What Spreads
Myth:Make it positive and it will spread.
Evidence:Analyzing every New York Times article emailed over three months plus follow-up experiments: positive content is shared more than negative, but the deeper driver is physiological arousal - awe, anger and anxiety spread, sadness suppresses - with surprise, interest and practical usefulness adding independent lift.
The experiments show the emotion effect is causal, driven by activation level, and holds controlling for prominence and usefulness.
Jonah Berger & Katherine L. Milkman, Journal of Marketing Research · 2012 · Academic
Channels: content · social
What Spreads
Myth:A viral brand video can substitute for paid reach.
Evidence:Analysis of branded video sharing shows high-arousal emotional content is what gets shared, yet sharing rates stay low even for strong creative - so earned views are a bonus on top of planned reach, not a channel.
Distribution mechanics
Myth:"Link in comments" is a busted hack — LinkedIn stopped penalising outbound links.
Evidence:Outbound links in the post body still suppress reach. Algorithm InSights (1.8M posts) puts the body-link penalty near 50% of organic reach, and controlled A/B tests show first-comment placement recovering most of it: GrowthRocks measured 2.9x reach for link-in-comment in round one and 1.8x in round two — with more clicks, not fewer.
Engagement signals
Myth:Likes are the signal that drives distribution.
Evidence:LinkedIn's own ranking model uses a dwell-time prediction weighted independently of — and more heavily than — likes, with no fixed second threshold. Content that gets read all the way through outranks content that gets tapped and skipped.
Engagement signals
Myth:A comment is worth 15x a like — every creator says so.
Evidence:The 15x multiplier has no traceable primary source. AuthoredUp's analysis of 621,833 posts puts a comment at roughly 2x a like, a save at roughly 2x a meaningful comment, and threaded replies at up to 2.4x more reach. Comments still beat likes — just not by an order of magnitude.
Benchmarks
Myth:Your reach dropped because you stopped posting enough.
Evidence:Algorithm InSights (1.8M posts) documents organic reach falling by nearly 50% as LinkedIn shifted from a social graph to an interest graph. Baseline reach is structurally lower; the model now rewards demonstrated expertise signals over reach-chasing volume.
One crib in your inbox every Monday. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.