Understanding the LinkedIn algorithm

How visible are you on LinkedIn? Visibility on the largest B2B networking site matters. LinkedIn is where you attract the clients, business partners and potential employers you need, to achieve the success you deserve. But to do this, you need to know how LinkedIn works, and tailor your presence accordingly so as many of the right people as possible are viewing your profile.

As a LinkedIn trainer and coach, here are my tips for getting yourself loved by the LinkedIn algorithm to get the online visibility you need.

The main types of content on LinkedIn

There are five forms of content on LinkedIn, these are Posts, Pictures, Articles, Videos and Documents. While video is increasingly popular on LinkedIn and will be discussed later in this article, most users typically publish in two forms:

• Posts – short-form articles of 1300 characters or less. These appear in the newsfeeds of a number of users selected by LinkedIn. Publishing is a way of attracting viewers to your profile, keeping in mind it takes a bit of patience for viewers to scroll back further than three months to view everything you have ever published. Due to their concise format that makes them skimmable to read, posts tend to receive huge numbers of views.
• Articles – long-form content which covers a topic in detail and offers a lot of value to readers. When saved to the Featured section, articles stay on your profile forever, so they are permanent examples of your knowledge, insights and communication skills, setting you up as a leading voice in your industry by evidencing your knowledge. As these take longer to read, they receive far fewer views and engagement than posts but arguably convert the more reluctant or bigger-spending clients.

While posts and articles attract different audience numbers, essentially they serve a similar purpose – to raise your visibility on LinkedIn, and ensure as many people as possible are viewing your profile. But simply posting isn’t enough – you have to know exactly what the algorithm is looking for.

How LinkedIn rates your content

The whole purpose of LinkedIn is to keep people on platform and to keep you returning, and so it notifies you when somebody likes or comments on your posts, gamifying your experience with graphs, view-counts and 'All-Star' awards that are designed to make you feel like you have just won at online poker. With the cleverest machine-learning technology, bots and behavioural scientists in its employ, every time you interact with LinkedIn, you are sending signals that inform what and who you will see in your newsfeed. LinkedIn’s way of keeping you on the platform is by making your experiences as enticing, personalised and user-friendly as possible.

Because LinkedIn favours what it thinks other people favour, you need the algorithm to perceive you as really interesting. This will improve your ranking when somebody searches for your skills. Everything you craft – whether it’s your summary, a post or an article – needs to be written with the intention of getting users to click “see more”. Every time someone clicks “see more,” this alerts LinkedIn that your content is interesting, so the algorithm will rank you more highly, making you more visible to the people you need to reach.

How do I know this? From writing profiles for website developers. A "see more" is a hard click, an action that can easily be seen and captured by LinkedIn. Much like how cookies work.

But how do you achieve this? 

It depends on the type of content you are publishing:

• Posts need to be longer than five lines. If it is less than this nobody will click “see more” and LinkedIn won’t receive any signals that the post is good quality, unless people 'like' and comment on it. (The aim is always for lots of "see mores", likes and comments.) Use three hashtags to lift the likelihood that the video will appear in the newsfeeds of the right people – if you aren’t sure what hashtags to use, check out the embedded video below to find where on LinkedIn these are located.
• Articles need to start extremely strong. Only 141 characters show on mobile and 191 on desktop before users have to click “see more,” so you need to make sure your writing grabs their attention straight away. Ensure your article positions you as an expert too - find a way to mention what you do, and consider ending with a call to action. Popular articles are often "how-to" hacks that give information or instructions. 
• Videos need to get to the point as quickly as possible. A video is classified as viewed by LinkedIn if it has been watched for three seconds or longer, so a strong and dynamic start is essential. Don't introduce yourself at the beginning - get straight to the point of your video focusing on giving value to your audience. Keep your videos under two minutes as people will be less likely to click play if the video is a big time investment. Also, I’d suggest that videos should be uploaded with four or five lines of text, a "hook" that makes people want to watch the video, and use hashtags in the text post section.

