What is a good number of impressions on LinkedIn?

An impression on LinkedIn is one time a post is shown on someone's screen, and the same person can count more than once. It tells you how far a post travelled. It does not tell you who it travelled to.

What is a good number of impressions for your account?

A range, because one number would be a guess. Open your last 20 posts and put them in order of impressions. The middle ten are your normal. A post above them did well for you, and a post below them had a quiet day.

I use the middle ten and not the average, because an average gets pulled up by one big post and then describes none of the others. Your range will not match mine or the account you envy. It depends on who follows you, what you write about and how often you post.

I am not going to print a benchmark I cannot trace to a source. Every figure you see quoted for this comes from someone's accounts, in someone's window, and it is rarely yours. This note carries none from our accounts either.

Are impressions a number to ignore?

No. Impressions are a fair number to watch, and plenty of careful people do. They answer one question well: did this post travel? If you are new, or launching something, or want strangers to learn your name, wide reach is the point and impressions are the right measure.

The trouble starts when "did it travel" gets read as "did it work". Those are two questions. A post can travel far to people who will never buy from you, and a post can reach a small room that includes the one person you hoped to reach.

Why do profile visitors predict business better than impressions?

Your profile is a funnel, and content is how people find the funnel. A profile visitor is someone who saw a post and then went to find out who you are. An impression never records that step, and it comes just before a message, a connection request or a call.

So after a post I check one thing: did profile visitors go up that day? If they did, the post did its job, whatever its impressions said.

I haven't measured how many visitors turn into clients, so I won't pretend to. My reasoning is simpler: a visit is the closest thing I can see to someone choosing to look closer. Visitors also rise for other reasons, such as a comment you left on a larger account or a batch of connection requests you sent, so I read the number as a signal and not as proof.

Don't mix up the purpose of what you're doing.

Does every post need to go far?

No, and this is where I part ways with the usual advice. Some posts we have written for clients have travelled very far. Some very direct ones brought only a handful of people into the funnel, and they were worth it. Not every post is meant to go far. Some are written so that only a few people understand them, on purpose.

Here is an analogy. Say you want a reply from someone as hard to reach as Elon Musk. A public post for everyone might catch his eye by luck. A post written to him, about something he cares about, has better odds, and far fewer people will read it. Measured in impressions it is the weaker post. Measured against its purpose it is the stronger one. It is only an analogy: I am saying nothing about what he reads or answers.

The other sign I look for is who reacted. A post did well if the reactions came from people in your ideal customer profile (your ICP), because a reaction from someone you want to talk to gives you a way to start the conversation. A long list of reactions from people who will never buy tells you less than a short list from the ones who might.

When one of them replies, the next step is a conversation. I wrote down how I run the first one in How do you run a discovery call?, if you want the next read.

What should you check after you post?

Four checks after you post

1. 01

   Which day did you post?

   A good answerWrite it down, so you can find that day in your analytics.

2. 02

   Where do the impressions sit against your last 20 posts?

   A good answerAbove your range, inside it or below it.

3. 03

   Did profile visitors go up that day, against an ordinary day?

   A good answerThis is the number to watch.

4. 04

   Who reacted?

   A good answerPeople you want to talk to.

Read together, the four tell you more than any one does. A post above your range with flat visitors travelled, but it did not bring anyone to your profile. A post inside your range with visitors up did its job. A post below your range that drew a reply from the right person was a good post.

If you would rather have a team watch these numbers and write to a purpose, who should run your LinkedIn sets out the choice, and how much time a LinkedIn team needs from you says what it asks of you.

Where could this mislead you?

In two places. A small account has few visitors on an ordinary day, so one post moves the number a lot and one day proves little: look across several posts. And impressions count every showing, so a post shown to the same person twice counts twice, which can make a narrow post look wider than it was.

There is a limit of my own too. I have not pulled our accounts for this note, so everything here is how I read the numbers and none of it is a measured result.

What would you find in your own last week?

Open your analytics. Which day last week had the most profile visitors, and what did you post that day?

Questions

Is 1,000 impressions on LinkedIn good?

A figure like 1,000 means little on its own. If your normal range sits below it, it was a good post, and if your range sits above it, it was a quiet one. Sort your last 20 posts by impressions, take the middle ten, and judge the post against that range.

How many LinkedIn impressions is good?

As many as put a post above the middle half of your own last 20 posts. That range is yours, because it depends on who follows you and what you write about. Treat impressions as a sign of how far a post travelled, and check profile visitors that day to see whether it brought anyone closer.

What are impressions on LinkedIn?

An impression is one time a post is shown on someone's screen, and the same person can count more than once. It measures how far a post travelled and says nothing about who it reached or whether anyone acted on it. That is why I read it next to profile visitors and to who reacted.

How to increase post impressions on LinkedIn?

Decide first whether you want more impressions or more of the right people, because they ask for different posts. A broad post usually travels further than a narrow one, and a post written to one reader usually travels less and lands harder. Pick the purpose, then judge the post by it.