questions such as:

1. How frequently do the top artists post? 
2. Reposts make up how many of the top posts?  
3. What types of posts are most popular (carousels, images, videos)?)?

You can learn how to leverage this data in this blog post.

How these statistics were developed

First of all I recognize that 300 total posts and 100 LinkedIn profiles are a small sample.

LinkedIn limits the size of a sample, so it’s difficult to get a bigger one. 

Even a small sampling of data can reveal dominant trends. 

The data presented here is not intended to provide hard and fast rules. This data sheds some light on a few trends that you can use to help improve your LinkedIn strategy.

We only looked at LinkedIn profiles that:

1. At least 40 comments are required per post
2. Posting at least 30 posts in the last six months 
3. Followers below 500,000

Our elimination was made possible by the minimum requirements of 30 posts within the past six months, and less than 500 000 followers. “business celebrities” (i.e., well-known entrepreneurs/executives with thriving personal brands outside of LinkedIn).

The data can be used to reveal tactics and strategy that anyone could use to expand on LinkedIn.

Sam Altman, for example, could write anything and it would be highly engaging simply because his brand is well-known outside of LinkedIn. If you were to copy his post style and format exactly, the results would be less than stellar. This is because Sam Altman has more of a network outside LinkedIn.

Each influencer’s top 3 posts was also examined. We defined “top performing” As the posts that had the highest engagement over the last six months, and collected data on 300 posts. 

Chrome Plugin used for data collection Creator Match I manually inputted the data of each LinkedIn influencer in a spreadsheet.

1.) LinkedIn users post on average at least three times a day. 

It’s important to post frequently.

• LinkedIn Creators 91% post at least three times a week. 
• LinkedIn Creators Post at Least Once Every Two Days 72%
• LinkedIn users post on average at least one time per day. 

To avoid including influencers, as mentioned in my data collection methodology, I only included LinkedIn Influencers who posted at least thirty times within the past 180 day. “business celebrities” People who have a strong brand will generate more engagement, regardless of how well-versed they are in LinkedIn.

But I was surprised that ALL the influencers we studied (influencers whose average number of comments per post is at least 40, and who have fewer than 500 000 followers) published at least every 5 days.

Two of the 100 random influencers selected in this study only posted once every four day.

Posting frequently on LinkedIn is essential to personal branding.  

Most people spend too long crafting the perfect content post. Instead, you would see better returns if you posted the best possible content in the shortest amount of time. 

It makes sense to spend hours, even days or weeks, on a piece of outstanding evergreen content, for channels like YouTube or SEO, but the secret for success with LinkedIn is frequent posting.

Posting is easy! Post more frequently!

2.) A majority of content (59%) is image-based. 

The data set consisted of 12184 LinkedIn posts.

The most common type of post was an image, with more than half (59%).

This is the complete breakdown of all post types. (Note that numbers are rounded).

• The total number of posts that were text-based was 12%
• The total number of video posts is 11%
• The total number of carousel posts is 17%.
• The majority of posts are images.
• Polls made up >1% of the total
• The newsletters accounted for 1% of total.

It surprised me that the majority of creators use images for their posts. Many Linkedin content creators recommend video or carousel post as it may result in higher engagement. Yet, images are still the mainstay of most creators. 

This is probably because posting frequently is the key. 

Since carousels take longer to produce, most creatives prefer image-based content. 

Takeaway #4: 67% top posts are images 

It was interesting to me that the majority of top-performing posts are image-based. Best of the best 

The top-three performing posts were defined by “highest engagement” – a combination of the most comments, likes, and shares) from each creator in the past 180 days. 

In this sample of 300 posts that performed the best, it was clear that images were still the number one performer. 

• Carousels accounted for 16% of all posts 
• 67% were image posts
• 9% were text posts 
• 8 % of the posts were videos 

First, this information surprised me.

