Transcription
because of the massive change that LinkedIn has done to its own algorithm. It's not my content strategy. It's based on the analysis of high-erforming post. And we saw that 95% of all these posts can be categorized in four pillars.
I love that it's empirical. So, it's not Richard Vanderblam's opinion about what performs well on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn does not know what is your main topical expertise. It cannot advocate for your content. it cannot show your content to the right people. Believe it or not, within 3 weeks I got 20 to 30% more reach for my content. So that already confirmed it's not as complicated because a lot of people when they read it they go like ah this is very difficult and I need to be very it's not it doesn't make sense anymore to publish it because you will get suppressed by the algorithm. LinkedIn has AI detection patterns and they are becoming stricter and stricter. If we leave AI completely off and I just write it myself, I get better performance.
There was a new idea that I noticed in the 2026 report that I hadn't seen previously, which was the idea of So, for those who don't know, could you explain the LinkedIn algorithm report and how it's created?
I've been on LinkedIn since 2005. I started my own uh consulting training business back in 2010 where we literally started to explain people, mind you, 16 years ago, what is LinkedIn? how can you use it for B2B purposes? And that uh we did that for about 10 years and then back in 2020 I got um some questions from actually were two corporate clients summertime and they said u that they experienced something that they couldn't like explain and it for me it was very easy because it was they published a white paper on a company page. They had very high expectations and it flunked. It had like 3,000 views. And then someone published uh I think it was a picture of a a Boston Marathon or New York Marathon, I can't remember, of their sales team participating and it reached like 35 40,000 views and they were like, "No, no, we want that, you know, to be the other way around." Um, and how, Richard, how can you explain this huge difference in performance? And back then I could explain it like you said for my personal opinion, personal experience but I felt we needed to have some more data. So the first thing I did was researching the internet if there was any data available on the algorithm and that was very limited and if there was it was based on a very small uh experiment or it was literally based on uh the author's own experience. So I have a friend, he's an expert in market research. He's also a professor at the university and said like can you spare me like five students I will instruct him and we do some like research on LinkedIn and he loved the project. So we started 2020 and the conclusions we we drew back then it was six pages and I sent it to the corporate clients. They were like cheering. They were so happy and they say hi this makes sense. And then just a week later, I thought, well, you know, we've made it. We we've done this research. Why not publish it on LinkedIn? So, I published a six-page document. It was a carousel and it went bananas. I get like more than 1 million views. People started asking questions. I was like, "Hey, this is amazing." And funny enough, it did it it still didn't strike to me like this is something that you can repeat. And until six, seven months later, people started to send me messages and say, "Hey, you published something about the algorithm uh algorithm." and we've seen some changes. Do you have new updated stats? And and that was actually when I went back to my friend. I said like, "Hey, can we do it again this year?" Because then we can compare it to last year. So we did it in 2021. We went from six pages to nine pages, published on LinkedIn. Again, it went crazy. And that is when we started to do it on an annual basis. Fast forward to 2026, April 29th. So 2 months ago, we released the seventh edition. It's now it's ridiculous. It's gotten completely out of hand. It's it's more than 300 pages. Um we've analyzed in the last 6 months only 1.3 million posts and um it's a massive resource for a lot of our corporate clients but also a lot of entrepreneurs uh recruitment businesses to understand what's happening on LinkedIn at this moment.
Uh, so I've read the 2026 version. Uh, a tremendously valuable resource. Definitely worth getting your hands on uh through Richard's uh website and his his team. Um, really really interesting. So I guess the next logical question, Richard, is what has been the biggest change in what uh your data shows between last year and then the new uh edition of the algorithm report?
I was really looking forward to this year's edition because of the massive change that LinkedIn has done to its own algorithm. When I speak to my clients, I I call it like LinkedIn had some brain surgery. They really like implemented a new brain. And that's the massive shift that they made from going from uh previously a relationship graph. So they would actually ask us the question like uh who do you know that was basically the question that we got from LinkedIn like for years like who do you know you know that's why you saw those features like who do you know with whom have you studied and you could reconnect with those people and now it completely shifted to what they call um an interestbased craft. So now it's not asking who do you know but what do you want to be known for? What's your main topic of interest? because their promise is that they're going to look to find more people that are looking for your experience or your topic of uh of interest and I remember it was May 2025 when uh head of product LinkedIn had an interview and he said [snorts] we don't want our members to go viral but we want them to become more relevant because remember a year ago our our feed was flooded with copypasted content quote cards arts uh um infographics that were like shared in massive engagement bots to be posted. So people were chasing virality and that's when they came and said we don't want people to go viral, we want them to become more impactful, so we're going to change the algorithm and this comes with less reach but it should be more relevant. And I was very skeptical when they said it um because my reach was like going down for two years. It has stabilized over the last six months. Mind you, I still have 60% less reach than two years ago. Basically, all creators on LinkedIn have less reach. But since 6 months, since the change from a relationship based graph to an interest based graph, I have seen an uptick in my engagement. So, I get less reach, but I get more engagement. So this basically means that the people LinkedIn are showing my content to are more interested in what I have to say and more uh likely to respond. And this is what we see like for 96% of creators. This is the story what's happening at the moment.
