Politicians are more engaged with LinkedIn than ever and nowhere was this more evident than with the most recent Budget announcement. Content from Britain’s first female Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, received substantially higher levels of engagement than her predecessor.
Reeves’ main Budget post, when directly compared to Jeremy Hunt’s spring announcement, received over 3,000 more reactions, almost 800% more comments, and over 1,000% more reposts. Her post linking directly to the Treasury’s Budget livestream also outperformed Hunt’s equivalent Spring Budget post, attracting 430 more reactions and a roughly 500% rise in comments.
To further understand if LinkedIn is becoming an increasingly important avenue for political commentary, updates and discourse we have also compared engagement metrics on other LinkedIn posts related to recent Budgets from each Chancellor’s posts as well as HM Treasury. Perhaps most tellingly, Reeves’ Autumn Budget livestream garnered 87% more views than Hunt’s Spring Budget, indicating that LinkedIn audiences are engaging with major political events more actively than ever.
Despite similar content styles on LinkedIn and X, this disparity points to a significant trend: political discourse on LinkedIn is expanding, in volume, depth and demand. We are seeing active debate, often measured and informed, taking place in the comments sections of posts. This drives engagement, amplifying the post onto people’s feeds via LinkedIn’s algorithm.
In a month period from late-September to late-October, Rachel Reeves LinkedIn follower count increased by over 22,000 and now sits at over 100,000. Reeves accrued this growth through nothing more complex than maintaining a steady drumbeat of informative posts and engaging with her network. This indicates that LinkedIn audiences are increasingly hungry for political content and are keen to follow politicians they know actively use the platform. Jeremy Hunt’s follower count, by contrast, peaked at just under 35,000 despite maintaining a relatively active presence when Chancellor.
Despite Reeves’ larger following on X, LinkedIn provided an avenue for more thoughtful, nuanced discussion around the Autumn Budget. Reactions and comments on LinkedIn tended to be more constructive, contrasting with the more hostile tone often observed on X. We know LinkedIn is also actively supporting Government departments to utilise the platform, helping to onboard them, indicating a desire from the platform itself to see increased politics and live streamed news content in users’ feeds.
What does this mean for brands and businesses? For CEOs, it means that LinkedIn is now the definitive destination for sharing measured, reasoned responses to policy and economic issues. They should look to craft compelling, informative and sometimes opinionated content, relevant to the political stakeholders they are trying to engage and influence. For businesses in general, they should be using LinkedIn’s granular targeting capabilities to promote their content to bespoke audience lists built around job titles, organisations and locations.
A well-timed, strong opinion can grab the attention of LinkedIn’s editorial team and help drive awareness and engagement among policy makers and the business community at large. For corporate accounts, knowing that there is an engaged political audience on LinkedIn means that targeted paid campaigns are an excellent way to reach policy and decision-makers with awareness-raising content on key themes, all within a brand-safe environment.
As we see the Government actively moving away from paying “£311 for an X ‘like’ in terms of staff time” in favour of a multichannel, influencer-led approach, it’s clear LinkedIn is becoming a crucial cornerstone for political conversation.
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