Videos and carousels? You can also find out more about the following: Even if they weren’t posted as often by the creators, these videos would still have the highest performance.

There are several reasons that image-based posts continue to perform well.

1. What is the ROI on Luck? If you create more content that is text based, the chances are greater for it to be successful. The next two factors I think have the most impact.

2. Content Matters More Than Content MediumYou can easily focus on the medium of content rather than its substance. If you simply cured cancer, and then explained the process, your content will perform well regardless of how you choose to present it: as a video or graphic. Instead of focusing on the medium or hacks, focus on your content.

3. Instant ComprehensionVideo, carousel and other media require people to spend more time with the material. “get the point.” Instant understanding is essential for social media.

Here’s the breakdown of the most popular posts in relation to all the posts:

Takeaway #4: A quarter of all posts that contain an image or a video do not originate from the author

Most people won’t use LinkedIn to post because they’re not willing to hire designers or make their own videos.

You don’t have to produce unique graphics or video. 

According to the data, 16% of all the most popular images and videos are those that were borrowed from another creator (with the permission of that creator).

Here’s A great example on how Reno Perry used a graphic created by another artist to enhance his blog post:

You can sometimes even use someone else’s creative idea or entire concept (so long as they are credited). 

Here’Kyle Poyar is a good example of how to use this type of strategy:

You’ve already learned that the frequency of your LinkedIn posts is a key indicator of success. So, if you are really in a bind and have to create something fast, take heed of this advice and borrow another person’s video or graphic. Just make sure you give credit. 

You can build many more relationships by sharing their content.

Takeaway #5 – 37% of top performing images based posts are professionally designed graphics

The majority of top-performing image posts were not professionally designed graphics. They were simply cell phone photos taken by the original creator. 

As an example, here is the image of one of this artist’s most popular posts. 

LinkedIn, as a first-class social network platform is the best way to engage your audience. 

Then, you can say that the You can also find out more about the quality of our products. Your engagement may be increased if your graphics illustrate tips or blueprints, as this will draw your target audience. However, personal photos also build trust.   

Takeaway #6. 17% top-performing posts were reposts 

After I analyzed the data, it became clear that most of the posts in the top 3 were reposts. This is an example.

In order to analyze what made a particular post outlier, I did not include any reposts in my main dataset of 300 posts. We then went back later and counted how many posts from each creator’s top three were reposts.

Answer: 17% 

Takeaway: Repost your best performing posts regularly. 

The original content is often more popular than the reposted version. 

It is possible that the original creator of the version had a larger audience when it was reposted. 

It still shows, however, that many of your followers might not have seen (or remembered) your previous content. So, there is a benefit to reposting old content. 

The statistics of reposts are broken down into the following categories:

• The top 17 posts are reposts
• For 36% of profiles analysed, reposts were among the 3 most popular posts.
• The original post is outperformed by more than half (67%) the number of reposts.

Takeaway #7 Engagement drops dramatically with increasing follower counts 

Below is a breakdown of the average engagement rate for different numbers of followers:

1. Influencers who have between 200,000 and 500,000 followers average a 0.5% engagement rate
2. Influencers who have between 100,000 and 200,000 followers average a rate of engagement of 0.91% 
3. The average engagement rate of influencers between 50 and 100 followers is 0.92%
4. Influencers who have less than 50,000 followers average a 1.38% engagement rate

The statistic is surprising, but reinforces what we said above: it’s important to repost content when your number of followers grows because your most loyal fans may not see your entire content. 

The importance of a growing newsletter is also reinforced by this statistic, since email is one channel where you can control your audience. You are able to ensure that every subscriber will see the content. 

Takeaway #8. The majority of publications are published between 8AM and 11AM PDT. 

Most often, the most popular publishing time is between 8AM PDT and 11AM EST. 

Though it was a sample from around the world, I observed that many of these LinkedIn influencers were based in the United States. 