It can be very discouraging if you work really hard to produce highquality LinkedIn content and publish consistently but to see your your reach decline, right? that's that can be discouraging. So um now having said that obviously some people have found an increase but that's probably for example if you go from never posting to starting to post or from posting occasionally to being more consistent or to posting uh without intention to really you know to being really intentional and um thoughtful about what you're posting then of course your numbers are going to go up right but we're talking about creators who are already mature door who are already um you know posting consistently for the same amount of effort they may see less uh views or less impressions for example.
So LinkedIn is talking about the relevance being important and you've described this in the report as sort of topic relevance rather than the size of your you know your follower account. It's more about the topic relevance. So I guess uh what does that mean in practical terms and how can we knowing that how should we be thinking about uh what we're posting and uh who is seeing our content.
So so basically what you need to understand is if LinkedIn cannot classify you if LinkedIn does not know what is your main topical expertise it cannot advocate for your content. it cannot show your content to the right people and they call it internally topic fingerprinting. So, we need to build a fingerprint. And when I received the raw data back in February this year, even before I started writing, something stood out to me and I thought like your topic fingerprinting starts with your profile. And many of us, including myself, we do make some small adjustments every now and then. We might change our headline, might, you know, add something to our work description. But a real redesign of our profile very people have done that in the last let's say one to two years. So one of the first thing I did myself Mark to start build my topic fingerprint which has become massively important now I completely redesigned my profile. So for example I killed all my second language profiles. I had an English profile, a French one, a Dutch one, a German one, a Spanish one. I killed them all. I just have one English default profile. Now, second, to reduce to reduce noise or any of those profiles not being up to date. Okay. Um, second, I deleted 50% of the content on my profile. Everything I did in the past that is no longer relevant for my knowledge, my topic of expertise or my services, my clients, I deleted. So everything I did in the past and I was in recruitment myself and I worked at staffing agencies. I deleted because I don't see my profile as my resume. I do have a resume in word. Okay, it's complete. But I deleted everything that's no longer relevant for who I am today and what is important to my clients. And then the parts that are most important, headline, about section, work description that is relevant. I completely have rewritten this from a client perspective. Who's my target audience? What are the most important keywords? And what do I want to be known for? And believe it or not, within 3 weeks, I got 20 to 30% more reach for my content. So that already confirmed
that LinkedIn now know, okay, because I mentioned the target audience in my about section. I mentioned my expertise and my authority. I describe my authority in my about section in my work description. So that's the first thing. How do you build a topic fingerprint your profile? Second, everything you do on LinkedIn, every simple action you take, I'm not I'm not just talking about publishing content, but every click, every scroll, every message you send, every comment you leave, every media you attach to your post is analyzed by LinkedIn. And I've read that they look back 90 days or approximately a thousand actions. Okay, just to give you an idea. And what you do in that term in in that period helps LinkedIn to understand who you are. So that means a few things. It's no longer possible and that for some people is a challenge to go very broad when it comes to topics of your content. I can no longer share tips on email marketing on Monday, tips on recruitment on Wednesday and on sustainability on Friday because that completely confuses the algorithm and it dilutes my reach. So now I always advise people go for one maybe two main topics and yes, you can have subtopics. So from my own experience for example my main topic is LinkedIn obviously but my subtopics are LinkedIn salesreated. So how do you lose how do you use LinkedIn to build a business? LinkedIn and thought leadership. How do you use LinkedIn to stand out as a thought leader? LinkedIn and the algorithm. So those are my subtopics. But all it all comes back to LinkedIn as my main topic of expertise. It also means that I need to be very careful what type of content do I comment on. To give you an example, if I if I I get a request from a client who has a job posting for a CFO, just to an example, and he sent like, can you comment or can you share this? Then normally I would do that. I don't do that anymore. Okay? Because if I leave a comment on that type of content, instantly LinkedIn associates me with recruitment and CFO and that's not my target audience. So instead I will do some like some different things but I will not like repost or leave comments on that type of content anymore. So also with your engagement for 80% you need to stay in lane. It's very important to understand that LinkedIn does make a difference between what they call relationshipbased engagement. You achieved something very beautiful Mark and I leave a comment say hey Mark congrats on this huge achievement. That's completely fine because LinkedIn understands that's a comment made because of a relationship. It has nothing to do with my topic of expertise. But me giving my opinion on something that has to do with sustainability. Me giving an opinion on something that is trending in the automotive industry is a nogo. I might have an opinion. I don't go there because I dilute what England thinks is important for me. So in summary, it's your profile that is the foundation of your topic fingerprint. It's your content strategy that for 80% should be centered around your main topic and it's your engagement that also teaches LinkedIn what type of discussions are important for you what what kind of people do we need to show more in your feed but also to whom do we need to make your content visible and that's the completely new game that we are playing on LinkedIn now
I think it speaks to the fact that just random posting or you know random actions on LinkedIn are undermining the visibility and the reach of your content. So we need to be more thoughtful, more strategic about everything that we're doing on LinkedIn. And I I didn't realize about the profile having an impact. Uh but now that you've explained it makes sense. And I definitely didn't realize about the actions being factored in as well, particularly like what content you're engaging with and and commenting on. There are many many topics that I post about, but I I think there's a hierarchy. So obviously recruitment uh and in particularly uh recruitment agency, you know, the the recruitment industry is my primary topic, but I'd say there's sort of three main subtopics. So it could be on how to increase your billings as a recruiter or it could be about how to scale and grow your business as a as a recruitment business owner or it could be you know the impact of AI on recruitment. Is that related enough as a cluster of topics or is that too different?
