Every time I get on LinkedIn I see the same content: person X has been promoted, person Y shared an article - it always seems like the same set of posts, just with different avatars. So, I decided to take a look.
It’s pretty easy to categorize content on LinkedIn, it really doesn’t vary much. I spent around twenty minutes and decided to stop at an even 200 posts so the sample size isn’t very large. I bucketed things into ten general categories:
- LinkedIn generated Ads — these are the promoted posts companies pay to share — 26%
- Company funding events — Raised a round, got into an accelerator — 4%
- Event — Attending a conference, a company culture event, these are basically company ads IMO — 6.5%
- Non-career related life event — I never quite understood why people do these, having a baby, buying a house were the most popular here — 4%
- Anniversary — Auto-generated LinkedIn posts that promote a work anniversary in a position — 3.5%
- Self-promotion — This was my favorite, often sharing a quote or “insight” that is literally impossible to disagree with or take an alternative side — 11%
- Job change — Promotion or new job, most are the auto-generated LinkedIn ones — 17%
- Reshare of article — Sharing a article onto LinkedIn, I actually want more of this content, it’s by far the most engaging content, but it’s so hard to come by at only — 2%
- Company post, Advertisement — 🥱Exactly what the label says, companies sharing what they’ve been working on, or promoting an existing product — 17%
- Company hiring or someone looking for work — 9%
