Social Files by Tommy Clark
Posts
The state of B2B social...January 2026 edition

The state of B2B social...January 2026 edition

A trend report: what’s (actually) working for in content for startups

Tommy Clark
January 12, 2026

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. Per usual, I spent mine catching up on some reading (current read is Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb). I also tried padel for the first time. It’s way more fun than pickleball.

As for the content & marketing stuff: I figured we’re due for a trend report. What’s actually working on LinkedIn right now?

I see a loooot of posts go live, so I thought it’d be helpful to share what I’m seeing across my founder-led content clients (so you can apply the lessons).

Shall we?

🔎 DEEP DIVE

A trend report: what’s (actually) working for in content for startups

Alright. Pulse check.Alright

We’re ~2 weeks into 2026, the world is back online, and B2B technology thought leaders have emerged from hibernation, returning to the promised land: the LinkedIn timeline.

If you started posting on LinkedIn with the turn of the year, welcome!

If you’re an OG LinkedInfluencer and continuing on the war path, well done.

My intention with this week’s piece is to give you an idea of what’s working well on LinkedIn, so you know where to spend your time. My team writes 100+ posts per week across our clients. We have a good eye for what’s ‘working.’

LinkedIn in 2026 is quite different than its January 2025 version.

(1) Generic “tips and tricks” are DEAD. RIP.

It takes a lot for me to declare a content format dead. But I’ve seen too much. Any time I’ve tried to write a ‘value-based’ post which covers a single strategy, it flops.

Why? AI has commodified ‘tip’ content.

Educational content now has two moats.

(A) Narrative. Stories protect you from AI fatigue. Claude cannot copy your stories. Pair every take with a story. I’ve been saying this for the past year. But we’ve reached the point of no return. You will NOT grow on LinkedIn if you keep posting your boring a** tips and tricks!

(B) Density. I do still see ‘framework’ and ‘listicle’ content perform well. If you pack 5-10+ real insights into a single post (so it drives saves), the content can still hit.

(2) Turn your office into a set.

If you have an in-person work culture, you must be capturing photos and video from around the office.

“Text + IRL image” is the winning format right now on LinkedIn. Text only can work. So can carousels. Even video. But real-life photos of you and your team, which are relevant to the post copy, win.

Have your Marketing Manager follow you around with her iPhone a couple times a month to re-up your stock of media.

(3) Comments are content.

I wish this weren’t true. I hate scrolling LinkedIn and leaving comments because I ‘have to.’ Feels lame. But, it works.

Dedicate 10-15 minutes per day to writing thoughtful comments on ICP accounts or influencers who your ICP follows. For example: if I were targeting SaaS founders, I’d engage with Adam Robinson’s content.

(4) Design your audience.

LinkedIn is unique from other social platforms in that you can design your audience. You don’t have to rely on the algorithm to get in front of ICP accounts. No. Send connection requests (20 per day) to potential customers.

If you’re not doing this, you are not using LinkedIn to its full potential.

(5) The algorithm has normalized a bit.

December was a weird month. Every time I scrolled on LinkedIn, I’d see a deluge of posts from 2-3 weeks back. Very little new content.

I think there were two reasons:

LinkedIn shifted their algo to surface old stuff and extend the life cycle of content.
There was a lower supply of content with people taking time off for the holiday.

As of now (even on a weekend when I’m writing this), I’m seeing a consistent flow of content from the past 1-2 days without having to seek it out. I’m still seeing some older stuff from weeks back, but the timeline seems more balance.

(6) Videos still not a thing. Despite how hard LinkedIn tries.

LinkedIn is really trying to make short-form video a thing. But after the weird uptick in reach back in Q4 2023, the format has consistently pulled the lowest impressions count.

My take:

Don’t make it the core of your content strategy on LinkedIn.
But, it’s still worth it to post video once in a while (maybe 1x per week) if you’re good on camera. It’s good for prospects to see and hear you. Builds trust faster.

(7) LinkedIn is hiding links in comments.

Stop putting your links in the comments to avoid decreasing reach. This doesn’t even work, and LinkedIn is now hiding the links in the comments section. Just include the URL in the primary post copy. It’s fine. Seriously.

(8) Try varying your copy length.

It’s tempting to make every LinkedIn post a 3000-character essay. If that’s your thing, awesome. We have one client who consistently edits posts to the point where we’re having to cut them just under the character limit. And they work well!

But I talk to a lot of founders who think they can’t post 5x per week because they believe every posts is going to be this dissertation-level piece.

You can post short content on LinkedIn!

Even better: it’ll often out-perform longer pieces. Both short and long-form written content are viable. Okay? Okay.

(9) Companies are scaling with multiple personal accounts.

All the content gurus and ghostwriters are now just coming around to the idea of ‘employee-led content’ and building a ‘Content Ecosystem.’ (I’ve BEEN on this stuff.)

Yes. This is the way. Once you stand up one founder, layer in co-founders and then your non-founder execs. Ideally, you want 5+ accounts actively posting on the LinkedIn timeline.

Here’s how I’d approach it:

Month 1-3: 5x per week from 1x founder account
Month 3-6: 5x per week from 2-3x founder account
Month 6+: 5x per week from 2-3x founder account + 2-3 non-founder employee accounts

Pro tip: when you're looking for employees to build personal brands around, pick the ones who already WANT to. You’re in for a tough time if you’re trying to build a personal audience around a team member who detests social media. Clients have tried. Now we don’t do it. Only founders + team members who are already bought in on LinkedIn.

Final thoughts.

None of this is particularly revolutionary. The broader theme is that the bar for winning content has gone up. Outlier posts require outlier effort.

Anyway, hope this was helpful. I’ll do one of this field reports once a month or so. That way you can have an objective understanding of how the platform is working right now.

If you did find this mildly helpful, I’d be eternally grateful if you copied this link and sent it in your marketing team’s Slack channel.

Until next time!

🗃 FILE CABINET

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

If I Started LinkedIn in 2026, I’d Do This Tommy Clark 🎥
How Ryan Holiday Built a Million Dollar Content Empire by Nathan Barry and Ryan Holiday 🎥
LinkedIn Thought Leader Ads: Full Step-by-Step Tutorial (2026) by Fibbler 🎥

Check these out.

BEFORE YOU GO…

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