What is the 5-3-2 rule for social media?

The 5-3-2 rule is a content mix for every 10 posts: 5 share other people's content that's useful to your audience, 3 are your own content (not a sales pitch), and 2 are personal posts that show the person behind the work. It's a ratio across any 10 posts, not a daily quota. TA McCann of Gist proposed it.

Who created the 5-3-2 rule?

The 5-3-2 rule is credited to TA McCann, founder of Gist, a social address book start-up bought by BlackBerry's maker in 2011. Write-ups of the rule go back to at least 2015, when sharing links on Twitter and LinkedIn was the main way people curated content for their followers.

Does the 5-3-2 rule work on LinkedIn in 2026?

Partly. The idea behind it still works: most of your posts should be useful to your audience. But posts with an external link get around 60% less reach in Richard van der Blom's 2026 research, so following it literally, with 5 link shares in every 10 posts, holds your whole account back.

What should I post instead of curated links on LinkedIn?

Write your own take on the thing you'd have shared. Name the person or report, say what you agree or disagree with and why, and put the link in the first comment. You still credit other people's work, which is the point of the 5, but the post is native text that LinkedIn will show.

How often should I post on LinkedIn using the 5-3-2 rule?

The rule sets a mix and works at any frequency. For most people 2 or 3 posts a week is enough, which means one cycle of 10 posts takes about a month. A steady 2 posts a week beats 7 in one week and none the next.

What is the 5-3-2 rule on LinkedIn? (And does it still work?)

The 5-3-2 rule is a content mix. For every 10 posts, 5 share other people's content that's useful to your audience, 3 are your own content (and not a sales pitch), and 2 are personal posts that show who you are.

TA McCann of Gist came up with it, back when social media meant sharing links. On LinkedIn in 2026 the spirit holds up, but following the numbers literally will cost you reach. Here's how I'd adapt it.

What the 5-3-2 rule says

The rule splits any 10 posts like this:

5 of 10: other people's content, relevant to your audience. A report, an article, a colleague's post.
3 of 10: your own content, relevant to your audience and not a sales pitch. A how-to, a lesson, an opinion from your work.
2 of 10: personal, non-work content. A hobby, a weekend, a bit of life outside the job.

It's a ratio across any 10 posts. You don't need 5 shares on Monday.

The idea is generosity. If half of what you post points at someone else's good work, people trust you when you do talk about your own.

Where it came from

The rule is credited to TA McCann, who founded Gist, a social address book start-up that BlackBerry's maker bought in 2011. The earliest write-up I could check is a 2015 LinkedIn article by Della Cornish, and it was already being passed around as an established rule by then.

That timing matters. In the early 2010s, curating meant posting a link with a line of comment.

Why the "5" breaks on LinkedIn now

LinkedIn doesn't like posts that send people off LinkedIn. In Richard van der Blom's 2026 research across 1.3 million posts, a post with an external link gets around 60% less reach. The full numbers are on the LinkedIn benchmarks page.

So follow the rule literally and half your posts are link shares carrying a reach penalty. Your 3 good posts then go out to an audience that's been shown less of you all month.

Plain reposts have a quieter problem. A repost with no comment of your own gives people nothing to react to from you. I can't point to a clean dataset on repost reach, so treat that as my read.

How I'd adapt 5-3-2 for LinkedIn

Keep the ratio. Change what each slot looks like.

The 5: other people's ideas, in your words. Take the report or post you'd have shared and write what you think about it. Name the person, quote the line that matters, say where you agree and where you don't. Link in the first comment. You're still sending credit outward, and LinkedIn sees a native text post.

The 3: your own expertise. The how-tos and lessons from your actual work. These are the posts that make people think of you when they need what you do. Keep them specific: a real client question beats "5 tips for better X".

The 2: personal, but close to the work. Holiday photos sit oddly on LinkedIn. Something like the book that changed how you work, the mistake you made in your first job, or why you picked this field all land better. They show the person without turning your feed into Instagram.

What a month looks like

At 2 or 3 posts a week, one cycle of 10 takes about a month. Something like:

Your take on a new industry report (link in comments)
A how-to from a client question this week
Disagreeing with a popular post in your field, politely, with reasons
A lesson from your first job
Your take on a colleague's post, crediting them by name
A mistake you see clients make and how to fix it
Your take on a talk or podcast episode
A short opinion on a change in your industry
Your take on a study with a surprising number
Why you got into this work

That's 5 posts about other people's ideas, 3 about your expertise and 2 personal. None of them is a link post.

Is the 5-3-2 rule worth following?

As a guardrail, yes. The common failure on LinkedIn is the opposite of what the rule guards against: every post is about your company, your launch, your offer. The rule pulls you away from that.

As a schedule, I wouldn't count too hard. If your own expertise posts land best, write more of them. Your post stats will tell you within a month or two, and that beats any ratio someone wrote for Twitter.

For the bigger picture, the LinkedIn content strategy guide covers what to post and why, and the posting frequency guide covers how often.

Try it in Postbrander

Postbrander drafts posts in your voice from one real thing you give it: a report you read, a client question, a lesson. It's a quick way to fill the 5 and the 3 without starting from a blank box. Start on the free plan, 7 posts a month, no card.