With a massive user base of 1 billion, LinkedIn continues to be a powerhouse for personal and professional growth.
LinkedIn expert Neil Patel once said, “LinkedIn is no longer an online resume. It’s your digital reputation.” It is the go-to platform for building meaningful connections, sharing valuable insights, and positioning yourself as a thought leader in the industry.
The ultimate transition of this job-seeking platform into your professional portfolio can be seen with the evolution of algorithm over time.
Did you know that the LinkedIn algorithm determines what content appears on your feed? Recent studies show that the organic reach of your post among your connections is only 1%.
This blog is for you if you want the right strategy to outsmart the supersmart algorithm. Ranging from basic intricacies to expert tips and tricks, there is everything you need.
So, let’s dive in.
What Is LinkedIn Algorithm?
The LinkedIn algorithm is a supersmart filter ensuring that only the most relevant, personalized, and interesting content reaches your feed.
This formula filters content based on your connections, interests, relevance, and engagement, bringing you the most informative and interesting newsfeed.
One thing that keeps us hooked to our social media feed for hours is how personalized it is. No one likes to come across irrelevant content.
As more and more people are posting, there is a need for a clever assistant to make sure only the content that matters goes viral. According to the algorithm 2023 updates, it is a platform where people come looking for knowledge and updates rather than virality.
LinkedIn Algorithm Updates 2023
In June 2023, LinkedIn rolled out a new algorithm update based on user’s feedback and suggestions. The algorithm changes in 2023 aimed to improve user experience, making it more relevant and interesting.
To stop irrelevant content from going viral, LinkedIn has refined its algorithms to better suit the B2B social networking environment. Hence aligning the platform more closely with its niche audience.
Here’s what has changed:
1. Promoting Knowledge and Advice
As per the recent update, posts that share knowledge and advice are more likely to get traction on the platform. LinkedIn has seen a 40% increase in people viewing posts sharing expertise and advice.
2. Strengthening Connections
After the algorithm changes in 2023, it is more likely that your followers will see your post. In other words, you are more likely to see posts from the people you follow. LinkedIn has seen a 10% increase in people viewing posts from those they follow.
Core Takeaways: LinkedIn wants you to stay focused and create content for your niche, making it informative and relevant. So, sharing relevant educational insights will benefit more than covering every trending topic on the platform.
What Are LinkedIn’s Ranking Signals?
These LinkedIn ranking signals are key criteria that the algorithm uses to deliver your content further to the user. The most important signals are personal connections, relevance, and engagement potential.
It is because every year, 443 billion posts are shared on LinkedIn, and they need to be filtered out by the algorithm and delivered to user’s feeds per their interests.
1. Connection
LinkedIn first shares your content with those you have strong connections with to strengthen the connection between users. This sharing starts with your direct connections, making your content more likely to appear in their feed.
Once your direct connections view and engage with your content, the algorithm works towards sharing it with 2nd-level and 3rd-level connections.
The below image shows how your 2nd-level and 3rd-level connections get to see your content on their feed.
2. Relevance
Relevance is the most important ranking signal when the LinkedIn algorithm filters the content. Every social media algorithm takes relevance as its priority.
It matches your content with the target audience’s interests, professions, and industries. This is done based on the pages, accounts, groups they follow, and the content and hashtags they share.
It also keeps track of the people you engage with and shows your content on their feeds. To grow the band of your audience, you should interact with people outside your industry and niche.
3. Engagement
After getting filtered based on connections and relevance, engagement is the next ranking signal that determines further content visibility.
The higher the likes, comments, and shares, the higher the engagement and trending content. So, the algorithm favors the content that inspires discussion, reaction, and interaction.
However, LinkedIn’s “engagement” ranking signal is phasing out with every algorithm update. After being the highest organic reach-generating social media platform, LinkedIn now wants to strengthen the algorithm for paid ads and sponsored content, just like the Facebook algorithm.
Therefore, focus on building strong connections, creating relevant content, and promoting engagement to get desired visibility.
Understanding and optimizing your content as per these ranking signals will help increase your LinkedIn presence.
