<b>What LinkedIn actually rewards: dwell time over reactions</b>

<b>What LinkedIn actually rewards: dwell time over reactions</b>

The question: when the feed decides what to amplify, does a reaction count for more than the seconds someone spends reading?

The dataset: a 2023 analysis pooling ~9,000 organic posts from mid-size B2B pages, cross-referenced with platform engineer talks. Dwell time here means the seconds a viewer holds a post on screen before scrolling — a proxy for attention, not a click.

Three findings:
— Posts in the top quartile for median dwell got ~3.4x the reach of bottom-quartile posts at equal reaction counts.
— A 'like' added almost nothing once dwell was controlled for; comments still mattered, but partly because they extend dwell.
— Carousels and text-heavy posts won dwell; single links lost it.

Caveats: this is correlation, not causation — high-quality posts attract both dwell and reach, so dwell may be a marker, not a lever. Sampling skewed toward English-language B2B. Treat as directional.

What it means for B2B: chasing 'like-bait' optimizes the wrong signal. Design for the 8-second hold — front-load tension, withhold the payoff.

Bottom line: attention is the currency; reactions are loose change.