I'm I'm just listening to what you're saying. You literally say like how to scale your billing as a recruiter.
Yeah.
How to use AI in the recruitment industry. So you're actually making the connection already with the main topic. And if you would share a post on how to use AI, just to give you an example, as a marketing agency, then LinkedIn goes like, "Wait a minute, Mark, you're the guy about recruitment and now you're talking about AI related to marketing. So why is that?" But and it's it's it's not as complicated because a lot of people when they read it they go like ah this is very difficult and I need to be very it's not because just mentioning if imagine you make a post about AI just in the copy you mentioning words like recruitment agencies recruitment world trending topics in recruitment those little words referring back to your main topic already classify your content as on topic. It's that easy.
Okay. So, if I for example, my example, if I write a post on sales, how to increase your business, how to generate leads, but my main topic is LinkedIn, I just need to have like the phrasing like if you want to use LinkedIn to generate leads for acquisition, then the connection is already made. So, it it's it's that easy. It's that easy. That's also why we need to have the most important keywords on our profile because then if we use the same profiles in as sorry same words in our content it really connects the dots.
Okay. I feel reassured by that then that's good. Um, because it doesn't necessarily limit it doesn't say you can never post about these other topics right it just no no every now and then connect it. Yeah, but also every now and then, you know, if something comes up, you obviously you can respond
to a topic that is not directly related or you can have a post for example, if we do a post about some some personal experience, personal storytelling, it's
almost never related to who we are as a professional, still it works very well. So, LinkedIn gives you the room obviously to to don't be too rigid and too strict about it, but you can no longer have five, six different topics. And what what what I saw like a year ago even more two years ago is that people would have a content strategy where they would have two or three weekly post on that topic and they would literally copy paste viral post that were not on topic the other days because probably they didn't have their own content and then they looks like what is successful in my feed what gets a lot of engagement I copy that infographic I copied that quote and I published it myself. That's not working anymore and I'm very happy that that's not working anymore. So if you are not in leadership as an example and you see a viral infographic on the 10 best tips for leaders,
yeah,
it doesn't make sense anymore to publish it because you will get suppressed by the algorithm. I'm coming to Dallas, Texas this September and I'd love to meet you there. We're hosting the Recruitment Coach Live Summit on September 9th and [music] 10th at the Jewel right in the heart of downtown Dallas. It's a stunning hotel in a fantastic city, easy to get to from pretty much anywhere in the US. Great food, brilliant energy. Some of our clients are already planning to bring their families along and turn it into a long weekend, which I think is a fantastic idea. You're investing 2 days in your business, so you might as well make the whole trip something to look forward to. And this year's our 25th anniversary, so we are going all out to make this summit our best one yet. I'd love you to be part of it. To get full details and register, visit recruitmentcoach.com/summit.
Okay, fantastic. So, you've already started uh segueing into the next thing I wanted to talk about. So, from what I understand in the 2026 algorithm, you've got four main sort of buckets. You've got teach, connect, prove, and convert. And so could you first explain what each of these uh categories means and then how much like what percentage of our posts in general should be related to each of those four kind of objectives?
Sure. It it's it's it's very important like you mentioned in the beginning that it's not my content strategy. It's based on the analysis of high-erforming post and successful creators. And we analyzed and we saw that 95% of all these posts can be categorized in four pillars. And last year we had fives. I'm actually very happy that we went back to four uh because it's it's it's it's more easy to understand. It's also more easy to implement. So the first pillar which should be the most dominant I'm talking about 40 to 50% of your posts should come from that pillar is authority content which has the goal to teach your audience something. Okay so this is where you position yourself as an authority as an expert. It includes posts like frameworks, educational, how to people often use infographics here, often use document post because that explains a process and the goal is to position yourself as an authority to to to follow on LinkedIn. Then the second pillar and those work very closely is affinity content because people buy from people. people hire people they trust and find uh uh you know knowledgeable to do the job. So we also need to resonate on what I said like a human level. So affinity content is something where you have personal storytelling personal experience personal learnings but it's the goal is to connect with your audience from a human perspective not from a professional from a human perspective.
