👋 Hi Reader,

I am a LinkedIn nut.

I take all the arguments about LinkedIn being all cringe, AI-slop, broetry memes, and I raise you this: it is still the only social network I know, which insists on you showing up as your true self, not just a random handle ladiesman217.

(10 points to you, if you caught the movie reference)

So it follows that I spend an inordinate amount of time and effort understanding how the LinkedIn algo behaves. Which is when I realized that huge audience followership on LinkedIn has lately not been proportional to massive engagement.

For the longest time, big audiences on Twitter and Instagram led to massive initial reach and engagement. Tiktok subverted that trend to happen entirely on the strength of its content-trained algorithm without a big followership (read Eugene Wei’’s 2021 deep dive essay on the Tiktok algorithm for context)

Having said that, for the longest time, LinkedIn felt like an old friend: you could post something into the feed, and your hype group would show up with “great posts” and “100% agree” (I am typing all this with as best a straight face as I can manage, don’t report me to LinkedIn Lunatics)

But come 2025, and LinkedIn feels like a ghost town. Reach has plummeted by almost 60-70%, and AI commenting has reached new lows with people sending platitudes written by ChatGPT. I can no longer be assured that having an audience bigger than 5k is any assurance of getting decent reach.

So I decided to spend some time investigating, and I found 2 resources worth the long weekend read, so I am sharing with you.

The Shield Index from the Shield team

​Andreas Jonsson and his team have been building Shield for a few years now, and they understand LinkedIn like no other product team does. I had been a Shield user from its early days, and I trust his read on the platform.

They spend quite a bit of time and effort deciphering the algo every month on The Shield Index, a monthly performance briefing where they tell you what they tested and learnt. It’s an email-only waitlist, and they share plain actionable advice for anyone looking to build their audience on LinkedIn.

For example, this table from their Nov 2025 briefing is itself worth the price of admission. It tells you what reach to realistically expect in recent months, given the current followership you have.

If you ask me, I would sign up immediately.

The Ocean Labs Report on what to expect in 2026

This report aggregates insights across several reputable sources, including Richard van der Blom’s analysis. Richard himself is an eminent authority in the LinkedIn space. This report combines his insights with AuthoredUp research (another well-known LI growth platform like Shield), so you get LinkedIn growth tactics that you could apply TODAY.

What’s not to like?

I hope these two resources singularly help you change the way you repurpose your newsletter content on LinkedIn and grow your email list.

Still have questions on LinkedIn? You know I am here to help.

Let me know by hitting ‘Reply’ on this email, or send a note to marketing@letterstack.co, and I would be happy to be a sounding board for your LinkedIn growth process.

No questions? I wish you a great downtime and happy holidays to you and your families! See you next week.

This newsletter is sponsored by The Alien Design

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Cheers,

Renga from LetterStack

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