Dwell Time

Dwell time is the number of seconds a user spends viewing a single post in the feed before scrolling onward. LinkedIn confirmed in 2020 that dwell time is one of the strongest signals in its feed ranking model, weighted alongside explicit engagement like reactions and comments.

Dwell time matters because it captures passive attention. A post can get few likes but still go viral if thousands of people stop and read it for fifteen seconds each. The algorithm interprets that pause as a vote of interest and shows the post to more people.

The practical implication: long posts beat short ones, as long as the hook earns the read. Carousels score especially well because users swipe through slides. Video earns dwell time when viewers watch. Single-image posts with dense text underneath often outperform witty one-liners for this reason.

A few patterns that lift dwell time: a hook that asks an open question, a list format that signals "there are 7 things below", a story that withholds the punchline, and white space that makes long posts visually scannable. Avoid burying the reason to keep reading.

You cannot see dwell time directly in LinkedIn analytics, only impressions and reactions. But if a post pulls high impressions with modest likes, dwell time is doing the work behind the scenes.