Yeah. Then the third one is uh prove content. Okay, so now we dive into okay, you're an authority. I actually like you because I have some things in common, but do you understand our business? That's proof content. So now we're talking best practices, case studies, before and afters, client testimonials, collaborations with peers in your industry. That's like ultimate proof. if you collaborate with influencers, peers, people who have uh you know a high uh uh authority uh and that's basically to prove that you understand their business and that you could be seen as a partner. And then the and that should be 10 to 15%. And then the last pillar which is the one that should be used very carefully is what we call demand content and the goal is to help your audience to convert on LinkedIn. One of the biggest myth that a lot of LinkedIn experts are trying to make their audience believe is that if you optimize your profile, if you are consistent in sharing content, leads will flow in, will come from itself. And that's a myth. It's not true. You need to have what we say like a proactive uh converting strategy. And inside that proactive converting strategy is the demand content. And this is basically every 1 to 15 1 to 20 post explaining to people what are your services and how can they become a client. So this is for example me sharing a post of a free webinar where people can sign up. That's demand content. This is me sharing that I still have in July four slots for consultancy with a link to my calendarly if people want to optimize Alen strategy. It's sales type of content. That's why you should use it very limited but the first three pillars they they tackle top and medium funnel. Okay? So you get a wider audience, people start to believe you, people start to trust you, but some are still doubting. And this post, this demand post will make them feel more comfortable. Ah, this is what I can do with Richard. It's that easy to book. Let's go. Um, and this is what a lot of people are forgetting or some people even say you can never sell on LinkedIn. It's another myth. If people say LinkedIn is not for selling, it's not true. But LinkedIn is not for pitching and selling without offering value. That's that's the nuance that is very important. So those are the four pillars. Authority content, affinity content, proof content, and the last one demand content.
I think it's useful thinking about it like the uh the the uh funnel sort of top ofunnel, midfunnel, and bottom of funnel, right? Because it helps you to manage your expectations. Now, if I post a personal like an affinity post, it's probably going to get the most impressions, right? Uh because people can connect, they relate to that type of content, and so it tends to be popular, but it's not going to directly generate leads most likely, right? Whereas the the the proof or especially the the demand content, it might not get as many views. It might not get as much reach, especially if there's a link in the post or, you know, it's more of a a direct, you know, talking about your services, but even though it gets less uh impressions, it will probably generate more direct like messages or more inquiries than the connect post. Am I thinking about this right?
Yeah. There's one thing that has changed because like like like in the past it was definitely true that personal storytelling would outperform any other pillar because you know it's your network they dive in.
Now if you do the the affinity post personal and you can try it for yourself try to write a completely personal story that is not related to your topic authority. So now LinkedIn is going to say hey this is not related to your topic authority. So, we're going to limit the visibility to your connections and your most loyal followers, which is a smaller bubble. So, you do get more engagement because those are the people who know you. So, they will engage, they will like, they will leave comments. But the reach is now more limited
in terms of reach, impressions. It's the first pillar, the authority content.
Authority. Okay. If done correctly, if it's really valuable, that gets the most impressions because authority content on your topic is now sent to 50% outside of your network. So, LinkedIn is going to show that to second and third degree people who have never heard of you. And if it's interesting, they will start to follow you. They will start to like, to comment because they like what they see. And then uh another thing you said, and that's completely correct. So people hesitate when it comes to demand content. So they go like, "Nah, I don't know because I need to have a link. It gets suppressed by the algorithm, which is true, but demand content, the only goal of demand content is conversion. It's not reach,
right?
It's not reach." So if people say, "I don't want to put the link." Why not? I I recently had this last week. I had a client that said like, "I have a webinar. It's free, but I use it as a funnel to make them an offer at the end." And I know that what I offer is very good. If I get 100 people in the webinar, probably 30 40% is going to buy. So imagine if I get a thousand. So the goal was to get like maximum people signing up for the webinar. And he said, I created a post. I put the uh the the link in the comments and it it flunked. And I said, why did you put the link in the comments? Because somebody told. I said, that's a 2024 strategy. Excuse me. It worked back then because the algorithm doesn't pick up the link. Back then, LinkedIn would feature your own comment as the first below your post. So, even people don't need to scroll. They just saw the link, they clicked. Now,
LinkedIn is actively hiding uh comments that contain links.