How Does the LinkedIn Algorithm Work?
Even though you know what will make your content successful, you must know how those ranking signals work in the decision-making process.
As your content passes through different algorithm filters, it defines how strong the ranking ability is. Let’s see how your content has to prove its worth at every stage of the algorithm mechanism:
1. Filtering: Checking Spam or Clear Content
The first step of the algorithm is checking if your content is LinkedIn-appropriate. Based on its community guidelines or quality your content is divided into three major categories based on its community guidelines or quality.
- Spam Content
- Low-Quality Content
- High-Quality Content
If your content is detected as spam, it may get removed, or it will limit its distribution. Low-level content will also get less traction; only high-quality content will reach virality.
2. Testing: Sending Your Content for Testing
If your content passes the harsh quality control stage, it will be moved to the testing stage.
The LinkedIn algorithm will start showing the content to your different levels of connections and monitor the engagement signals. This is a time when humans test your content for authenticity.
3. Delivering: Dispatching Content to Relevant Users
Once your post is appropriate and generates high engagement, the algorithm distributes it to a wider audience.
As virality is not a factor in its algorithm, you must focus mainly on creative, informative, and niche content to reach that standard.
The algorithm never pushes your post to irrelevant users. It shares it further with those more likely to like and engage with it.
So, this recent update will get you higher engagement from those who matter. But it also makes it complex to crack the code and get higher engagement regularly.
13 Tips to Outsmart LinkedIn Algorithm in 2024
Every week, 3 million users share posts on LinkedIn, but only a few receive the privilege of high engagement. This is because they are not familiar with the smart ways to outsmart algorithms and acquire the position of high-quality trending content.
There are several other factors you can track down to protect your post from getting spam and have it distinguished as high-quality content.
To protect you from those mistakes, valuable tips are on their way to assist you.
1. Optimize Your Profile
The first step is to polish the source of all your content: your profile.
Make your profile shine like a gem by adding all the necessary information, such as
- A Clear Profile Picture
- An Engaging Headline
- A Detailed Summary
- Add from the 41k Skills available on LinkedIn
Above all, make sure your profile is complete and professional to attract the idea of authenticity. Recent studies show that the LinkedIn algorithm favors accounts with complete and updated information and gains 40 times more opportunities.
2. Be Informative and Relevant to Your Niche
All we have talked about till now is the importance of relevance in the algorithm. To beat this mechanism, you must create informative and relevant content.
You already know how much the algorithm favors knowledge and informative content, so you might want to include it in your posts to rank higher.
This way, the tailor-made wisdom you share with your audience will make you a guru in your niche.
3. Post When Your Followers Are Online
You mostly know what to post but hardly know “When to post?”. There must have been a post, perfect in all senses, but it still didn’t get the expected traction.
This is because you were following the same old chronological posting pattern. You need to know the best time to post on LinkedIn.
4. Follow a Consistent Posting Schedule
It has been observed that businesses that post content weekly see a 2X growth in their engagement. This is how important it is to maintain consistency on LinkedIn.
This will help you keep your audience hooked and make them anticipate your next content update. Not only that, this will also demonstrate your commitment to sharing valuable content.
When the LinkedIn algorithm observes your consistency, it will deliver your content to a much wider audience, creating a broad reach for you.
5. Don’t Edit Your Post After Publishing
If you edit your post after posting, it is time for you to know that editing your post in the first 10 minutes will reduce your impression by 10 to 40 percent.
You must keep your hands off after posting the content during the golden hours (first few hours after posting) on LinkedIn because if you don’t, it will disrupt the post-performance and algorithm evaluation process.
If you spot any mistake in the post content, copy the text, delete the old post, make necessary changes, and post it fresh instead of editing the same post.
6. Post Different Formats
Diversifying the content by mixing various post types will cater to different preferences and increase engagement.
Some of the post types that see the highest traction on LinkedIn are videos, pictures, and question-based posts.
Do you know that Video posts see the highest engagement on LinkedIn? A video is 20x more likely to be re-shared by users, and an image post receives 2x higher engagement.
