We know savvy marketers are hungry for ever-elusive LinkedIn benchmarks, which is why we’re so stoked to release our first annual LinkedIn Benchmark Report!
We studied thousands of LinkedIn posts and millions of engagements to bring you key stats on how often brands are posting on LinkedIn, what engagement rates are looking like, how video is impacting engagement, and tons more info to help you reach followers more effectively.
Be sure to download the report for free, and let’s get on with the show!
Key LinkedIn Benchmarking Takeaways
LinkedIn engagement rates are on par with other channels.
Median brands are earning an average engagement rate per follower of 0.41% on LinkedIn, which is a little worse than Facebook and Instagram, a little better than Twitter, and way behind TikTok.
Video matters.
Brands saw monster engagement and view rates with video posts that were tougher to achieve with other post types like articles and status updates.
Brands were twice as active on LinkedIn as they were on TikTok.
The median brand posted about 3.3 times per week on LinkedIn, which is more than double the posting frequency we saw in our TikTok benchmark report this year.
Bigger isn’t always better.
Accounts with small, engaged followings outperformed their larger counterparts in almost all areas on LinkedIn this year, including impressions per follower and engagement rate by follower.
LinkedIn Posts per Week
We’re often asked, “How often should my brand be posting on social media?” Benchmarking your brand’s LinkedIn posting frequency against brands of a similar size is the best way to figure out how many posts per week you should be aiming for.
LinkedIn Posts per Week: Distribution
The average brand in this study publishes about 3.3 posts per week, or about 13 per month.
- Brands weren’t afraid to stay active on LinkedIn, with just 6% of brands posting less than once per week.
- Nearly 10% of brands publish more than 10 posts per week.
Brands are about twice as active on LinkedIn as they were in this year’s TikTok Benchmark Report, which isn’t too surprising given the production hurdles for producing quality video content.
LinkedIn Posts per Week: Account Size
The larger your account, the more likely you are to publish more frequently.
- The smallest bin we studied (2K-5K followers) averaged about 2 posts per week.
- Accounts with 100K+ followers post twice as often at about 5 times per week.
We often see a correlation between follower count and posting frequency on social. Having more followers doesn’t make you post more, but accounts that consistently post a higher volume of quality content are going to grow their accounts. As they grow, we see the investment in posting grow along with it.
Engagement Rate by Impression
Engagement Rate by impression on LinkedIn is a great way to measure a post’s quality. Why? Counting the number of times a viewer liked, commented, or shared and dividing it by the overall number of impressions measures just how compelling your content was. If your post wasn’t high-quality or attention-grabbing, viewers will be less likely to engage with it, and therefore you’ll earn a smaller engagement rate per impression. If your post attracted attention, viewers will be more likely to take the extra step of engagement before swiping to the next video.
Engagement Rate by Impression: Distribution
The average brand in our study earns an engagement rate by impression of 4.73%.
- Just 5% of brands managed to double the median engagement rate by impression on LinkedIn, so don’t feel bad if you’re not in the double digits.
- This engagement rate by impression is about on par with what brands are seeing on channels like Instagram and TikTok.
In our most recent Instagram report, we noted that brands have been consistently earning a 4.3% engagement per impression, while in our most recent TikTok report, brands rocked a 4.15% engagement rate by view.
Engagement Rate by Impression: Account Size
The bigger your following, the smaller your engagement rate on LinkedIn.
- Brands with more than 100K followers have an average engagement rate by impression of 3%, which is about half of what smaller brands are seeing.
- Small accounts with fewer than 5k followers are reaching an engagement per view of nearly 6%.
It’s common across social media channels that smaller followings equal bigger engagement rates, since a close-knit group of followers is often likelier to have a strong connection to your content.
Posting Volume by Post Type
Photos are the most frequent post type on LinkedIn by a mile.
- Photo posts were responsible for nearly half the engagements on LinkedIn this year.
- Video posts, at 17% of overall content, came in 3rd for total volume.
- Brands were much less likely to post collages and documents than any other post type.