Ah, I did not know that. That's useful to know. Okay. Cuz I was still doing that. I was posting I was putting the link in the comments. No, because I can have I can show you a print screen of a client's post that had this like white paper blah blah blah. See the link to download in the first comment and below the post there were no comments visible. There was only one comment on the whole post there. It was their own and they didn't didn't show it because they said we show only the most relevant ones.
Yeah. and they decided to not even show the one with a link. Only if I toggle the button and said I want to show the most recent, it appeared.
But people are not going to look for a link that contain
they're not going to search for it, are they? If it's not
Exactly. If you if you get eight comments, which is not very much. If you get eight comments, people need to do four additional clicks to find the link to sign up. And a lot of them will just stop looking for it. So again, if the goal is conversion, the link needs to be in the original post. People need to instantly click on the link. It's in the post. It's that easy. Sign up because your goal is conversion. It's not reach. And people mess up those two uh KPIs of those two metrics.
Okay. No, that's great. That's great to know. I'm learning a lot from this conversation myself. So um Richard, so we've got the topic uh topic relevance. We've got then the four pillars. And then the other thing of course people are always interested in is what about the format? Which formats perform best? And cuz I should I do text only? Should I do an image? Should I do a document or carousel? What about a video? What about a poll? You know, there's different things I could be doing on LinkedIn. What has your data shown as the uh the most effective and or or higher performing uh formats?
Yeah, it is a very popular question. Um and I see also a lot of people trying to follow the format that is hot in the algorithm which from my experience is maybe not the best strategy. Uh I think the best example is video. It was heavily boosted back in 2024 until mid 2025. It was like all over the place because of LinkedIn's mobile feed they were testing. And when when LinkedIn is testing a new product, they adjust the algorithm in favor of that new product. So when they were testing the mobile feed, obviously they needed to boost video. And what I saw, Mark, and you've probably seen it as well, is people jumping on video because of the algorithm, but they didn't feel comfortable on video. They're not born speakers. It it it actually, for me, um video is a format that can either build trust or can ruin trust. Because if you put a supposedly thought leader in front of a camera and it doesn't look natural, he feels uncomfortable, but somebody told him, "You need to do video because it's hot on LinkedIn," it doesn't work. Um, video has gone back to normal proportions at the time that we uh released our report in April. However, last month, LinkedIn announced that they're going to bring back the mobile feed. It's already now and it's coming out of beta. So, they have tested it. it's coming back to all users. So, I wouldn't be surprised if video again starting from now gets an uptick in the algorithm. It's a great format if you want to build trust because if people see you talk,
if they hear you, it builds much faster trust if you do it in the right way than written words that create a distance.
I don't know if it's uh available for everyone on my mobile LinkedIn app. Uh just last week I saw it change the the the navigation changed and whereas it used to have like notifications and so on, now it has video as one of the four options at the bottom of the app
and you click it and it's more like uh Facebook reels or YouTube shorts. They're
they're just serving like you can just scroll through the videos. So yes,
that seems like a change where they're pushing video again.
But that's what I meant. That's the the video tab, the mobile tab being rolled out. It's out of beta because it was when they boosted video in 2024. It was because they were testing it. Now they have decided to bring it back to all members. But obviously it's being rolled out. US based audience always get those things first, then English natives second layer, and then the rest of the world third layer. But within two to three months, everyone on LinkedIn should have that option to change the normal feed into a video feed and scroll through videos. So for me, it would only make sense if they follow the same tactics what they have been doing in the last like six, seven years that they will boost video again.
Yeah. Um
it seems like that's the direction. But let I uh I'm going to respectfully disagree with something you said about video as well, which is um you should only post video if you're comfortable on camera or you're a good like a great speaker. I don't I don't necessarily agree with that. I think um the value of video now I've seen with my own content that video does not necessarily get the reach or the number of impressions as let's say an image or something like that. But I feel it is very valuable for building trust because you know uh what's the best way of building trust? It's sitting down with someone right in front of them. Ideally in person but if you can't do it in person then what we're doing today where we're having a conversation and we can see each other. We can hear and this is the most important someone can hear your voice right and they can see uh how you come across. They get a flavor of your personality. uh you you uh are going to connect with that person more strongly if you can see their body language, right? And so I don't think you need to be a professional speaker or just that kind of 2% of people that is naturally great on on camera. I think it's something that with practice everybody can improve. Um, and that the like in fact we I would encourage people to put themselves out there more because of the opportunity to build trust and and uh rapport with their audience. You know, obviously if someone is absolutely terrible then, you know, for sure like that maybe is going to um do more harm than good. But my my my my fear, Richard, with putting out the message that unless you're great on camera, don't do it is most people believe they're not the most people are uncomfortable, right, on camera. But that's doesn't mean they shouldn't do it or that they um their audience still like their content.
I agree on that. Yeah.
