I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out what’s going on with LinkedIn.
And after finally speaking to a bunch of people over there, I have come to two conclusions.
The first is that LinkedIn is a multi-headed behemoth where one head doesn’t know what the other is doing.
The second is that the behemoth's name is Cleveland. Some of you may not know this, but I actually lived in Cleveland for eight months. And the employees at LinkedIn remind me very much of the people who live in Cleveland.
If you are from Celeveand, then you already know what I am talking about. If not, this section of the newsletter can best be summed up by the Russian comedian Yakov Smirnov when he pointed out:
"Every country has a city they make fun of. In the US, it's Cleveland. In Russia, it's Cleveland."
To which I would also add…
“It's Cleveland, it’s also Cleveland.”
So if you think LinkedIn sucks lately, the good news is you're not alone.
Not only do the people on other social media platforms agree with you, but the people who work there are equally impassioned about it.
At least thats the way it felt.
But this newsletter isn’t about LinkedIn‘s brand problem. It’s about LinkedIn’s platform issues, especially in light of the recent changes they have made.
Changes that affect many users are a hot topic of discussion among many people, with many, many LinkedIn influencers (and even some gurus) leaving the platform for other platforms like Substack, Beehive, or even Reddit or X.
A significant portion of the conversation centers on topics such as user experience, reach, and the quality of content on the platform.
Based on my recent discussions with people who may not care (but at least know a little bit about what’s going on), here's what's likely happening:
1. There’s an algorithm overhaul going on:
LinkedIn has been tweaking its algorithms. No… that’s not a typo. I meant to make algorithms plural. You see, LinkedIn has multiple algorithms running simultaneously. And it changes for each user every week. And no, it’s impossible to tell which one is being used for your account this week.
Anyway…
The main point of the tweak is to prioritize what someone at LinkedIn considers "trusted content." The idea is stupid as it sounds, especially since no one seems to be able to tell me what “trusted content” actually is.
The best answer I received was from an engineer who explained that all this means is that LinkedIn is trying to show the right content to the right people. Which, once again, is as stupid as it sounds. Most social media platforms will prioritize content based on its type (such as videos or text). Things get weird when you try to prioritize the actual kind of messages delivered in that content.
While the engineer wasn’t able to define what “trusted content” actually is, he was able to explain that, whatever it is, it has something to do with your profile. Apparently, the algorithm compares your profile with every post you make. Again, he didn’t exactly know what means other than he knew that even “high-quality” posts might see a drop in impressions if they don't “fit the new criteria.”
Like you, I too wanted to know what he meant by “high-quality” and “new criteria,” but, you know, AI.
2. You really might want to think twice about using AI (or at least the way you’re using it).
There's speculation that LinkedIn is actively trying to reduce the visibility of content it flags as being generated by AI. It turns out that this is indeed true, which is a good thing. Except that this could also inadvertently affect human-written or edited posts, as the detection methods are not perfect.
3. There’s a shift away from recency:
You've probably noticed that people are liking a lot of your older posts. You've probably also noticed that many other people's older posts are appearing in your feed. I have confirmed that the algorithm is no longer prioritizing the newest posts. Instead, it's resurfacing older, more relevant content from a user's network. This means your latest posts have a longer shelf life. This also means that your newer posts may not receive the initial burst of visibility you're accustomed to.
4. There’s a crackdown on "Engagement Pods" and Spam:
I have it confirmed that LinkedIn is also cracking down on what it considers inauthentic engagement (such as from engagement pods or automated and spammy comments), which is also great. Unfortunately, you don’t have to be in any engagement pods or use any automated tools for the algorithm to pick this up. Especially if you spend a lot of time on the platform and your engagement patterns feel automated or fake.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. I help write over 70 LinkedIn posts a week for me, my clients, and my students.
So I’ve also figured out what’s working.
And I’m going to dive deep and share it all with you below. SO without further ado…
Here's what I see actually working on LinkedIn right now:
1. Identity-Centered Content
When LinkedIn changed its algorithm two years ago, it did so because people were complaining about too much personal and irrelevant content. So, it tweaked the algorithm to favor "more valuable and educational expertise content on your topic."
But this, combined with the ease of creating such content with AI, created a horrible experience where people's feeds are basically a garbage dump of obvious, bland, and formulaic content. The inevitable result is a pushback to more vulnerable content, although this time tied into the expertise you're trying to share.
The most powerful content on LinkedIn right now is the kind that connects on a human level first, and a professional level second.
As more and more content becomes obviously AI, people are becoming hungry for authentic stories about personal evolution, struggles, and transformation. They want to see the human behind the professional mask.
This is why posts revealing vulnerability or personal challenges often outperform pure tactical advice. And this is why posts that do that within the context of also sharing an important insight about a business or a certain skill will do even better.
It's not that expertise doesn't matter. anymore.
It's that expertise without humanity doesn't resonate anymore.
In order for these posts to work, they need to get attention.
In order for it to get attention, it needs tension.
And in order for there to be tension, there needs to be an actual experience that goes with it.
Now you know this, here’s what not to do.
Don’t force it. Don't create posts like "I got engaged. Here's what this taught me about email marketing."
These types of posts only work when they are true. So, where do you find these stories?
I bet you if you and I had a 1-hour conversation, I would be able to pull out 10-15 post ideas. So, if you dig down deep enough, you will find these stories within yourself. But I'm not gonna lie. Some people have more of them than others. And the people who have more than others are those who go out and do more things, take more risks. That’s just how it works.
So, if you're having a difficult time writing these types of posts, you have two options.
1. You can write about other people.
These posts don't perform as powerfully, but they still can be very powerful. Simply find somebody in your industry with an amazing story of overcoming something that has a lesson tied to it and write a post about it. This can be a modern person or anyone from history. One trick I like to use is to tell preplexity that “I am a Hollywood screenwriter and that I need to write a movie about (let’s say) a CMO. Can you help me find 10 CMOs with interesting stories that would make good movies?”
