Hey,
You're busy enough without having to wade through 47 marketing blogs to figure out what actually matters this week. That's my job. Here's what's worth your attention.
Here are three things worth knowing right now, and what they mean for you.
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Engagement dropped on
Instagram and LinkedIn in 2025
Buffer's State of Social Media Engagement 2026 report landed with some numbers that explain why certain platforms have felt harder lately. Instagram, LinkedIn, and Threads all saw engagement decline in 2025. Facebook, Pinterest, and TikTok held steady or saw slight gains.
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If Instagram felt harder last year, it was.
If LinkedIn felt quieter, it was.
That's not a reflection of your content. It's a reflection of the platform. The industry has spent years telling solopreneurs they need to be everywhere and optimized at all times, and when engagement drops, the natural conclusion is that something is wrong with you. The data says otherwise.
What I find more interesting is what went up: Facebook. Not glamorous. Not the platform anyone is excited to talk about at a conference. But if your audience is small business owners and solopreneurs, there's a decent chance they're on Facebook more than they're letting on. Sometimes the unsexy answer is the right one.
One blog post. One week of content.
Zero blank pages. That's the Flywheel.
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Instagram now lets people leave public comments on your Stories
Instagram rolled out "hype comments" for Stories this week. It's a quick-reaction option that lets followers respond without having to write out a full DM. Lower barrier to engage, which generally helps with reach signals.
If you're posting Stories consistently, this is a small change that could nudge your numbers in the right direction without any extra work on your end.
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I'll be honest: I usually don't spend a lot of time on small platform feature updates. Most of them don't move the needle. But this one is worth a quick look if you're already posting Stories, because it removes a friction point that was real.
The reason people don't engage with Stories isn't that they don't care. It's that responding requires effort, and most people scrolling aren't in effort mode. A public comment changes that math slightly. You're not going to build your business on Stories comments, but if you've been posting consistently and wondering why nobody's responding, this is a small thing that works in your favor without you changing anything.
The bigger takeaway: consistency on Stories just got a little more rewarding. Keep showing up.
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LinkedIn added two new metrics for newsletter publishers
LinkedIn quietly added email sends and email open rate to its newsletter analytics.
If you're running a LinkedIn newsletter, you can now see not just who viewed it on the platform, but how many people received it as an email and how many opened it. That's a meaningful upgrade from the basic impression numbers that were there before.
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I want to be careful not to oversell this for everyone, because it only matters if you're already publishing a LinkedIn newsletter. If you're not, this is a good moment to understand what LinkedIn newsletters actually are before deciding whether to start one.
For those who are publishing: this data is useful because it separates platform views from actual email reach. A lot of LinkedIn newsletter readers get the content as an email and never click through to the platform. Until now you couldn't see that. Now you can.
And for those sitting on the fence about starting one: this is a good reminder of a principle worth revisiting. Build the things you own first. Your email list lives on your terms. LinkedIn newsletters live on theirs. The metrics update is nice. It doesn't change that math.
