Hey!

Welcome to Social Files—your no-BS guide to generating demand for your B2B product using social & content.

Hope you had a great weekend. I have something to confess.

I watched Interstellar for the first time on Saturday—not sure why it took me 11 years to get around to it. Great movie.

Now, let’s talk content. LinkedIn has been a bit volatile

Shall we?

🔎 DEEP DIVE

LinkedIn content trend report.

Firsthand insights from 150+ posts per week on what’s actually working for B2B tech companies in July 2025

I spend a ridiculous amount of time on LinkedIn. This is a bit of an embarrassing confession, but yes, I was scrolling LinkedIn when out with my friends on Friday night. Lmao.

Seriously, though, each week, my team produces 150+ content assets for the platform across our client roster. So, I’ve gotten a close-up view at how the platform has evolved over the past few months.

And I’m not gonna lie, it’s kind of a shitshow right now.

But, that white collar shitshow is still, by far, the most effective social platform for B2B technology companies.

Today, I want to walk you through 7 trends I’ve noticed, why they matter to you, and how to take action on them in the coming quarter.

1. LinkedIn is getting saturated.

Just two years ago, the rallying cry for founder-led content was “only 1% of LinkedIn users post content—the platform is starving for content.”

Oh, how times have changed.

AI content is flooding the feed. Tools like Chat GPT and Claude—and even Bluecast, sorry—are making it easier than ever to go from blank page to drafted, somewhat-coherent content in seconds.

So, the feed is getting crowded. The value of generic ‘how-to’ content is being driven to zero. It’s now a commodity. Anyone can do it.

There is hope, however. There is always room for great. No matter how saturated a platform, the cream always rises. The platform is still starving—for great content.

And the bar for what constitutes great has just changed. Founders relying only on AI tools and shitty ghostwriters are far below it. Drowning.

The way you rise above, and win on LinkedIn in 2025, is through sharing (1) unique stories (2) polarizing points of view. You need to have one, or both. If not, you blend in with the AI slop.

2. Content lifespan is increasing.

If you’ve opened LinkedIn in the past couple of weeks, you’ll have noticed way more content on your feed from 2-3 weeks ago. It’s not just you. This is a platform-wide shift to the algorithm.

This is frustrating in that it crowds out more timely content. It also makes seeing content from people you follow more difficult.

There is a silver lining. This update to the LinkedIn algorithm keeps your content relevant for longer. The fleeting nature of the timeline has long been one of my gripes with social. Historically, a LinkedIn post dies within 48 hours or so. A tweet is even worse, leaving circulation on the feed within minutes, sometimes.

Now, it looks like the content you post can be seen by readers weeks into the future.

There really isn't anything for you to do about this trend. I'm calling it out so you're aware of it.

3. Organic reach is trending downward.

This is another case of ‘it’s not just you.’ If you’ve noticed reach and engagement on your content trending down over the past year, you're not alone. I’ve noticed it across my own content, clients, and have corroborated this with other founders & marketers.

LinkedIn reach is down.

Anyone saying otherwise is just lying to make themselves sound better.

Why is this happening? Well, who knows. But, the reasonable hypothesis is that the LinkedIn overlords are trying to funnel more ad dollars into Thought Leader Ads—the ad units where you take an organic post from a personal account and put spend behind it.

I don’t mean to sound like too much of a doomer here. LinkedIn is still the best platform to reach B2B buyers. It’s just important to have proper expectations around content performance, especially if you're comparing this year’s performance to last.

People seem to forget you can hold two contradictory ideas in your mind at once. These two observations can be true—and are true—simultaneously:

(1) You shouldn’t throw your hands up and blame the mystical algorithm for your terrible content performance. The ‘algorithm’ is not the reason your content is getting 7 likes, 2 comments (both from your employees), and driving no real inbound. Skill issue. LinkedIn is still the best social channel for B2B technology companies to get business.

(2) There are weird things happening with the platform at the moment. The timeline is flooded with posts from weeks ago. Nobody knows why. Video went from an attention arbitrage to a subpar performer. Reach has dipped overall—independent of content ‘quality.’ “But I’m seeing better reach than ever.”…cool man, maybe your content was just that bad before. Happy you figured it out.

Look. Delusion is not a content strategy.

We need to be real about the state of the platform. We also need to be honest that there’s a lot we don’t know. The LinkedIn algorithm is a black box. Probably will be forever.

There is good news that sort of cancels this all out. LinkedIn's volatility doesn’t change the optimal content strategy…like, at all.

4. Thought Leader Ads are in.

As I mentioned, LinkedIn is pushing users towards Thought Leader Ads (I’ll refer to them as TLAs).

If you're a founder who's been publishing content organically on LinkedIn for some time, I think it's worth it to test some ad spend with this ad unit.

This ad unit is particularly compelling because in feed, it looks just like an organic post. The only indication that the content is an ad is a small text that says "Promoted" underneath the user name, but it's really hard to see.

My recommendation: Take your best-performing organic content (after it's been running for 2-3 weeks) and put some spend behind it. I'd recommend starting with $20/day as a minimum and then scaling up from there.

