LinkedIn got harder. It's still your number two channel.

I talk to professional and financial-services leaders almost every day, and lately a lot of them are telling me the same thing. LinkedIn just seems to be getting harder, and they're not sure what to do about it.

I understand the frustration. But before I tell you why I think they're wrong, let's talk about the part they've got right.

Why LinkedIn got harder

This isn't really a last-year story. It's the last few months. The algorithm has changed, and the reason it's changed actually matters.

LinkedIn has taken a strong position on getting AI spam off the platform. They're now using AI themselves to analyse posts and profiles, and the whole thing is mid-change.

They haven't got it perfectly right yet, and that's worth being honest about. But the direction they're pushing in is a better space for professional-services people, with less of the nonsense that's been clogging up the feed.

So yes, it has got tougher. There's no question about that. Reach has dropped. And generic messages just don't work anymore, because everyone is getting spammed from every direction and people have stopped reading them.

So does that mean it shouldn't be your number two channel?

No. I don't think it does.

For a professional or financial-services firm, after referrals, LinkedIn is still the second most valuable place you can be. Your buyers are still there, still reading, still forming a view on who they trust. That hasn't changed because the algorithm did. What's changed is how much you have to do to earn their attention.

What's actually working on the content side

The firms still getting results are posting consistently, in their own voice, about what they actually do and the skills they actually have.

And they're mixing it up rather than saying the same thing the same way every week. The content is genuinely better than it used to be, because the bar for what earns attention has gone up. If you're not sure where to start, our breakdown of why most LinkedIn strategies fail is a good place to begin.

Even then, it isn't clean. I still get frustrated when a genuinely good post gets almost no reach, and it happens.

Sometimes you have to put budget behind it and boost it, either to your peers, to your ICP, or a combination of both. That works. Organic sometimes carries a post and sometimes it doesn't, and there isn't a neat formula for predicting which.

We've had a post go viral, then copied almost the exact same thing three or four months later and got five percent of the reach. There's no scientific way to know exactly what's going on. When a post does take off, the system underneath it is what turns reach into pipeline - that's exactly what happened in our Vuna case study, where one post booked twelve qualified meetings.

So you track it. You watch who's engaging with you, you stay consistent, you pay attention to what's working and what isn't, and you let that shape what you do next.

And that's only half of it

Everything above is just the content side. I haven't even mentioned outbound yet, and that's where a lot of the real conversations come from.

You still have to find the people you want to talk to, whether that's on the partnership side, the peer side, or your direct ICP.

You connect with them, and you send genuine messages, not templated ones. A lot of them won't reply, and you have to be at peace with that. They're busy, the timing's wrong, or they've already got something similar in place and don't see the need. That's normal.

But if you're consistent, your messaging is clear, and you're actually speaking to a problem they have, you will get conversations with the right people. That part hasn't stopped working at all.

What we've changed on our side

This is also why we've moved away from one message fits all. We've built custom messaging into our own tools, so there's no longer a single automated message going out to everyone. Each person gets a message built around your ICP, the specific persona you're talking to, and what's actually relevant to them. I wrote more about the outbound tool we ended up building ourselves if you want the detail.

The bottom line

Yes, it's harder than it was a few months ago. No, it isn't broken, and in the longer run it might end up better for the people who do this properly.

For a professional-services firm, LinkedIn is still your number two channel after referrals.

Run it properly, on both the content and the outbound side, and it still does what it's supposed to. For the firms we work with, that's three to five high-quality meetings with C-suite buyers every month. The algorithm raised the bar. The answer is to meet it, not to walk away from one of the best channels you've got.

Frequently asked questions

Is LinkedIn still worth it for professional services firms in 2026?

Yes. For professional and financial services firms, LinkedIn remains the second most valuable channel after referrals. Buyers are still there, still reading, and still forming a view on who they trust. The algorithm change raised the bar for what earns attention - it did not remove the audience.

Why has LinkedIn reach dropped recently?

LinkedIn has taken a strong position against AI spam and is now using AI to analyse posts and profiles. Reach has fallen and generic, templated messages no longer work because people have stopped reading them. The direction favours genuine, expert content from real professionals.

What works on LinkedIn now that the algorithm has changed?

Posting consistently in your own voice about work you actually do, mixing up your formats, boosting strong posts to your ICP when organic reach falls short, and running outbound with personalised messages built around the specific persona and their problem - not one message sent to everyone.