LinkedIn brutally changed in 2025

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Hey there,

If your LinkedIn engagement felt like it fell off a cliff last year, you weren't imagining it. 2025 was the year LinkedIn stopped rewarding the casual poster and started separating the serious from the sporadic.

Let me spill the tea on everything that changed, why your reach tanked, and what you need to do differently in 2026.

🔥 The Great Organic Reach Drop

Let's start with the brutal truth: organic performance got absolutely demolished in 2025.

According to Richard van der Blom's Algorithm Insights 2025 report, the average creator saw:

• Views dropped 50%

• Engagement fell 25%

• Follower growth plummeted 59%

Company pages? Even worse. They now reach only 1.6% of their followers, down from 7% in 2021. If you've been relying on your company page to do the heavy lifting, that strategy died this year.

The silver lining? Personal profiles still outperform company pages significantly. LinkedIn made it crystal clear in 2025: they want humans talking to humans, not brands broadcasting to the void.

💀 RIP Creator Mode (And Good Riddance)

Remember toggling Creator Mode on and off? That's gone.

LinkedIn removed Creator Mode entirely in early 2024, and by mid-year, it was fully phased out. But here's the twist: they didn't take away the features. They democratized them.

What changed:

• Newsletter access is now available to everyone

• Analytics are standard for all users

• The Follow button is automatic (no more toggle)

• Profile hashtags disappeared

• The About section moved back to the top

Translation: LinkedIn stopped gatekeeping creator tools. Now everyone's a creator, which means the bar for standing out just got higher.

📹 Video Feed

LinkedIn went all-in on video early in the year, saw massive engagement, then quietly pulled back. By mid-2025:

• Video impressions for many creators dropped by 90%+

• LinkedIn scaled back the dedicated video tab outside the U.S.

• They shifted to "relevance-based" distribution (code for: we're not pushing all videos to everyone anymore)

• Brands like Hootsuite actually moved their creator budgets AWAY from video back to static posts

🤖 AI Is Here (And LinkedIn's Watching How You Use It)

LinkedIn went all-in on AI in 2025, but here's the catch: they're also cracking down on lazy AI content.

New AI features they launched:

• Predictive Career Path Analysis tool (analyzes your profile to show potential career trajectories)

• Cross-Language AI Networking (translates connection requests across languages)

• AI job application assistant

• Enhanced content detection systems

But here's what most people missed: LinkedIn's algorithm now actively detects AI-generated content with recognizable patterns, and it gets 47% less organic reach on average.

The lesson: Use AI as your assistant, not your ghostwriter. If your content reads like ChatGPT wrote it, LinkedIn will bury it.

📊 Comments Are Now 8x More Powerful Than Likes

This is the most underrated change of 2025.

Comments increased 37% year-over-year, and they now carry approximately 8x more influence on distribution than likes. Not all comments are equal, though:

• Comments with 10+ words create 2x more impact

• Comments with 20+ words work 2.5x better

Your move: Stop chasing likes. Start sparking real conversations. Ask questions that require thoughtful answers. Reply to every comment like you're talking to a human, not a metric.

🆕 Cool New Features You Might Have Missed

LinkedIn quietly rolled out some useful tools in 2025:

• Thought Leader Event Ads (brands can now sponsor user posts linking to events)

• Real-time post analytics (notifications at 3 and 7 days showing how posts drive views and growth)

• Company Intelligence API (beta users saw 287% rise in companies reached and 75% more MQLs)

• Secure salary sharing (job seekers can share notice period and expected salary with recruiters)

• LinkedIn Games leaderboard (because apparently we needed that)

• Calendly integration for Premium users

🔮 What's Coming in 2026: The Predictions

Buckle up, because 2026 is about to separate the dabblers from the builders.

1. Personal Branding Will Eat Everything

Individual posts will continue crushing company pages. CEO and executive content already gets 4x more engagement, and that gap will widen. Strategic commenting on high-visibility posts before creating your own will become a key growth tactic.

2. AI Gets Smarter (And So Should You)

Hyper-targeted content personalization based on professional interests, engagement history, and career goals will intensify. LinkedIn may reach over 600 million monthly active users and 1.3-1.4 billion total members by the end of 2026.

AI will handle mass personalization and predictive targeting, but the human touch will remain critical for conversion. Translation: automate the boring stuff, but show up as yourself when it matters.

3. Long-Form Storytelling Makes a Comeback

Paired with actionable insights, long-form posts will drive stronger results. Document posts for mini-guides, slide decks as educational carousels, and opinion-based content will spark more conversation.

Behind-the-scenes content will continue humanizing brands. People want to see the real you, not the polished LinkedIn version.

4. Newsletters and Analytics Level Up

Newsletters will become more integrated and discoverable, with improved analytics and customization. Enhanced analytics will give you increasingly granular views of post performance, follower demographics, and engagement patterns.

What Will Actually Matter in 2026

• Authenticity over polish (vulnerability and real stories win)

• Quality conversations over vanity metrics

• Consistent niche expertise over broad topics

• Strategic networking and genuine relationship building

• The first two lines of your posts (they must stop scrolling immediately)

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☕ The Bottom Line

LinkedIn in 2025 brutally punished lazy content creators but rewarded those who doubled down on authentic expertise.

2026 will belong to authentic storytellers who consistently show up in their niche, spark real conversations, and aren't afraid to show their face.

The algorithm doesn't care about your follower count. It cares about whether people actually want to hear from you.

So here's my challenge to you: stop trying to game LinkedIn. Start building something real.

Your move:

1. Audit your content from 2025. What actually worked?

2. Commit to leaving 10 thoughtful comments/day before posting your own content.

3. Pick ONE niche topic you'll own in 2026.

That's the tea for this week.

Now go brew something bold in 2026.

Cheers,
Fatima Khan

P.S. What surprised you most about these changes? Hit reply and let me know. I read every response.