Photos and articles dominated the engagement charts on LinkedIn this year, but it’ll be interesting to see if the video piece of the pie chart grows over time as Reels and TikTok continue to rise in popularity.
Engagement Rate by Impression: Post Type
Experimenting with off-the-beaten path post types could net high engagement on LinkedIn.
- Document and collage posts blew other post types out of the water by engagement rate.
- Photo posts also earned above-median engagement rates for brands on LinkedIn.
It can be tempting to toss a quick article or photo up on your brand’s LinkedIn page, but taking the time to play with new or less-used post types like documents or collages can really pay off.
LinkedIn Impressions per Follower
No matter how spectacular your LinkedIn content is, you’re almost definitely not reaching 100% of your followers with it. Measuring the percentage of followers that are putting their eyeballs on your content is an important method for measuring the quality and effectiveness of your content.
The average brand in our study averages about 8.63 impressions per 100 followers on each post.
- One in five brands reach only 4% of their followers on a per-post basis, so don’t feel bad if you’re not measuring up here.
- The top fifth of brands are reaching 20% of their followers, on average, with each post they publish.
Aiming high here is always a good idea for brands looking to get the most bang for their content buck, but the numbers here show that most brands are rocking an average impressions per follower rate of less than 10%.
Impressions per Follower: Account Size
Small and mid-size accounts earn way more impressions per follower than larger ones.
- Accounts with fewer than 5,000 followers average about 16 views per 100 followers on each video.
- Larger accounts with more than 100K followers earn a fraction of their smaller counterparts with just 3 impressions per follower.
This dynamic of impressions declining as accounts grow is one that we also see on other platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Smaller accounts tend to post less frequently, which also helps increase the views on each individual video.
LinkedIn Video Views by Impression
With video continuing its meteoric rise on LinkedIn and other channels, it’s important to zoom into this specific post type to see how your videos are performing. Getting the most out of your brand’s LinkedIn videos means reaching and engaging more followers.
Video Views per Impression
The average brand in our study earns about 42 video views per 100 impressions on each video they post.
- LinkedIn defines a view as an impression with a 3-second watch time.
- Nearly 20% of brands earn more than a whopping 90% views per impression rate on their videos. That’s scroll-stopping content!
Video posts really set themselves apart on LinkedIn, reminding us that video continues to reign supreme in this era of TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube.
Video Views per Impression by Account Size
In general, we find that the larger the number of followers, the lower the video views per impression.
- Accounts with fewer than 5,000 followers average about 49 views per 100 impressions on each video.
- That ratio decreases with accounts with more than 100K followers averaging around 35 views per 100 impressions on each video.
Even the largest accounts are still earning killer video views per impression on LinkedIn, reminding brands that continuing to invest in video is the right call.
LinkedIn Engagement Rate by Follower
If you’ve ever read a Rival IQ benchmark report before, you won’t be surprised to see our most-used engagement metric making an appearance on LinkedIn too. Engagement rate by follower helps users control for audience size when measuring engagements on social. It’s crucial to go beyond engagement total because audience size is hugely important: 200 likes is great engagement for a brand with 2,000 followers but is a drop in the bucket to a brand with 200,000 followers.
Engagement Rate by Follower: Distribution
On a per-post basis, the engagement rate by follower for the median brand comes in at 0.41%.
- About 40% of brands earn an engagement rate by follower of less than 0.4%.
- About a fifth of brands are earning engagement rates above 1%, or about double the median.
We share this engagement rate to help brands understand their LinkedIn performance relative to other social media channels. Engagement rates per follower that brands are earning right now on LinkedIn are a little lower than Facebook and Instagram, just above Twitter, and miles below TikTok.
Engagement Rate by Follower: Account Size
On average, brands with larger accounts see lower engagement rates by follower on average.
- Accounts with fewer than 5K followers see their average engagement rates come in above the median brand at 0.87%, or about 2x the LinkedIn median.
- The largest accounts with more than 100K followers earned much smaller engagement rates of just 0.11%.
There are multiple factors that drive engagement rate, including average reach and content quality. As we saw in the previous section, larger accounts tend to earn fewer engagements per follower on average.