So if I if I send out the wrong message, but if you don't like to do video and somebody comes to you and say you need to do video because of the algorithm, I would say no because it's not something I like to do. I build trust by writing long form content. I have a weekly newsletter. It's packed. It's loaded with insight, unique, and that establishes trust. Also, if however, you open to do a video if you want to learn it. I totally agree and I even mentioned that that it builds trust much faster than written words. So that's that's the nuance that we need to have but in um so we we do thought leadership programs for corporate clients. They come to us and say we have a group we want to like boost them as thought leaders on LinkedIn and a lot of those said we want them to do video and I say that's great we can we can help them to do video but do they want to do the video themselves and then they always go like yeah a few of them you know are willing to do a few of them don't like video and we have serious chat because if somebody doesn't want to do video it shows and that's where trust can become bust on video because it's also a very vulnerable format because people see you your body language how your your charisma they see it where if I write a newsletter or a post or a carousel they don't see it so if the content is good I build authority as well so that's the nuance that I wanted to make there's another interesting stat that is actually mentioned in the algorithm report and that's about using video and outreach to people so you can send a text message to people know you just write like hey Mark glad we connected on LinkedIn I wonder how the recruitment business going. Um, it's what 96% of all people do. It's very it's very safe. People can respond in their own time. Then we have the voice messages. They're very underused on LinkedIn.
Um, and then we have video messages where you can record a video message to to somebody. Um, and what we see is if you use video message to do outreach, it has a very poor response rate. I personally don't like to get a video message because it feels that I'm forced to respond because somebody made this amazing effort to create a personalized video, but I never ask the person to reach out to me. And especially if that's a pitch or something selling to me with a video, I feel like wow, no thank you. and you see that it's very low response rate where if you already connected with someone you had a chat and then you record a video it works much better because there is trust and that could be the additional trust by saying hey this is me thank you for connecting Mark we have been connected we have some like interesting chats I just wanted to record this personal video because then it's the additional layer that you bring to the conversation do you know what drives me crazy paying five different vendors for five different tools [music] that don't talk to each other. Your ATS over here, your sequencing tool over there, your notetaker somewhere else. And now you've got data silos everywhere, and your team has to learn five different systems. That's why I'm excited about Recruiter Flow, an AI first ATS and CRM that's a true all-in-one platform. You get ATS, CRM, email sequencing, AI note-taking, business intelligence, and data enrichment all integrated in one place. One vendor, one login, one system your team actually uses, and no surprise add-ons, jacking up your price every quarter. I'm very selective about who I partner with on this show, and I only work with products I genuinely believe in. RecruiterFlow checks all the boxes. To see how it works, book a demo at recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow.
Going back to format then like should people just be using a variety or you know because some people I see only do text and that's their and they and it works for them and they just stick to that whereas I like to try and mix it up and do you know image I in fact I usually in fact since the last year's uh algorithm of the port I think it was in 2025 1.2 two for a text plus an image like in terms of it got 20% more
visibility than just text and so typically that's my go-to format is I will usually have an image with the post but
what are you seeing based on the data
so a few things when we talk about about formats so the default post meaning that 60% of all post being shown on LinkedIn is text with an image it's what we are used to do Okay, could be because we put a link and it gets the image from the website or we have an image that we want to attach. You know, a lot of people use selfies if they have a personal story. It's very easy to do. We are trained to do text with image. Um, there are some interesting things. So for example, text only is performing much better than last year. So no image, just text. But again, it's a very risky format because 99.9% of all users are not copywriters. And if you only have text, the only way to not only grab the attention of your audience, but also keep them engaged is how you write. And then a lot of people go, "Ah, that's not a problem because now I have claw or perplexity or okay, LinkedIn has AI detection patterns and they are becoming stricter and stricter. So if you think I'm not a born copywriter, but hey, text only is being boosted. I'm going to use AI. Forget about it. It's not going to work. So text only is something you need to use if you're very comfortable in writing your own content. It works good. It's also easy because you don't need to find an image. You don't need to attach anything. It's just your copy. Uh document posts are still performing very well, way above average, 1.4 something. um they're not being used that much and I think the reason why is because a lot of people don't have the design skills or the time to create those documents because they need to be optimized for LinkedIn. So if you have a PDF from your company, it's not that easy to just throw it on LinkedIn because it doesn't perform the same as carousels that are actually created for mobile screen on LinkedIn. So less copy, more visual. Um, and what especially at this moment I would advise everyone to consider if you haven't already is to start a LinkedIn newsletter and write long form articles within the newsletter. Why is that? First of all, it's boosted by the algorithm. So within LinkedIn al those newsletter articles get a lot of visibility. Second, links in newsletter articles are not being punished. So if you want conversion, you can have multiple links in a newsletter article without being punished. And then probably the most important reason at the moment, they were already very good, very helpful for SEO, search engine optimization. And now they're also very good for geo optimization, indexation by the AI um uh tools like Claude, perplexity. They get so many data from LinkedIn long form articles that you could be referred. And I've already received multiple messages from people that said, "Claude just referred your algorithm report to me. Claude just showed me an article that was written by you on LinkedIn." So like that's my point. That's why you need to consider uh having a LinkedIn newsletter/ articles within the newsletter. We've had a newsletter for uh a couple of years and where there's lots of subscribers, but I was finding it at least in terms of the metrics of impressions, it wasn't performing as well as you know some of our other content. So I was considering how like whether to double down on it and try and improve it or whether just to you know move on to something else. So what what I promised myself at the start of this year because I was very inconsistent with my LinkedIn newsletter like I I I think I had something like monthly but I was very inconsistent and what I did since January every Sunday mind you today every Sunday I now launch a LinkedIn article inside my newsletter which is called RVDB insights Richard Vanderbomb insights um and my average number of impressions for a newsletter article are around 30,000 where my average post and mind you I have 120,000 subscribers 120 and I get 30,000 so it's around 25%.