Facing issues identifying what your audience likes and what not?
To understand what works for you, try our LinkedIn analytics feature, which provides a clear understanding of content performance using KPIs and relevant matrix.
7. Don’t Comment on Your LinkedIn Post First
Hold back on commenting on your own post, and let your viewers have their say first. You can comment after the audience leaves some of their thoughts.
Commenting first on your post racks the LinkedIn algorithm and reduces the post’s organic performance. Also, it disrupts the performance of your post during the most critical time, golden hours.
Well, those who use SocialPilot’s Social Media Publishing Tool aren’t bothered by the algorithm when adding the first comment to their post.
When you schedule posts on LinkedIn using our tool and add a comment while scheduling, the comment is published at the same time as the post and hence does not disturb the algorithm after posting.
8. Promote Your Posts
Spread the word on your networks as far as possible to cast a wider net.
Tagging relevant people is one way to promote the posts, but don’t just tag anyone and everyone. Tag only those you know who will engage with your post within an hour.
This is one way to expand your reach on LinkedIn, but to beat the algorithm, you can attract traction from other platforms, too. Share your LinkedIn post across other social media channels and relevant groups.
9. Use Relevant Hashtags
Using hashtags with purpose is the most organic way of promoting your post.
Hashtags can increase discoverability and connect with user’s interest in similar topics and industries.
Use only 3 – 5 hashtags. One should be broad, the next can be a little relevant to the content niche, and the next can be very specific, creating a funnel.
10. Stop Using External Links
Adding external links to your LinkedIn post is the worst promotional practice ever.
Adding links to your post can reduce your post impression by approximately 50%. Posts with external links have the lowest engagement rate on LinkedIn.
Instead of having links in your post content, add them in the comment section after a few hours. This is a smart way to share the link easily and beat the LinkedIn algorithm.
11. Take Optimum Gaps Between Two Posts
According to a recent report, once you share a post, you should wait at least 10-12 hours before you share the next one.
This is advised because if one of your posts is doing well and getting good engagement, let that post grow. You can share the next post after the previous one starts receiving stagnant reach.
Don’t bombard your audience with back-to-back posts; give them breathing room. Sharing consecutive posts can disrupt the algorithm and reduce the reach of high-performing posts.
Have you ever wished for a magical tool to shape your LinkedIn posts just right?
With SocialPilot’s social media scheduling and management tool, maintaining optimal gaps between your LinkedIn posts is a breeze. Whether finding the perfect time slot or experimenting with different posting times, our platform simplifies the process.
Just select your preferred time slots in the content planner, and voila! Your posts will be automatically published at the ideal intervals, ensuring maximum reach with minimal effort.
12. Follow Regular Engagement Practice
To get a good reach, you need to strengthen your engagement ranking signal while posting.
LinkedIn algorithm tracks your engagement and then shares your post with a wider audience. It is advised to follow regular engagement practices to generate higher reach.
To outsmart the algorithm mechanism, you should engage with posts from other relevant accounts 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after you share your post. This practice can increase your impression by 30%.
13. Find Your LinkedIn SSI Score
SSI means Social Selling Index that determines your rank on the platform.
A good SSI Score is considered to be above 70%, which can get you a 20% to 25% boost in your reach.
It is a score showcasing your personal brand and ability to generate leads and convert them into sales.
With this, we have a wrap-up of the tips and tricks to help you grow on LinkedIn and shape the algorithm cycle in your favor.
99% of LinkedIn users don’t know these beating tips. So utilize them and grow your reach and engagement beyond expectations.
Final Words
As we have explored, the LinkedIn algorithm is the gatekeeper of content verification and distribution, determining what users will see.
However, this algorithm is not static and subject to change over time. To adapt to the updates, navigate success in 2024, and beat the algorithm, the 13 tips provided have proven effective.
Moreover, integrating SocialPilot into your LinkedIn strategy will streamline the scheduling and automating of posts, optimize posting time, and much more. Start your 14-day FREE trial today!