2. Go out and do more things.
Have more experiences, take more risks, speak up in that meeting, take on extra work, and ask for that promotion. In other words, create opportunities for yourself where things will happen to you that will create lessons that you can then share.
I recommend doing number two for no other reason than it's more fun.
2. Multi-Dimensional Thinking
Posting about one thing all the time in the simplest way possible is becoming less valuable as a content strategy.
Why?
Partly for the reason we mentioned above.
People are hungry for the real human connection, the real human story behind ideas.
But the second reason is that simple and obvious advice, like a post about how you need to make sure that your copy is always about the other person and not yourself, has become commoditized.
One of the things that no one's talking about regarding AI is that the result of these tools being made available to everyone and giving everybody the ability to write a little bit better and to have topics basically given to you, is that exactly that...
Everyone can now do it.
Anyone can Google basic tactics or ask AI for standard advice, and people doing it for themselves means that more people will begin to recognize that other people are doing it for themselves, and the less human connection there will be between the two things, and these types of posts will essentially become ignored. When anybody can replicate a post given a certain topic, these types of posts become irrelevant.
What can't be replicated is the unique intersection of your experiences, perspectives, and systems thinking across multiple domains.
The posts and people crushing it right now on LinkedIn are those connecting dots between seemingly unrelated fields:
Business meets philosophy
Technology meets psychology
Leadership meets personal development
This multi-dimensional approach is what creates true differentiation in an information-saturated environment.
The solution to writing posts like this is to understand your Domain of Genius, which I teach in my FREE Unforgettable Masterclasses
3. Systems Over Tactics
"5 quick tips" posts are rapidly losing effectiveness.
Why?
People are drowning in tactical advice they never implement.
What they lack is the umph to get attention, the frameworks for implementation, and systems that organize information into actionable processes.
So when you build and share your systems don’t just make a list… talk about:
How you structure your day
How you make decisions
How you process information
How you execute projects
That way, you're giving people something infinitely more valuable than isolated tactics.
4. Creative Expression
LinkedIn was once a place where personality and artistic expression went to die.
That's changing rapidly.
We're seeing the emergence of storytelling, philosophical exploration, visual elements, (even CEO poetry), and conceptual depth on the platform.
And as the boundaries between personal and professional continue to blur, this creative renaissance will only accelerate.
That’s why I started turning my carousels into hand-drawn zines, and the reaction in terms of engagement and impressions has been astronomical. Of course, this implies putting in a little extra work, but if you're already creating art, perhaps just sharing it is enough, and you're probably putting the work in anyway.
5. Really Long Carousel Posts
The format of your content matters as much as the substance.
Long-form carousels with a strategic structure consistently outperform because they optimize two critical metrics:
Time spent with your content
Depth of engagement
This isn't about length for length's sake, thoigh. It's about creating cognitive flow through an intentional story structure while giving the reader some visual breathing room.
Simple tactics like single-sentence paragraphs, strategic line breaks, and thoughtful formatting dramatically improve performance.
What's Not Working
Despite the fact that LinkedIn keeps pushing it, video hasn't found its footing.
In my opinion, this isn't about the format itself. It's about understanding the context in which people consume LinkedIn content. Personally, I think this has a lot to do with how they're presenting it in the feed. Whereas most posts on LinkedIn are captioned at the top/image at the bottom, videos appear in the middle of the feed, resembling TikTok videos. It’s a bit jarring.
Another thing to consider is that most LinkedIn users browse during work hours, which also happen to be environments where watching videos isn't practical or appropriate.
Here's How You Can Make All This Work For You
It comes down to a systematic approach with three core components:
1. The Content Pyramid
Rather than creating each post from scratch, I build a pyramid:
Foundation: Deep newsletters, courses, or thinking, exploring core concepts (like this one)
Middle: These get broken down into medium-form content (threads, long posts)
Top: Individual ideas extracted as standalone micro-content
That way, one deep piece of thinking a week can generate 10-15 platform-specific pieces of content when structured properly.
This newsletter is an excellent example of this. Read it again and count how many different pieces of content I can pull from it. I reckon 10-15.
2. Experience Documentation
Most people wait until they have something "worth saying" before creating content.
This is backward thinking.
The most valuable content comes from documenting your experiences and insights in real-time as you navigate your journey.
I'm not writing this newsletter from theory. I'm writing from what I'm actively learning, testing, and discovering.
This creates an authentic voice impossible to replicate.
3. Add Stories to Ideas and Data Points
Never post data. Always back it up with a story.
4. Pick One Implementation Framework
For each insight or lesson, I develop a framework for implementation.
Rather than just sharing what I've learned, I create a system that helps others apply it to their situation. In my case, all of the content comes from the newsletter I write for that week.
This transforms information into something actionable and vastly more valuable.
Moving Forward
As we look ahead to the rest of 2025, the trend toward human connection will only accelerate.
Platforms and algorithms will continue to evolve, but thanks to AI, the fundamental hunger for authentic human stories and systematic thinking will remain constant.
Therefore, your greatest advantage isn't any one tactic or technique.
It's your unique perspective, experience, and the systems YOU develop to implement them.
And the only way to do that is to build in public. Share your systems. Embrace your multi-dimensional nature.
And remember...
The only way to build a personal brand is to use it,
— Justin (yes this is really my email) Oberman
P.S. if you wanna dive into this deeper and learn more about how to get this done and how to write better or create content better for LinkedIn, I strongly suggest that you apply to my FREE Unforgettable Masterclasses
Wow! This is the first newsletter of yours I've read, and it's great. Keep up the great work, Justin.