That's excellent.
If you look if you look at the average impressions of my content I get around 15,000 on 260,000 followers. So that's not even 6%. So for me and also in terms of conversion if I use my LinkedIn newsletter to boost a paid mastermind to boost the report to boost the membership of my community I see much more conversion there than from my gen from my from my normal LinkedIn post my regular LinkedIn post um so it's it's really something that we should consider also because LinkedIn is really stepping up the game when it comes to analytics and insights you get on the newsletter. So now I can see how many emails have been sent, how what is the opening rate of the emails. What is uh the number of clicks that each links gets in my email newsletters or in my LinkedIn news.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so it's it they're really stepping up their game when it comes to LinkedIn newslet. So there was a new idea that I noticed in the 2026 uh report that I hadn't seen previously, which was the idea of uh a connected series uh of post or and and how that could be valuable rather than just an individual post but have uh a series of related posts. Could you uh share a little bit about that?
Yeah, so that that's an excellent question mark because what I see a lot of creators they they they don't have an integrated content strategy. they publish whatever comes to mind or they look every week. But what we have seen is that if you have a circle a LinkedIn loop circle of post. So for example, you start with uh an open post could be for example a poll to have the opinion of your network about a specific topic that you want to address. Okay? Obviously it needs to be related to your own expertise. polls back to the formats still get high visibility and people start to vote and when they vote it's more or less that they subscribe to your post because they engage with your post. So that means that your next post will also be seen by those people. So you start with a poll and then you go in depth. In depth means now I'm going to share a post where I an authority post where I as an authority explain something about this topic. a unique insight based on my authority and expertise. So first I address the topic and I ask people is this interested interesting then vote on the vote on the poll. Second I give you some added value some insights. Okay? So people start to engage. Then the third post I have a bridge post which means that I'm going to offer them something as an additional resource to what we have discussed. So how can this look? I create a poll about the LinkedIn algorithm. Do you think it's important or maybe you don't care about the LinkedIn algorithm? What do you choose? So people are going to vote. I don't care about the algorithm or yes, I need to know
What? Then I'm giving them a unique insight, an infographic or these are the six lessons of the algorithm each creator should know. The bridge post could be: I have an upcoming webinar on the LinkedIn algorithm. You can join free. Here is the link. Okay.
And then after the webinar, I can do a closing post where I say, like, I just did this webinar. These were some lessons. If you want to buy the algorithm report or if you want to have a consultancy with me, here are the links. And that's what I mean with the LinkedIn loop cycle that you have. Top of funnel to draw as much attention as possible. Conversation starter where I boost my authority. Converting element where I invite people to have some more insights and then I make them an offer to like convert the circle of LinkedIn post. That's what I meant with the LinkedIn loop cycle. And it's very fun to create because instead of writing, um, different chapters that are not belonging to the same book, now you're writing a book and you're thinking about what kind of four chapters. And it's much more fun to write a book and then sell the book at the end. It's, it's so much more fun.
>> It's easier too because you're already thinking about that topic. It's easier to come up with, you know, a subsequent post. So,
>> and it's trainable. It's trainable once you start to get the hang of it. You have your first loop. The second one already comes to mind because it's very, it's very easy to train yourself to create more of those loops.
>> I love it. That's cool. So, look, just uh finishing on AI, you said something interesting earlier, which is that LinkedIn is able to detect AI generated content, but it's strange. I don't know if they still do this, 'cause I started ignoring it. Was LinkedIn will offer to write your post using its own AI,
>> which I found terrible. Like it, like wasn't nearly as good as Claude, but um, I think I'd say 90% of people are now using Claude or Chat GPT to uh, to, uh, generate content. So, are you saying we shouldn't be doing that or like what's your, um,
>> process? I have a very strong opinion about this, and we could, we could talk for an hour about AI and LinkedIn because I feel that they are playing like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Uh, I, I even call them a bit schizophrenic because on the one hand, if I leave a comment on a post directly, I get a popup saying, hey, do you want to create this comment into a post using AI? If I rewrite my about section as a premium member, I get rewrite or enhance with AI. So they're boosting their own AI solutions and on the same hand, they are penalizing people for using external AI solutions. So for me, that's, that's a bit strange.
