LinkedIn’s latest posting innovation is displaying the number of views our comments on posts receive.
These numbers are private so we can’t see the views on others’ comments in the same way we can’t see the views on others’ posts.
While keeping in mind this is another vanity metric, it may still be useful.
At the very least it tells us LinkedIn considers engagement important. Which is very true.
If engagement is not a significant component of your LinkedIn activity you will not be as visible as you want to be. Or potentially not reach your target audience.
Organic reach has declined 50% over the past 12 months according to Richard van der Blom, who creates the annual LinkedIn algorithm report. He recently wrote, ‘While not as steep as reach, engagement also saw a gradual decline. Interestingly, from October onwards it stayed relatively stable—suggesting that while fewer people may see your posts, those who do are still interacting.’
The conclusion to be drawn from this is that engaging on posts is an important strategy.
Another metric of how well your engagement is tracking is LinkedIn’s Social Selling Index or SSI. This scores you out of 100 for 4 equally ranked categories – professional branding, finding the right people, building relationships and engagement.
A higher SSI score generally means you're using LinkedIn more strategically and consistently although it doesn’t affect your visibility directly. It’s more an indicator to you of how you’re tracking.
When you check your SSI, you’ll see where your weaknesses are and it may be that ‘engaging with insights’ ranks low for you.
In which case, engaging more often and more competently will be an area ripe for improvement.
This doesn’t mean the ‘great post’ or ‘thanks for sharing’ type of comment. That devalues your professional brand (because you’re demonstrating you have nothing of substance to say) and does not help the post gain wider visibility. You’re better to simply like the post and be done with it. Oh, and do not outsource this to AI. That doesn’t help your professional brand either. (If you want to know more about how to engage well, check out our member’s area where in the Posting section we have an article on engagement that tells you all you need to know. Trying out our site is free for 7 days.)
Keep in mind when engaging on posts that ALL your comments are visible to anyone visiting the Comments section of your profile Activity page. What they see there tells them a lot about you.
Also be aware that commenting on others’ posts will improve your own post views.
To get the best value from your engagement, use the new comment impressions feature to see what’s ranking well. Keep in mind that the result will depend on who the post author is, the topic they’re talking about, and whether you are posting soon after the post is published or after it has passed its visibility zenith.
In 2025 engaging strategically is important to your visibility and reach. If you want to make best use of your time on LinkedIn, spend a good portion of it engaging on other people’s posts.
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