What to publish for maximum engagement

For your posts to be shown to a wider audience, you need to produce regular content of consistently high quality. LinkedIn will be prepared to take a bigger risk on you if you publish regularly and always receive plenty of comments and likes.

What constitutes “regularly”? There are different opinions on this, but I publish once or twice a week and my mean number of views is 6,000, although a few of my posts have received as many as 42,000 views. These numbers are not meant as a target! Many people receive greater views, many receive less. These numbers of mine are just to indicate that once a week is often enough, as it can be hard to produce quality content more regularly than this. If your content suffers, so will your ranking and reputation, as can be seen in this diagram detailing how posts are sorted by the platform:

Quality content involves thinking about what your audience will be interested in. Nobody wants to feel as if they are being sold to – good content is about giving people the information they are looking for, filling their knowledge gaps and answering their questions in an engaging way. Be the expert in your field and you will be the trusted voice that people will turn to again and again, giving you more interaction and making you more visible to more potential clients.

Why interaction matters (and how to get it)

If your post attracts a lot of comments and likes within the first couple of hours, it will then be shown to a greater number of your connections. Because of this, it helps to draw attention to your content. When you publish a post, send it to friends in your network who you can rely on to like or comment on it quickly, so it will then achieve a greater reach.

Should you tag people? Personally, I’m not a fan because I know that some people find attention intrusive or embarrassing. A private message drawing someone’s attention to your post and giving them the choice of interacting with it is probably a better option than publicly forcing their hand. However, if you have quoted someone or used their ideas in your post, you should tag them, as this gives them public credit.

Asking questions in your posts can also be highly effective. This encourages people to comment, so it is a great way of boosting engagement.

Making the algorithm love you even more

It isn’t just the content of your posts and the way you write them that matters. There are a number of other things you can do to get more love from the LinkedIn algorithm:

1. Don’t share other people’s content

Although LinkedIn allows and encourages sharing, it doesn't seem to prioritise shared content in many people’s newsfeeds, not to the same extent that it favours comments, so sharing doesn’t gain you much, if any, extra attention. I can only speculate why this is: it may be that as LinkedIn wants to keep people on the platform it doesn’t want them to become disengaged by repeatedly seeing the same posts.

LinkedIn also likely knows from its data that people are far more likely to comment on a post that other people have already commented on, than be the first and possibly only comment on a re-shared post. 

2. Comment frequently

LinkedIn favours people who regularly interact with other users’ content as it knows these people are the conversation starters, the life and soul of the party. In addition, your comments will stay on their posts, reminding them of you and demonstrating that you are supportive. In turn, this makes them more likely to interact with your posts, which reciprocally raises your visibility.

3. Always reply to comments

If someone has given your content their attention, don’t ignore it! Respond quickly. A comment gives you the opportunity to start or contribute to a conversation, which can be a great way to demonstrate your knowledge of your subject matter and build trust. It is also just good old-fashioned manners to acknowledge somebody who has acknowledged you. So make a habit of checking your notifications and at least "like" any comments you receive. 

4. Publish from your personal page rather than your company page

Company pages typically do far worse than personal profiles, as we are all increasingly cynical of brands, and we don’t want to feel as if we’re being sold anything. We use LinkedIn to make connections with people, grow relationships and build trust – and this personal brand building (as the example below from a LinkedIn training slide of mine shows) is key to success.

Of course, this means your personal profile has to be as engaging as possible. I always advise clients that there are many different ways to improve your LinkedIn profile to ensure it grabs the right attention and makes people want to know more about you.

Remember, there is help available!

Getting your LinkedIn profile and strategy right can seem overwhelming, but with the right advice, it is relatively easy to achieve. If you are a business owner, executive or board member based in Sydney and would like some support and training on using LinkedIn to attract new clients or opportunities, please get in touch and I’ll be happy to help.

Karen Tisdell ? LinkedIn Profile Writer ? LinkedIn Trainer ? Sydney, Australia ? LinkedIn Trainer & Coach ? 0404 083 678 ? [email protected] ?