#14 - Alex Boyd

Hey all,

This week I caught up with Alex Boyd, Co-Founder at Aware. He just released his epic 2025 State of LinkedIn report.

The report analyzes 13M Linkedin posts to give a real, data-backed picture of the macro performance trends (no BS hearsay or rumors about the algorithm). The whole report is great, and I highly recommend you read it. . But instead of getting into the nitty gritty of every stat he discovered, we’re going to focus on the one corner of LinkedIn most of us can improve on.

Commenting.

Every LinkedIn thought leader will tell you: if you want to grow your presence, start by commenting more. Alex has been beating this drum for years — and now he has the data to back it up.

To create Aware’s State of LinkedIn report, Alex analyzed over 13 million posts and found a strong correlation between comments written and comments received.

(If you’re into stats, the R² is 0.648 — not perfect, but strong enough to hang your strategy on.)

To put it plainly: with comments, you’re pretty much getting out what you put in. And if you take the time to send out 30 thoughtful comments a day, you can expect some serious returns. 

Alex also laid out an anecdote that further reinforces this train of thought.

“If you’re engaging with 30 of your prospects a day in a thoughtful way, Monday through Friday, you’re making 600 warm, personalized touches in a month. How could that not affect your pipeline?”

Not to mention, LinkedIn is rolling out a way for people to track the impact of the comments they leave. I haven’t gotten the update yet, but in Alex’s LinkedIn Analytics section, he sees a stat that shows what percentage of profile views come from commenting.

For Alex, that stat is 42%. 

42% of folks checking out Alex’s page landed there because of his comments. That’s a pretty compelling argument for commenting.

So do you need…

• A list of 4,000 leads?
• A 3-hour daily commenting ritual?
• An agency to ghostwrite your comment section? 

Not so much. Alex recommends not overthinking it. Here’s his flow for people looking to start upping their commenting game:

1. Start by picking 5 people.

Make a bookmarks folder and add a few creators, prospects, or customers you want to engage with regularly. Open it daily and comment like a normal person.

2. Build a filtered feed.

Use LinkedIn’s “From Member” filter in your search bar and type in your names. Now you’ve got a clean feed of just those folks — no distractions.

3. If you’re scaling, start using tools — but not until then.

Lots of us in the SaaS space love to sign up for tools before we’re ready. Alex says that, in the early stages of a commenting flow, you can really just use your bookmarks bar. Once you’re engaging with more people, then you can consider switching to a tool.

Aware (Alex’s company) lets you build custom engagement feeds by persona, industry, or individual. If you have Sales Navigator, you’ve probably noticed the engagement feed is slow and inconsistent, but this is one of Aware’s core value adds.

4. Write like a human.

Nobody is into AI-written comments. Alex recommends just thinking about how you’d respond if someone said something interesting at a conference — no need to bring ChatGPT into the mix.

5. Make it a daily practice.

30 comments a day x 30 workdays = 600 interactions with your prospects. Even if you only do HALF that, you’ll be racking up hundreds of touch points with your ICP. 

I recommend everyone check out the State of LinkedIn report in its entirety but, since you’re here, I figured I’d rattle off some of the other highlights we talked about in the pod:

• Impressions are down, but total impressions are up. Posting volume is rising by +28% YoY, which means every individual post has more competition.
  
  
• LinkedIn is increasing its ad load. Demand isn’t growing as quickly as the supply of content, so LinkedIn has started pushing for more promoted posts. The company’s revenue is up +10%.
  
  
• There are still blue oceans on LinkedIn. While marketers and salespeople operate in a pretty saturated market, there are huge spaces for folks in other industries. (He’s got a colleague becoming an Accounts Receivable thought leader, for example.)
  
  
• Great content still stands out. Whether you’re in a saturated space or not, you can still stand out by making fantastic content.
  
  
• Don’t panic. Alex made a great point about impressions in our conversation.
  
  “People see 1,000 impressions and say ‘I used to get 3,000.’ But 1,000 people seeing your words? For free? That’s wild. There’s almost nowhere else that happens.”

Social media is always changing, and the best way to stay ahead is to focus on what you can control: creating great content and engaging with the people who matter.

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Next Guest:

Mirko Novakovic, Founder and CEO of Dash0Thursday, April 17

Meanwhile at Good Content…

Top wins:

• We are excited to welcome 3 new clients this month.

Top learnings:

• Every word of Alex’s 2025 State of LinkedIn report.

Top recommendation:

• Catch my featured spot on Emily Kramer’s Dear Marketers Podcast. I outlined Good Content’s framework for how we qualify whether an exec is the right fit for a Linkedin content program. It’s a good listen for anyone unsure of whether they or their exec should go all-in on Linkedin.
• Alex’s 2025 State of LinkedIn report…duh. Go read it!

Thanks for stopping by, folks. As always, feel free to reach out with questions, feedback, suggestions, or anything else that’s top of mind for you.

Peter

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