📈 The Three Waves Of LinkedIn

Read time: 4 minutes

LinkedIn is a 3-year-old social network living inside a 23-year-old company.

Why does this matter?

Because every social network evolves through predictable waves.

Facebook did. Instagram did. TikTok did.

And LinkedIn is doing it right now.

The LinkedIn we know today - where people build massive audiences - only emerged around 2022.

Before that? Just for snooping on colleagues and companies you wanted to work at.

If you understand these waves, you can ride them instead of drowning in them.

The 3 LinkedIn Waves

Wave 1 (2023): The "Anything Goes" Era

The feed was practically empty.

You could post literally anything and it would perform because there was so little competition.

People realized "posting gets attention" - so they wrote whatever came to mind.

Random thoughts. Basic observations. Stream-of-consciousness posts.

It didn't matter - the sentiment just had to be relatable.

• People Don’t Quit Jobs - 112,805 reactions

• Be The Person Who Makes Things Easier - 110,876 reactions

• Good Leadership Is Not A Mystery - 103,680 reactions

Wave 2 (2024): "Educational Content" Ruled

As more people started posting, the feed got more competitive.

The bar shifted - audiences now wanted practical value.

Posts that taught them something. Educational content. Listicles. How-to guides.

"10 productivity tips" and "5 leadership lessons" dominated feeds.

If you could package useful information in digestible formats, you won.

Value beat volume.

• 8 Visuals That Will Change How You Think - 52,260 reactions

• 16 Harsh Career Truths - 34,904 reactions

• Job Interview Cheatsheet - 31,299 reactions

Wave 3 (2025): "Useful + Interesting"

Today's feed is filled with AI-generated useful advice.

"Productivity hacks" and "job interview cheat sheets” are everywhere and people are bored of them.

Useful alone doesn’t capture attention anymore.

Especially with everyone using AI - people don’t know who to trust.

The new winners combine value + storytelling + personality.

Personal stories. Hot takes. Contrarian opinions. Specific experiences.

Personality beats plain value.

• Everyone on my team is now smarter than me - 13,007 reactions

• I was heading into a board meeting - 12,429 reactions

• How she turned $3m to $30m in 24 hours - 8,180 reactions

Why This Matters For You

You can't look at what Justin Welsh is doing right now and copy it.

He has 5 years of brand equity. You don't.

Justin can post a simple thought and get 2,000 likes. Most people can’t.

The creators you should study aren't the ones with 500K followers.

They're the ones who went from 1K to 25K in the last 6 months.

Big creators can still play by Wave 2 rules because their audience lets them.

Their brand equity is their safety net.

You don't have that luxury.

How To Win Wave 3

Look at what small (<50k) but fast-growing creators are doing RIGHT NOW.

They inject their specific experiences into everything:

Instead of "10 productivity tips" → "The productivity system I learned managing a team of Navy SEALs"

Instead of "Signs of a toxic workplace" → "3 red flags I missed before my startup imploded (and cost me $2M)"

Instead of "Leadership lessons" → "What running a taco truck taught me about managing people"

Being helpful isn't enough anymore.

You need to tell people why they should listen to YOU.

See you next time,

Will

P.S. I tracked these wave shifts using Saywhat's trending content. See what's actually working in Wave 3 here.

Will McTighe

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