>> It's a contradiction, isn't it?
>> Yeah.
>> It's a contradiction. Exactly. Um, if your post is for the largest part written by AI, it will probably have some patterns and the most simple ones are the em dashes or the here is the reason why or it's not this, it's that. You know, all these phrases we already recognize that is clearly AI written. So, LinkedIn has an AI detection mechanism that it's much smarter than what we have now, and they can really classify your post as largely written by AI.
>> Mhm.
>> [clears throat]
>> Um, and they will penalize for reach around 30 to 40%. That's also one of the reasons why a lot of people are complaining that they're getting less reach because they are now using more and more AI to optimize their post,
>> right? Um, never outsource your writing to AI, but also don't outsource your thinking. So what do I mean with that? Your draft. If I write my own draft from A to Z, from start to end, but I use AI to, for example, brainstorm on different hooks like, okay, this is my post. I'm not happy with the hook. Come up with three alternatives. Okay? Or I have a post written, I don't like the structure, and I just ask AI, format the post so it's more easy to scan for my readers. So, it will not change the copy, but it will just make it more easy to read and more easy to get to the point. Um, if you do that, there's no problem. Um, but if you go to AI and say like, "Hey, write me an article about the three latest trends in the recruitment business," and you copy paste that to LinkedIn, it's not going to work. Fun fact, at this moment, I'm trying because I use AI, but now my latest two posts, I have used zero AI. So you might see some grammar mistakes because I'm not native of English, but zero AI. I just started to write on LinkedIn, didn't go to AI and published it. The post, the first post that I can already analyze is performing way better than all my previous posts.
>> Okay, that's interesting. And today I posted an infographic. Again, all the copy written by myself. No AI. It's too early to tell if that also has better performance. But I have some people within our research uh population that already mentioned that if we leave AI completely off, like outside, and I just write it myself, I get better performance. So that might be a very interesting trend at the moment.
>> That is very interesting, Richard. So, I'm still following the process that you and I talked about last year, which is sort of AI plus humans. So, basically, I come up with the idea and kind of like the rough sketch of what I want to talk about. I then use AI to do the draft, but then I go back and edit it myself so that I make sure that it sounds like me and it's not too
>> AI sounding. Do you think that is still a valid strategy or you're moving completely away from AI at this point?
>> No, no, no, no. That's my strategy. Also, I just want to see now,
>> like you said, more and more people are turning to AI. More and more people are complaining about AI slop on LinkedIn.
>> Yeah.
>> So, it would make sense for LinkedIn to control even more and try to lure people into create more authentic content using less AI. So, I can imagine that the penalty becomes worse or the penalty is being given more, more earlier. Um, so I'm now just testing. Okay, what if I don't use AI at all? Is it worth it? Um, but I think again, if you use it for formatting, for brainstorming, for alternatives, I think there won't be a problem.
>> Richard, unfortunately, we're out of time because we could talk for another hour. This is a fascinating topic and uh, and you're the, you're the world's number one authority on it. So, I appreciate you being here, Richard. And uh, I look forward to next year. Let's do it again. It could be an annual uh, annual thing.
>> We have an October update. So we went from annual to bi-annual. So in October, we have a new update. And interesting enough, we do have
>> uh the intention to have a specific chapter on sales and a specific chapter for job seeker/recruitment. So that might be a right angle to, you know, jump on another podcast in November, December.
>> That sounds great. Let's do it, Richard. Yeah. Thanks a lot. Have an awesome day. I'll see you soon.
>> Thanks, Mark. Bye-bye. That was awesome. Hope you enjoyed that conversation with Richard. My two biggest takeaways. Number one, what Richard did with his own LinkedIn profile. He deleted half the content on it, everything that wasn't relevant to who he is today and who he serves. He rewrote his headline, his about section, the work description, entirely around his target audience, and the keywords he wants to be known for.
>> [music]
>> Within three weeks, he saw 20 to 30% more reach from his content. In his view, the profile isn't just a CV anymore. It's how LinkedIn decides who sees your posts. Second, Richard's data on link placement. LinkedIn no longer shows all the comments, only the ones it deems most relevant. That means the old strategy of putting a link in the first comment is no longer reliable. So, Richard's point was for conversion posts, the link belongs in the post itself. What stood out most for you? Drop your biggest takeaway in the YouTube comments or send me a message on LinkedIn. And finally, what's one thing that you're going to put into practice this week? If you're not already subscribed to the Resilient Recruiter, now is a great time. I sincerely appreciate it. Make it a great day and I'll see you next time.