<b>Does native video actually beat text on LinkedIn? It's contested</b>

<b>Does native video actually beat text on LinkedIn? It's contested</b>

The question: which post format earns the most reach and engagement on LinkedIn — and has the answer flipped?

The dataset: two sources in tension. A 2021–2022 corpus of ~1M posts ranked text and document (carousel) posts highest for reach; a 2024 platform push and several creator studies (~10–40k posts each) reported native video reach climbing sharply after LinkedIn began promoting a video feed.

Three findings:
— In the older data, plain-text and carousel posts beat video on reach-per-impression.
— By 2024, video impressions grew double-digits year over year, and short native video began over-indexing — consistent with platform amplification of a format it wants to grow.
— Across both eras, external-link posts consistently underperformed, regardless of format.

Caveats: format winners are a moving target set by platform incentives, not audience preference; creator studies have selection bias toward accounts already winning. Treat as directional and time-bound.

What it means for B2B: 'best format' is whatever the platform is currently subsidizing. Don't over-invest in one format on permanent terms; track reach-per-format monthly on your own account.

Bottom line: the algorithm picks favorites — read the room every quarter.