LinkedIn view counts explained

LinkedIn post views aren’t the same as article views – and more

On LinkedIn, not all views count the same way. Let’s look at how they differ and what sort of views really matter.

Impressions versus views

An?impression?means some piece of content was loaded on the page such that it?could?have been viewed. It’s a bit like opening a newspaper to a page full of ads: all of the ads on that page have been “loaded” and are ready to be read.

A?view?means the content?was?viewed. For videos, the count happens after only 3 seconds, so we can’t be sure it was a?meaningful?view. In other words, you really did glance at a specific ad on the newspaper page – but perhaps not for long enough to take it in properly.

For other post types, judging whether content has actually been viewed is tough: LinkedIn needs to rely on things such as clicks of “see more” links to assess whether the viewer has taken real interest in the content.

Potentially, they might measure how long the content was visible for by recording your scrolling activity. The technology exists to do this; whether it’s used on LinkedIn is another matter.

Post views

Posts are the short (up to 1300 characters) status updates shown in the LinkedIn home feed.

LinkedIn counts a post view every time a post is presented in someone’s home feed.

That means the content might not have been read – it was just?shown.

If you’re thumb-scrolling through your feed at a million miles an hour, you’re adding a view to each of those posts even though you haven’t stopped to read them.

Because of that, post views aren’t a great indicator of engagement from your audience.

I’ve been posting consistently on LinkedIn since the start of 2017. As I write this in mid October 2018, my average post view counts are around 2.5K.

Article views

Articles are long-form pieces of writing (up to 100K characters) that are LinkedIn’s equivalent of blog posts.

Article views are counted only when someone clicks through to the article.

This could be via a link in your profile or in a post, but also from links in emails, Google searches or even direct traffic.

Unlike post views, article views are the result of a conscious decision by the viewer. No one views a LinkedIn article by accident.

LinkedIn treats articles as though they’re the same as external content. If you want eyeballs on your articles, you need to promote hard on LinkedIn and elsewhere. Without promotion, don’t expect your articles to get a lot of views.

However, because articles are weightier than posts, even a small number of article views can help build your authority and earn new leads into your business.

So, don’t discount articles just because they rack up fewer views than posts.

To date, I’ve published 36 articles on LinkedIn, with an average view count of 237. If I ignore older articles, my average is a little over 500. Nothing special but it’s OK.

Video views

Videos here means the movies/clips shared directly in LinkedIn posts. These are called ‘native video’ posts.

In contrast, ‘external video’ posts contain links to third-party video sites such as YouTube and Vimeo.

The net result of both looks about the same – you see a post containing a video.

But LinkedIn’s algorithm doesn’t like links to external content?– so it’s much better to post native videos rather than external videos.

Native video views are counted after the content is played for?3 seconds.

That means a quick thumb-scroll past a video isn’t going to count, but if you pause and give the content even brief attention, that?will?count.

The 3-second rule means that video view counts will almost always be lower than normal post view counts.

Still, these video views are a signal of attention and therefore could be seen as more valuable views than post views.

How much are video views really worth?

My January 2022 experiment on my company page shows that a video view is worth the equivalent of about 5× that of a post view.

In other words, a video receiving 3K views might be comparable with a normal post that receives 15K views.

Here’s the data from my experiment, which shows the relationship between video views and post impressions.

I did my experiment by posting videos to my company page. The analytics there let me see how many times each video was loaded into people’s feeds (impressions) and how many times the videos were actually watched for a minimum of 3 seconds (views).

The average ratio came out to 4.9:1. This means that for the publicly reported view count, you’d need to multiply by 4.9 (on average) to get the number of impressions for that post.

Why does that matter?

Because every other type of shortform post (text/image/document/poll) is measured on impressions.

So, comparing video posts’ view counts with every other posts’ impressions count isn’t a fair comparison.

By working out what a video post’s impressions count is, you can then make a fairer comparison.

In short:

Whatever a video’s view count is,?MULTIPLY IT BY FIVE?and you’ll get a number that you can compare with all your other posts.

In my experience, anything over 1K is good for video views. Go beyond 5K and you’re really doing well.

While video view counts might look low at first glance, there are things that these numbers can’t reflect:

• brand awareness.
• tone of voice.
• emotional connection.
• memorability.

Video has the power to cut through and really reach people in a way that text alone can’t, and it’s made a big difference to my success on LinkedIn.

Why can’t I see video view counts on some people’s videos but not on others?

Video view counts are shown on other people’s videos only when the videos have been viewed?more than 500 times.

You should be able to see video view counts on all of your own videos, even if they’ve performed terribly. Once your videos receive more than 500 views, others will be able to see the view counts on them.

Do shared video post views add to the original post’s view count?

I don’t think so. I’ve seen separate numbers reported on other shared posts, which makes me think that those numbers wouldn’t also be added to the original video’s view count.

LinkedIn don’t confirm the way it’s meant to work, so I’m taking my best guess on this one.

Profile views

This is where view counts get interesting.

A profile view is one where someone has consciously opted to look at your public profile. They might already be connected with you or not. Either way, getting more profile views is a good sign.

On other platforms, this could be a bit of a vanity metric, but on LinkedIn, people are apt to do business.

If someone’s there checking out your profile, that could mean that they’re interested in what you sell or what service you can provide to them.

LinkedIn profile views are like lottery tickets?– the more you get, the more chance you have of winning the prize (doing more business).

And that’s what I’ve seen for my?copywriting services. I’m now getting 20× more profile views than I did at the start of 2017, and that’s meant a lot more leads into my business and ultimately more money in the bank.

So, of all the view types I’ve mentioned, profile views are probably the most important to keep an eye on.

When you load your home feed in LinkedIn on the desktop, look at the left-hand panel to see a count of your profile views over the last 90 days.

LinkedIn profile views are shown to the left of the home feed on desktop

Let’s wrap up

Not all views count equally on LinkedIn, so it’s not right to compare, for example, post views with article views.

As with all things on LinkedIn, you can improve your stats by:

• writing a good profile headline and summary.
• showing up consistently with helpful posts, articles, videos and comments.

Profile views matter most of all the view counts – they’re the lottery tickets you want to maximise, so that you have a greater chance of doing more business.

Want better LinkedIn results?

Get all of my best thinking about LinkedIn in my online course: How not to be a LinkedIn Loser

This post first appeared on the Espirian blog. Read the updated version at https://espirian.co.uk/linkedin-view-counts/