Quick pro-tip: you technically can’t add a CTA to a TLA, but you can hack the system to get a CTA in there. All you do is edit the content in the organic feed once it’s been running for 2-3 weeks. Add a PS-line with a CTA to your home page, a lead magnet, or wherever you want to drive traffic. Then load the post into Ads Manager and run it as a TLA.

5. Users are experiencing Optimization Fatigue.

Something interesting I’ve noticed in the content we publish for clients: ‘perfect’ content triggers an AI filter in readers.

When writing is too clean, too pristine…readers get suspicious.

Same thing applies to LinkedIn hook templates and content formats. Once a template gains popularity, using it again and again becomes an ‘anti-signal.’

For example, those hooks that start with “I was having dinner with a $100M SaaS CEO…” used to crush. Sometimes, they still do! But the LinkedIn audience has started to catch on to it, and doesn’t fully trust that these anecdotes are real.

One counterintuitive way to stand out in 2025 is to add imperfections to your posts. Include intentional grammar deviations…perhaps even a typo. Opt for more casual terms over corpo-slop. Make it apparent that YOU are writing the content in YOUR voice…not Claude.

6. LinkedIn plays a role in Answer Engine Optimization.

As if there weren't enough reasons for your founder to start posting on this platform...here's an Interesting LinkedIn content trend I'm noticing:

I've had multiple clients call out in the past 2 weeks that they're getting inbound leads from ChatGPT responses.

Not because of traditional SEO (though this also plays a role), but because it's been using their usual LinkedIn content in answers.

One text I got yesterday from a SaaS founder: "We get quite a few customers from ChatGPT now. And all of its answers are based on my LinkedIn content."

This is just another addition to the long list of benefits to publishing founder-led content on LinkedIn:

1. Inbound leads from LinkedIn (duh)

2. Lift in outbound & paid media performance

3. More effective recruiting and better access to 10x talent

4. Tends to be easier to create momentum around fundraising

And now, inbound leads from ChatGPT responses. It's probably in your best interest to give the AI gods some material to surface as more and more people use the tools in their buying process. Just saying.

7. Savvy founders build a Content Ecosystem.

The tech companies that demolish competitors on LinkedIn make their audience think, “Damn, I can’t escape [company] on LinkedIn.”

The way you achieve this: create a Content Ecosystem. In other words, layer in multiple accounts that are active on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is an interesting platform in that you can’t really post 3+ times per day and scale via posting volume on one account. The way you get around this is by layering in multiple accounts.

One example: during their Series B announcement, Unify had several team members posting original content to LinkedIn. I saw 5 posts in a row from them when I opened up LinkedIn that day.

Companies also run this as a more evergreen way. The savviest companies on LinkedIn are able to turn the platform into an echo chamber using a Content Ecosystem. It starts with having one founder create content. But the content strategy can't stop there.

Here's how I'd execute this for a B2B company in 2025:

(1) Get one founder active on LinkedIn. 3-5x per week.

(2) Layer in the rest of your co-founders.

(3) Get the rest of your non-founder leadership team posting.

(4) Encourage even junior employees to share content.

What you'll find is that each individual has a unique angle they can lean into. And certain team members will better reach certain subsections of your audience.

Now, you won't be able to get everyone in your company active. Don't force it. Rather, identify the 4-5 team members (founder or not) who want to post, and then empower them to do so.

A few examples of companies doing this exceptionally well:

• Michel Lieben 🧠 and the ColdIQ team.

• Dave Gerhardt and the Exit Five team.

Can't log on to LinkedIn without seeing something from either of these teams.

I’m starting to push my team at Compound to post more, too. I post daily. So does my Head of Content. And just last week, we have 2 posts from people who aren’t me go niche-viral. Pretty cool to see.

Final thoughts

Social platforms evolve, fast. If you're still trying to use 2024 strategies in 2025, you will get lapped. If you do not iterate and improve your content output, your competition will crowd you out of the feed. This is not meant to be hustle culture fear-mongering slop. It is the truth.

The good news: savvy, adaptive companies will always win. If you're reading Social Files, I’m willing to bet you're in that cohort.

I’ll continue to to my best to keep you in the loop on platform trends, so you always know what’s working on LinkedIn (and in B2B content), first.

I’m curious though: what are you seeing work well in B2B social now? Anything different from what I’ve laid out here? Hit me back and let me know.Share today’s piece

🗃 FILE CABINET

Here’s my favorite marketing and business content I bookmarked this week.

• My LinkedIn Strategy Is Boring, But It Makes Me $100K/Month by Tommy Clark 🎥

• Gonna be real, I just haven’t been consuming as much ‘marketing’ content lately. If you need a great book to read, check out the The Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruocchio. I’m on Book 4, Kingdom of Death.

Check these out.

BEFORE YOU GO…

As always, thanks for allowing me into your email inbox every week.

More from Social Files:

• Read the rest of my essays

• Work with my agency in 2025

• Try my LinkedIn content writing SaaS

• Steal my founder-led content templates

Talk soon,

Tommy Clark