Average Monthly Follower Growth
With so many brands looking to steadily increase their follower counts over time, it’s important to look at your month-over-month LinkedIn follower growth for sharp spikes or declines that might correlate to killer content, viral posts, or other follower growth factors.
Across all account sizes, brands on LinkedIn are growing their followers at least 1% on a monthly basis.
- Smaller accounts, those with less than 5K followers, are averaging monthly growth of more than 1.5%.
- The larger accounts in this study over 100K followers are growing a little less month over month at just 1.2%.
The difference in monthly growth for small accounts and large ones isn’t huge, reminding us that success on LinkedIn is much more about quality content than anything else.
LinkedIn Case Studies
We reviewed the LinkedIn performance of top-performing brands from our most recent benchmarking reports across a variety of industries. Take a deep-dive into the content and strategies that helped these top brand stand out on LinkedIn.
From not-so-humble brags about the brand’s success to heartfelt posts about how Selena Gomez’s brand is giving back to its community, Rare Beauty stood out among beauty brands on LinkedIn this year.
Many of Rare Beauty’s top LinkedIn posts featured their famous founder just like on their other channels, but the brand wasn’t afraid to get personal with posts about their commitments to causes like mental health and Black History Month.
Read more about top beauty brands on social media in our latest Top 100 Beauty Brands on Social Media report.
Texas Christian University was busy on LinkedIn this year, with more than 4x the posts per week of the average company in this study. From campus events to alumni achievements, TCU was all about keeping followers engaged and informed about what was going on in their Texas-based community.
Posting a mix of informational and playful posts paid off for TCU with killer engagement rates many times higher than the median brand in this study.
See what top D1 and D2 colleges and universities are up to on social in our most recent Higher Education Social Media Engagement Report.
Like many of its nonprofit peers, Amnesty International stood out on LinkedIn by staying true to its mission of raising funds and awareness for the biggest humanitarian issues the world is facing today. The nonprofit used compelling video and photos alongside compelling storytelling to call for action from followers and offer ideas for getting involved.
More than a few of the brand’s considerable total engagement count came from dissenters, which is no surprise when dealing with divisive issues.
Find inspiration from top nonprofits on social media in our latest industry report.
Healthy soda brand OLIPOP saw a meteoric rise in follower count on LinkedIn this year compared to their healthy food peers, averaging about 4500 new followers every month. This growth helped the brand more than double its followers since the beginning of the year.
Colorful and creative posts and videos helped the brand attract a new following this year, from flavor announcement commercials to podcasts to offering followers a chance to work with their favorite soda brand.
Grab a snack and cozy up with our latest Top 100 Healthy Food Brands on Social Media report.
Methodology
Rival IQ analyzed over 58K LinkedIn posts published between January and September 2023. We included hundreds of handles that were active with posts in 2023 and a minimum of 2,000 followers.
Handles were included only if we had all of their data for the entire time period, regardless of how frequently or infrequently they published LinkedIn posts. These handles reached across 14 different industries, including beauty, media, influencers, sports, higher education, and more.
LinkedIn Terms Glossary
We know there are many different ways to measure engagement, so here’s a quick round-up of all the LinkedIn engagement metrics we studied in this report and their definitions.
Engagement Rate by Follower: The average number of engagements per follower on a per-post basis.
Engagement Rate by Impression: The average number of engagements per impression.
Engagement Total: The total number of interactions (likes, comments, shares, and clicks) on posts.
Impressions per Follower: The average number of impressions per follower on a per-post basis.
Monthly Follower Growth Rate: The average monthly growth rate over the report period.
Posts per Week: The average number of posts a brand publishes per week.
Video Views per Impression: The average number of video views per impression on a per-video basis.
Wrapping It Up
We had a blast adding LinkedIn to our family of social media benchmarks, and hope you picked up some content inspo and more than a few metrics to compare your brand’s performance against. Congrats to all the brands we surveyed for standing out in the crowded field that is LinkedIn. We can’t wait to see what you do next year!
