How To Make The LinkedIn Algorithm Work For You

Every day, more than two million posts, articles, polls, and videos are shared on LinkedIn. These are then ranked and filtered according to their relevance to LinkedIn’s 800 million users.

Everyone wants their content to be seen, engaged with, and better yet, to go completely viral. This is no different for content that is on your website or social media pages such as Facebook and LinkedIn.?

The trick is to understand why platforms like LinkedIn make use of an algorithm, and how you can make this algorithm work to your advantage.?

LinkedIn shows content from people you are connected with and that addresses things you care about. For that reason, there is no perfect, one-size-fits-all solution.?

The LinkedIn algorithm is ever-changing and ever-developing to give users an optimised experience.

Always bear in mind that LinkedIn is programmed to give each user an optimised experience. With that being said, there are rules you can follow to boost your LinkedIn presence.

This is the key - great content that your users want to read!

Here are some tips on being an excellent LinkedIn content creator to make the algorithm work for you.?

Relevance Outweighs Recency

LinkedIn’s feed is set by default to display top posts, as opposed to recent posts. The more relevant and unique to your industry your content is, the more likely LinkedIn will rank it highly.

LinkedIn measures a post’s affinity by looking at the groups, pages, people, and hashtags that your connections follow. It then tailors the content displayed to your connections based on this. If you are looking to write relevant posts, look no further than your connections and their interests for relevant topics.?

Be a Conversation Starter - or join in on one

LinkedIn loves engagement. Interaction with content is the key to success with LinkedIn’s algorithm. The platform measures engagement in two ways. Firstly, how quickly from the time of posting the content starts to garner interest. The sooner the better, of course. Secondly, how much engagement the post gets over a reasonable period of time.?

The LinkedIn algorithm will reward engagement. So, when starting a post, remember to keep this in mind. Begin your post by asking a question. You could end the post with a question too, or a call to action.?

When talking about a topic, ask your audience for their opinions and insights on the matter. Once they comment, don’t forget to engage with their response too.?

Of course, you can’t just be hopeful that people will engage with your content only. As with anything in life, engagement is a give-and-take game. Make sure you are also reaching out to your connected audience. Comment on their posts. Share their content. Ask questions on their pages. All of this will go a long way in boosting your LinkedIn page engagement and will be seen favorably by the algorithm.

Consistently post content

Have you ever enjoyed content from a page or person only to be met with radio silence for weeks thereafter? This is exactly what you need to avoid.?

LinkedIn not only rewards relevant content but consistent content too.?

Posting once a week is not quite enough, but if you are going to post once a week, ensure that you do. Don’t leave your audience hanging for two weeks with no fresh content.?

Post frequently and LinkedIn’s algorithm will reward you with better ranking content.

We recommended you create a content schedule plan so that you can aim to post your great content on LinkedIn every second day.?

You could go deeper into content scheduling and research the best times and days to post content for your audience too. Take note of your analytics and note the times you received great engagement. Then try posting on these days and times again.?

Don’t be complacent. The LinkedIn Algorithm is ever-evolving and you will need to monitor posting times consistently for best results.?

Create content for your target audience

Knowing your target audience and their interests will get you far! Conduct audience research. Look at analytics. Research your competitors to gauge what your audience responds well to and to build personas that you can craft content for.?

Niche content will always trump broad content. Pick a topic and commit to doing a deep dive on it. The more insight you can provide on something you know your audience is interested in, the more likely they will engage and return to your page for more. LinkedIn will reward you in turn.

Build trust with your audience

Once you know what your audience loves you can continue to explore topics they are interested in. However, don’t write about something for the sake of it. Ensure that your content is well-researched and makes sense.?

Good LinkedIn content will build credibility for you and your brand. The more credibility that you build the more your audience will trust you. If you continuously deliver insightful content that is well researched and sparks continuous engagement, the more you’ll be seen as a leader in your field.

Build trust by answering questions your followers might have too. If there is a question you can answer as an expert in your field, always do so. Or, if you can leave your professional opinion as a comment on another content piece, do so too. You never know which follower might click through to your profile to read more of your content because you engaged elsewhere on LinkedIn.?

If you want to be seen as a thought leader on LinkedIn, remember the steps above discussed when generating your content.?

The algorithm might be machine programmed, but we are all humans wanting to consume content that is relevant, timely, entertaining, and engaging.

On that note, share with us what content you’d like to see more of on LinkedIn! What topics fascinate you? Leave us a comment below and let’s start a conversation.?

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