<b>Why the LinkedIn carousel stopped working</b>

<b>Why the LinkedIn carousel stopped working</b>

The question: did document carousels lose reach because the audience tired of them, or because the algorithm reweighted the format?

An analysis compared carousel (PDF document) reach across two time windows on the same set of accounts, isolating format from author. Method: same posters, same cadence, different quarters — a quasi-natural experiment that controls for who is posting.

Three findings:
— Median carousel reach fell sharply between the windows even as follower counts grew.
— The decline tracked a rise in carousel supply: as more accounts adopted the format, per-post reach compressed — a saturation effect, not pure fatigue.
— Carousels that front-loaded the payoff on slide one held reach better than 'swipe to the end for the answer' decks.

Caveats: reach is platform-reported and noisy; two windows cannot rule out a single algorithm change — treat as directional.

What it means for B2B: format edges are temporary arbitrage. The early adopters captured outsized reach; the format then mean-reverted as everyone copied it.

Bottom line: ride a format early, but do not build a content strategy on one. The advantage decays as adoption rises.