Reach by content format
We tracked 50,000 LinkedIn posts in March and measured reach by content format across four performance tiers: typical (p50, median), strong (p75, top 25%), top (p90, top 10%), and breakout (p99, top 1%).
Reach rate is impressions divided by follower count. How far a post travels relative to the account's audience size.
Format | Typical | Strong | Top | Breakout | Eng. Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Image | 14% | 37% | 103% | 807% | 2.5% |
Text | 12% | 33% | 87% | 723% | 1.6% |
Carousel | 11% | 28% | 62% | 424% | 2.1% |
Poll | 11% | 20% | 34% | 70% | 3.3% |
Article | 8% | 20% | 49% | 509% | 1.7% |
Video | 7% | 20% | 52% | 509% | 2.5% |
Repost | 6% | 13% | 27% | 108% | 2.1% |
Reach rate = impressions / follower count. Tiers: typical (p50), strong (p75), top (p90), breakout (p99). Source: TheShieldIndex.com — 50,000 posts (Mar 2026).
Image led at every tier. That includes breakout, where text had led in every prior month we've tracked.
The format cluster broke apart
In December, the top four formats traded within 1 percentage point at the typical tier. Image, text, carousel, and poll all landed between 13% and 14%.
Four months later, the spread is 2.6 points. Image at 14%. Poll at 11%.
Format | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | Feb→Mar |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Image | 13.21% | 14.26% | 13.89% | 13.69% | -0.20pp |
Text | 13.94% | 13.93% | 13.48% | 12.37% | -1.11pp |
Carousel | 13.17% | 13.18% | 12.16% | 11.41% | -0.75pp |
Poll | 13.21% | 12.57% | 12.45% | 11.09% | -1.36pp |
Video | 7.59% | 8.48% | 8.02% | 7.49% | -0.53pp |
Article | 7.53% | 8.90% | 8.08% | 7.76% | -0.32pp |
Repost | 5.59% | 6.04% | 5.70% | 5.77% | +0.07pp |
Typical reach rate (p50) by content format, Dec 2025 – Mar 2026. Reach rate = impressions / follower count. Source: TheShieldIndex.com
Image sits in a roughly 1-point range across four months. Text, carousel, and poll have drifted down since January. Repost is the only format that moved up (barely).
In December, text led image at the typical tier by 0.73 points. In March, image leads text by 1.32 points. A 2-point swing in four months.
Text fell at every tier
No other format did.
Typical reach rate dropped 1.11 points. Strong fell 3.53 points. Top fell 14 points. Breakout fell 398 points.
The decline steepened at each tier. A typical text post lost some reach. A breakout text post lost a third.
Engagement held flat: 1.61% in February, 1.62% in March.
People who see a text post engage at the same rate. But fewer people are seeing it.
The number that stood out
Text breakout reach rate in February: 1,121%. In March: 723%. A top 1% text post lost a third of its reach in one month.
– TheShieldIndex.com
Carousel's breakout reversed
In the February edition, we noted a pattern: carousel volume had declined every month while breakout reach rate climbed. 566% in December, 594% in January, 653% in February.
Fewer carousel posts. The ones that remained traveled further.
In March, volume rose. Breakout reach rate fell from 653% to 424%. A 229-point drop.
In December, January, and February, the two metrics moved in opposite directions. In March, both reversed.
Breakout rankings reshuffled
The breakout multiple (how many times further a top 1% post travels compared to a typical post) by format:
Format | February | March |
|---|---|---|
Video | 62x | 68x |
Article | 44x | 66x |
Image | 65x | 59x |
Text | 83x | 58x |
Carousel | 54x | 37x |
Repost | 16x | 19x |
Poll | 8x | 6x |
Breakout multiple = breakout reach rate (p99) / typical reach rate (p50). Source: TheShieldIndex.com
In February, text had the widest spread: 83x between a typical post and a top 1% post. In March, video leads at 68x. Text dropped to 4th.
Article jumped from 44x to 66x. Typical reach rate fell while breakout rose (353% to 509%). A typical article post reaches fewer people. A top 1% article post reaches more.
Poll remains the most predictable format in the data. 6x between typical and breakout. Highest engagement rate (3.3%), narrowest range of outcomes.
The Shield Index
@TheShieldIndex / theshieldindex.com
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