Hey!

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

I’ve been in NYC full-time for almost three months. Always something new to see. Like last Friday, when I looked out my apartment window to see House Targaryen sailing in on the Hudson.

Turns out it was a marketing stunt for the House of the Dragon S3 premiere. Worked on me—though I still need to watch the episode tonight (no spoilers!).

Anyway, for the content and marketing stuff you're here for.

LinkedIn’s in a weird spot right now. We should talk about it.

🔎 DEEP DIVE

Why is your LinkedIn doing worse in 2026?

It’s not just you. Here’s why, and how to adapt.

It seems like every week I’m talking to a Head of Marketing who's stressing over their founder’s declining LinkedIn metrics.

They’re posting the same content that worked before. Cadence is the same. Yet impressions, engagement…and pipeline…all down YoY.

If you're feeling this, just know, you're not alone.

What’s going on?

There are 2 forces at play.

(1) AI Content Commodification

LLMs like Claude and GPT give everyone with a $20 monthly subscription the ability to generate ‘passable’ content in seconds. And independent of AI, more and more B2B founders are activating on LinkedIn. It’s gone from fringe marketing strategy to commonplace over the span of 2-3 years.

So, the timeline is wayyyy more crowded. Lots of noise.

(2) The LinkedIn product team is asleep at the wheel.

LinkedIn as a platform isn’t making things any easier for us.

Organic reach has gone down as they’re pushing people toward Thought Leadership Ads.

They haven’t quite seemed to nail the interest graph in the way that Instagram and TikTok—and even X—have.

There are a bunch of glitches and intentional product decisions that have made the platform more and more unusable by the week, the latest being the phenomenon where the same post appears in your feed 3-4 times.

It’s a mess out there.

Still, LinkedIn is the default for B2B content marketing. I don’t see that changing, despite current headwinds.

What DOES need to change is your approach.

There are two shifts you can make, this week, to resuscitate a dying LinkedIn presence.

(1) LLM-proof your content.

Pure ‘tips and tricks’ content is dead. RIP! Every content asset needs to have one of three moats:

• Narrative moat: pair every take with a story.

• Data moat: share unique data that only you have access to.

• Physical moat: include media that ‘proves’ you are human, not named Claude.

Every post you publish must—must—include one or more of these levers.

(2) Bend the algorithm.

LinkedIn wants you to buy more TLAs. Ok. Do it!

Put some budget behind the content that does hit organically. I would recommend mapping your TAM and using Apollo to build an account list. Upload that list into LinkedIn Ads Manager. This makes sure your content is getting in front of the right people.

You don’t need a crazy budget for this, either. I’d start with $30/day.

I’m actively testing this for Compound now, so I will report back with findings.

It’s also essential to use your 20x outbound connection requests per day. When you send a connection request, and the recipient accepts, it’s a mutual follow.

So, by using your connections, you can feed new, relevant accounts into your following without having to sit and hope that the temperamental LinkedIn algo serves your content to the right people.

You can bend the algorithm in your favor.

(BONUS) Consider diversifying.

While LinkedIn is still the default B2B content platform, I don't have the same conviction in the long-term vision of their product team as I once did.

I do think it makes sense to start diversifying to X, Instagram, and YouTube—and of course, an owned audience, like a newsletter.

So you'll likely see more content in social files going forward that isn't just LinkedIn growth tips, but broader social and executive content strategy.

If you've been isolated to LinkedIn for the past 2-3 years, my first recommendation would be to start a newsletter to drive some of that traffic to an owned platform. We’re doing this for some clients at Compound already, with promising results. And, goes without saying, Social Files has been a major driver of Compound’s growth, too.

One example of someone I’ve noticed doing this well is Sam Parr at Hampton. I see his stuff all over the place: LinkedIn, X, Instagram Reels. He’s created this sort of ‘Content Ecosystem’ that I’m stuck in. Keeps him top of mind all the time.

It's a weird time on LinkedIn.

Don't freak out. Don't ditch the platform. But do consider how you can evolve your approach to content over the coming quarter. Hope this helps.

PS: If you have any questions, hit me back. And if you’d like help growing your own CEO’s account on LinkedIn, you can sign up for our waitlist.

📚 TOMMY’S BOOKSHELF

Current read: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. I’m ~720 pages into book 1 of the Stormlight Archive. My current read on it: the plot and the characters are strong (except Shallan…she annoys me to no end). The prose is meh, but Sanderson is open about the fact that his ‘simple’ prose is intentional. I just love the more dramatic, elegant prose Ruocchio employs in The Sun Eater series. IYKYK.

Anyway, WoK is good. Not my favorite, and I’ll probably pause before getting into Words of Radiance, but it is good.

Evergreen reminder: if you haven’t yet, do yourself a favor and read Red Rising. This is the gateway drug to fiction reading as an adult.

If you want more book content, I’ve built a little audience on Instagram where I post about fiction and writing.

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 2026

• Steal my founder-led content templates

Talk soon,

Tommy Clark