LinkedIn's Most Popular Posts Fall Into These 2 Categories. Here's Why I Think So.

At my job at LinkedIn, I run a LinkedIn Page for our sales business. And for that, I spend a lot of time looking at the feed, understanding what type of posts go “viral.”

There are many different types of posts that do well – news posts, posts that teach a skill, posts about happy moments with coworkers, funny posts, etc. But, from what I’ve seen, the absolute most popular posts on LinkedIn generally fall into these two categories:

• Motivational posts, about overcoming some odds to achieve something great.
• Vulnerable, breakdown posts, where the person bravely admits about how work isn’t working for them.

Why?

First off, let’s quickly align on whose using LinkedIn. It’s people at work! Meaning, the posts that resonate on LinkedIn are posts that resonate with us when we’re in “work mode.”

In that way, LinkedIn gives a unique perspective about our work mindset. 

Okay, so why are these two types of posts popular? Well, I think they’re connected.

On one hand, we’re trying to motivate ourselves. We’re trying to perform at our absolute best. At work, in more than any other aspect of our lives, we want to be damn-near perfect.

But that’s hard to maintain. So, when we see motivational posts, it gives us that shot of motivation. It makes us believe that if we continue to perform at our highest level, it’ll all pay off one day.

An example – this viral post from NYU about a great quote from Taylor Swift. The subtext here – yes, work is difficult, but if you continue at it, you’ll have success and fame (just like TSwift!).

Then, the vulnerable breakdown posts. These are the posts – generally, highly personal in nature – about how a member put too much pressure on themselves and finally decided to step away. Or how we’re not as happy as we pretend to be, we’re not the unfeeling robots we try to be at work and we’re not going to take it anymore, damnit!

These are two sides of the same axe.

We love the posts that motivate us to perform at our impossibly high expectations, but we also love the posts that acknowledge these expectations are bunk and we need to be easier on ourselves.

Also, key word here – “perform.” We “perform” at work, meaning we expect an audience is watching our every move, judging our every step, and it’s our job to execute it perfectly.

Here’s the honest truth – most people don’t care at all about this performance. And absolutely nobody cares as much about your performance as you do; not even close.

All of this raises a few questions. Like, what would it mean to stop performing? What would it mean to not judge ourselves so harshly?

What would it mean to ease up on ourselves, even just a little bit?

I think these are questions worth asking.

I recently wrote a book, How I Found Peace: 14 Revelations That Cleared My Mind. It’s a practical and honest guide to finding inner peace in today’s world – you can get it here.