Do You Know the LinkedIn Algorithm as an Outsider?

The answer is "I don't".

It's interesting to see LinkedIn marketers who are not working in LinkedIn share with other people what the LinkedIn Algorithm is.

I just did a fresh google search using "LinkedIn Algorithm 2021" and immediately I can see a bunch of articles pop up on my screen.

Essentially, these tips can be categorised into the following:

• Types of posts (pure text, text with images and text with video etc).
• The best time to post to maximise the engagement thereof
• The number of #hashtags you should use.
• The sequence of commenting, liking and sharing other people posts.

How many of you find these tips very useful? If that's you, congratulations. You can stop reading this article now.

What's My Challenge?

Let's look at these tips more objective.

My biggest challenge is a very logical one. If the marketers are not working in LinkedIn, how would they know the so-called LinkedIn algorithm in the first place?

Do you think LinkedIn (and for that matter other social media platforms) will leak out their secret formula to the public? [Disclaimer: I have seen exception twice on this question - one on TikTok and one on YouTube. I am not going into the details of these two incidents. All I am saying is that there can be exceptions to the general rules.]

At the same time, while these general tips may sound helpful to you, my second challenge is how specifically can I apply these tips to optimise my LinkedIn profile. This is like in the world of pitching where the marketers are sharing with you something important in the context, but unless you engage them for specific advice or "Done-for-You"/ "Done-With-You" services, you cannot implement the ideas.

How to Deal with This Challenge?

Let's work on a few assumptions first.

1. Each person uses LinkedIn for different reasons - applying for jobs, generating leads, gaining exposure to more people
2. Each person has his/her unique ways of posting contents on LinkedIn. I am not here dictating whether this person should make "text-only" posts; or posts that come with image and/or videos. After all, not everyone is comfortable with doing videos. [Sidebar: How do I know? We trained thousands of people in our signature course "VideoHero" since 2018 with the primary objective to helping entrepreneurs to overcome their fear of judgement and posting "ugly" direct response videos on their social media to get more leads and more sales using the stupid smartphones.]

3. People are from different time zones. You can't expect me in GMT+8 time zone to post something at 3 am my time (which is 12 pm PST | 3 pm EST]. Similarly, I don't expect people from Europe to post their contents right now (9:51 am GMT+8) as most of them should be on the bed right now.

With these assumptions, the objective way is to use what LinkedIn has provided to us, i.e. the Social Selling Index ("SSI") Score.

What's Social Selling Index?

Just remember this - the SSI is your LinkedIn report card, as taught by my mentors, Chad Nicely and Steve Rosenbaum.

Whether you believe in SSI or not, LinkedIn claims that by being a social selling leader, he or she

• can create 45% more opportunities than peers with lower SSI
• is 51% more likely to reach quota
• outsells his/her peers as 78% of the social sellers don't use social media at all.

Where to Get your SSI Score?

The first way to get your SSI Score is to use Google and type "Social Selling Index".

Having said that, I have this shortened URL which is easy to remember and feel free to use it or share this with your peers - > https://ssiscore.me

Don't worry if I am selling you anything. This shortened URL represents the longer link of the SSI link provided by LinkedIn. All I do is to make my clients' lives easier with this shortened link.

Four Components of your Score

Once you get your score, you will also be able to see the "four" components of your score (see below for an illustration).

I usually will refer to these components as the orange bar, the purple bar, the green bar and the blue bar. These four components represent the four elements of social selling that LinkedIn uses to measure your social selling effort.

I am not going to repeat what LinkedIn has done explaining these four components. You can refer to this link and study for yourself -> Link

Specific Strategies

First of all, if your SSI score is below 40, there are specific strategies you can apply. The same can be applied when your SSI Score is as high as 60, 70 or 80.

The methodology to be applied is to work on the TWO LOWEST components at any point in time.

Can you believe this? It sounds too simple, correct?

Oh well, I have been working with many of my clients and here is my observation - human beings love to make things complex as this is our traditional school system where experts are created to rank over the generalists.

In the world of business, whether someone is an expert or a generalist, knowledge is not power (contrary to many people's thought). It's the application of the knowledge (i.e. the result) that matters more.

And I think this is the best way to summarise my specific LinkedIn strategies to improve one's social selling scorecard.

Illustration 1: Suppose Your Purple Bar is one of the Lowest Two

Instead of working on posting three times a day with three hashtags only, if your Purple Bar is one of the lowest, it means that you should focus on "finding the right people". This includes the following actionable steps:

• Use unlimited profile search up to 3rd degree and advanced filters that reflect the way you naturally prospect on Sales Navigator
• Expand your reach with 2nd-degree connections
• Research potential prospects - look for commonalities to establish a relationship
• Check who's viewed your profile regularly to see inbound leads often and engage with relevant viewers.

Do you see that the Purple Bar has nothing to do with general content creation at all?

In fact, the Purple Bar Score in my industry and in my network is only 5% and 9%, suggesting that many sales professionals are struggling with working on pushing up the Purple Bar Score.

Illustration 2: Suppose Your Green Bar is one of the Lowest Two

The Green Bar is all about "Engage with Insights". This means that the following actionable steps should be considered:

• Post relevant content that can help you become a trusted source of insights and engage with insights from others.
• Leverage industry data and news on LinkedIn to stay up to date - this can be done by finding timely articles to share
• Leave thoughtful, constructive comments on contents you prospects share or join LinkedIn Group
• Always customize messages using relevant information you have learned about the person on LinkedIn

So, do you see that the Green Bar has something to do with content creation as well as engagement (not just liking someone's posts)?

Have you heard of the following as well from other LinkedIn marketers?

• Writing articles on LinkedIn is not useful because no one would read them.
• Joining LinkedIn Groups is not useful because these groups are dead.
• Creating Company Page on LinkedIn is not useful as after all LinkedIn is about personal connection and engagement.

While I am not in the position to agree or disagree with these LinkedIn marketers because what they are sharing with others is their experience, I refrain from advising others what they should do unless they hire me as their advisors or provide me with their specific information.

In addition, I never expect to get free advice on social media as well because no one would be giving me specifically what I want, or else, consultants and advisors would disappear in this world.

A good news to share

I eat my own cookie and practise what I preach, as I use the same methodology to teach my students and my participants in my LinkedIn Profile Optimisation Workshop.