Takeaway #9 Only 17% (or 177 posts) of the top-performing LinkedIn posts include other creators/companies

Tags and collaborations can help to increase engagement. 

This post Referenced Rand Fishkin’s data and showed how he used it to improve his processes is an excellent example of how other influencers can be included in your content. 

Rand responded to the article and organically it gained more exposure.

This statistic serves as a reminder that, while some of the common LinkedIn tips can increase your reach (e.g., tag influencers), you could waste valuable time optimizing your content, when posting more often would yield a higher ROI.

Also, I want to point out that there was a limit of two people who could be tagged on a piece of media.

It surprised me because I had assumed that roundups, such as the post below, would attract more interest. 

It is important to note that the quality of content and relationships with organic partners will always win out. “engagement strategies.”

Takeaway #10 88% of top performing posts had zero hashtags

LinkedIn hashtags are less popular (or less used) as 88% posts do not include hashtags. 

Most people only add one hashtag, and even then, they are not all that creative. 

Only 34% of the hashtagged posts had three or more hashtags. 

Use hashtags with caution. They aren’t nearly as relevant as they used to be. 

Takeaway #11. 14% of top-performing posts had a gated deal

You will often find gated LinkedIn postings where users must leave a comment before they can receive the free resource. 

This is an example.

So, I was expecting these gated postings to account for a significant percentage of all the best performing posts. 

Only 14 % of the best performing positions were gated.

You can use gate posts to help build a mailing list, but only sparingly. 

Try to get the email address of your visitors if you are gating content.

LinkedIn can remove your account or content at any point. Capturing emails allows you to own your audience, and ensure that each follower gets your content. 

Takeaway #12: External links are 18% of the top-performing posts 

While we noted that external links were included in 18% of our top 300 posts, some social media platforms will reduce your reach.

You can get good results with your post if you use external links. 

Additional anecdotal observations

Here are a few observations that I made after manually collecting the data.  

These observations are valuable to me, even though I can’t quantify them.

Everyone has a different posting style

I created an original column named “Post Type” It was planned to assign every one of the top-performing 300 positions to a particular category such as “blueprint” The following are some examples of how to use “personal failure story.”

It was then that I realized there were too many styles and categories of post. Many posts can be categorized in multiple ways. 

I noticed that, despite the differences in performance of each creator’s top posts, they were all very similar. 

Amanda Natividad’s best performing posts, for instance, are similar.

She takes an established best practice, and then adds a contrarian view to it. They are just text-based posts.

Jacob Klug has a great deal of success giving out the blueprints to cool projects he’s working on. Below are two of Jacob Klug’s most successful posts.

Let me give you another example. Gina Sapien is a top performer in two posts.

It is possible that the posts with the highest performance are repetitive because every creator has found their own style.

Do not try to copy just one creator’s style of content. Try out different formats to see what works for you. 

It’s important to develop your own style and format for content, both to simplify the creation of new content, as well as to attract an audience that will gravitate to a certain style. 

You can’t keep the same style (e.g. super tactical content) for too long. “feel good” If you create a wide range of different content (e.g., wellness), your engagement rate will likely be low as not everyone in your target audience is interested. 

Engaged followers and relationships are not measured by engagement. 

Posts that are controversial or even about general mental well-being tend to be very popular, but won’t help you develop a large following. 

This post, for example generated lots of engagement. Did it help the person to generate income? It’s unlikely.

It’s okay to sprinkle in some posts such as this one to boost your reach and let your fans get to meet you. But it won’t show your expertise to potential clients, so it won’t be able to generate revenue.

Find out how to grow your brand.

This lesson teaches us that posting more content is the best way to increase your audience. 

Trying to build your own personal brand can be very lonely.

This is why we were created Copyblogger Academy. The course is for online entrepreneurs. The courses cover SEO, personal branding and email marketing. 

Attend accountability sessions and you can ask specific questions to seven-figure entrepreneurs Charles Miller and myself.