Most people on LinkedIn spend their effort on posts. They work on hooks, carousels and posting times. Meanwhile the fastest way to get in front of new people is sitting under everyone else's posts, in the comments.
This guide explains why, when posts still matter, and how to split your time. One correction first: an earlier version of this article claimed commenting drives three times more profile visits than posting. We could not find a source for that number, so we have removed it. The case for commenting does not need it.
Why do comments reach people that posts cannot?
Comments reach new people because they appear in someone else's space. When you publish a post, LinkedIn shows it first to people connected to you or following you. When you comment on another person's post, your name, headline and words sit in front of that person and everyone reading their thread.
If you have 800 connections and you comment on a post by someone with 20,000 followers, you have stepped into a room far larger than your own, and nobody in it needed to follow you first.
This matters most when you are starting out. A new account that only posts is talking to an empty room. A new account that comments well is a guest in full ones.
How do comments and posts compare?
| Your own post | A comment on someone's post | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sees it | Mostly your existing network | The author and their audience |
| Can you choose the audience? | No | Yes, by choosing whose post you comment on |
| Time to produce | Often 30 minutes or more | One or two minutes |
| How often you can do it | A few times a week | Several times a day |
| Needs an existing following | Yes, to get going | No |
| Starts a one-to-one conversation | Rarely | Often, if the author replies |
| Builds a body of work on your profile | Yes | No |
Neither column wins outright. They do different jobs. Posts build proof. Comments build reach and relationships.
Why does choosing the audience matter so much?
Because most of the people who see a post are not going to buy from you, and you cannot control which ones do see it. A comment is different. You decide to comment on a post by a VP of Sales at the kind of company you sell to, and the people reading that thread are her peers, her team and her followers.
That is targeting, done by hand. It is also why the choice of post matters more than the comment's polish. A brilliant comment under the wrong person's post is seen by the wrong people. We cover how to pick the right posts in why keyword alerts are not enough.
Are authors likely to reply to comments?
Authors have a real incentive to reply. Buffer's analysis of 72,000 LinkedIn posts found that replying to comments is linked to about 30% higher engagement, and that around 83% of profiles saw a positive effect when they replied. Authors who know this answer the comments worth answering.
Comments are also getting scarcer. Metricool's 2026 LinkedIn study of 673,658 posts found comments down 17% year over year. Fewer comments under each post means less competition for the author's attention.
A reply is the moment a comment becomes a conversation. It is also the point where sending a direct message stops being cold. See how B2B sales leaders turn comments into warm leads.
Why does being seen repeatedly matter?
Because most buyers are not buying today. Research cited in the 2024 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report puts it at 95% of business clients not actively looking for goods or services at any given moment. Edelman credits that figure to the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute.
If nineteen in twenty of your prospects are not in the market right now, a single pitch will miss almost all of them. What works is being a familiar, useful name for months, so you are the one they think of when the need arrives. Commenting is the cheapest way to do that. You can show up in front of the same person several times a month without publishing anything.
What kind of comment actually works?
"Great post!" and "Love this" do nothing. A comment that works does three things:
- It responds to something specific in the post, which proves you read it.
- It adds one new thing: an experience, a number, a counterpoint.
- It gives the author something to answer, usually a real question.
For example, under a post from a founder about losing a key hire:
The exit interview point stood out. We started doing "stay interviews" at six months for the same reason and learned more from those than from any exit. What would you have asked her if you had done one?
Three sentences. No pitch. A reason to reply. We break this down further in the anatomy of a LinkedIn comment that gets you noticed.
Should you stop posting?
No. Posts do something comments cannot: they give visitors something to read when they click your name. A good comment earns the profile visit. A recent post tells the visitor what you think and whether you are worth following.
There is evidence for a modest posting rhythm, too. Buffer's study of more than 2 million posts found that posting two to five times a week brings about 1,182 more impressions per post than posting once a week. If that pace is not realistic, one post a week is enough to keep your profile alive.
How should you split your time?
For most people who use LinkedIn to find customers, a sensible week looks like this:
| Activity | How often | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Comment on posts by people who match your buyer | 5 a day, weekdays | 10 to 15 minutes a day |
| Reply when someone answers your comment | Same day | A few minutes |
| Send a message after a reply | Same day | A few minutes |
| Publish your own post | Once a week | 30 to 45 minutes |
| Reply to comments on your post | Same day | A few minutes |
That is roughly four parts commenting to one part posting. If you now spend most of your LinkedIn time writing posts, flip the ratio and watch what happens to replies over a month.
How does Allen help with commenting?
Allen does the two slow parts of commenting. It finds fresh posts written by people who match your audience by job title, and it writes a comment on each one in your voice, trained on comments you wrote. With Autopilot on it posts 5, 10, 15 or 20 a day through LinkedIn's official API and emails you the plan first. With Autopilot off, you post each one yourself.
When someone replies, Allen emails you and drafts the direct message for you to send. If you also want to post, its Posts page drafts and schedules posts in the same voice. The help guide on using posts and comments together shows the loop, and every plan is free for 7 days.