#307: Richard van der Blom — The state of LinkedIn in 2026 (based on data from 1.3 million posts)

About this episode

Richard van der Blom discusses the significant changes in LinkedIn's algorithm and its impact on content reach for creators.

Richard van der Blom published his first LinkedIn algorithm report years ago as a curiosity project. This year, he and his team analyzed 1.3 million posts from 50,000 creators — and the headline number is hard to ignore: reach is down 60% for active creators over the last two years. Even harder to stomach: 80% of the comments Richard receives in the first five minutes of any post are written by AI. Richard is the author of the annual LinkedIn Algorithm Insights report — the most data-backed independent study of the platform I've found. He's also been targeted by LinkedIn's legal team, banned from the platform, and watched the third-party tools he relied on get shut down one by one. He keeps publishing anyway. In this episode, we talk about: Why reach is down 60% for active creators — and why LinkedIn says that's intentional What "topic fingerprinting" is and how to use it to re-teach the algorithm who you are How your comments now shape your interest graph, not just your human visibility Why LinkedIn newsletters are outperforming regular posts on reach, engagement, and conversion By the end of this episode, you will understand exactly what changed in the LinkedIn algorithm, why…

People in this episode

Host: Jay Clouse

Guest: Richard van der Blom

Topics covered

• LinkedIn algorithm
• social media trends
• content reach
• creator economy
• AI in social media
• engagement strategies

Keywords

• LinkedIn
• algorithm report
• content reach
• AI comments
• creator insights
• engagement
• topic fingerprinting

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: LinkedIn, LinkedIn Algorithm Insights, AI

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