How the NEW LinkedIn Algorithm ranks Your Content

A few days ago, on the 5th May 2022, the LinkedIn editors announced a major update to the content algorithm which has significant implications for your content engagement going forward on the world's professional network.

Says Linda Leung, Director of Product Management at?LinkedIn:

Over the last two years, we’ve heard from so many of our members that conversations on LinkedIn have changed ... Last year, we shared a?few new controls?to help surface the conversations that matter to you. We’re building on those with several new features to continue creating a more personalized and relevant experience in your LinkedIn feed.?

Content Relevance is the NEW Reach

The new determinant that will now be key to ranking your content on LinkedIn, is relevance - in other words, not how popular a video or image might be with the wider LinkedIn population, but just how well your content resonates with your network and whether or not your 1st degree connections who will see your post first (the so-called first organic batch, typically 6-8% of your LinkedIn connections) will find it relevant.

This is how LinkedIn determines whether or not your content is relevant and deserves to be promoted rather than demoted on the feed of your network:

• Personal Relevance: To determine which posts are most personally related to members, LinkedIn takes implicit and explicit signals into consideration. Says Hootsuite: "It considers who you’ve interacted with directly, through comments, shares, and reactions. It also considers information on profiles, such as interests and skills, and who members work with, among other signals."
• Interest Relevance: You may be personally connected with someone, but that doesn’t mean you enjoy the same content. For this reason, the LinkedIn algorithm measures a post’s affinity to someone’s interests based on the groups they’re in, and the hashtags, people, and pages they follow. According to LinkedIn, the algorithm also looks at the language of the post, and the companies, people, and topics mentioned in it.
• Engagement Relevance: Interaction is key to the success of the algorithm’s performance. The LinkedIn algorithm ranks this component in two stages. First the algorithm evaluates the likelihood that you will share, comment, or react to a post. It may measure this based on the content you’ve liked and shared in the past, as well as who you interact with most frequently. LinkedIn calls this multi-objective optimization.
• Secondly, as LinkedIn puts it, “the model also takes into account timely feedback to content creators.” In other words, after the post is published, the quicker it starts raking in interactions, the more likely LinkedIn is to include it in the feeds of others.

The NEW LinkedIn Feed will show less of THIS

Based on feedback, LinkedIn will filter polls to show only those that are helpful and relevant. Low-quality content that expressly asks for interactions will not be promoted, as LinkedIn strives to encourage better quality content. LinkedIn’s feed will now show less of:

• Irrelevant updates, i.e., a connection’s comment on the post of someone you’re not connected to
• Politically oriented posts (if you choose to)
• Alerts – users will no longer be notified of every position change or update in their network
• Low-quality click-bait posts designed for interactions
• Polls from people you don’t know

What this means for You

In a nutshell, you now have the controls to teach the LinkedIn algorithm exactly what you would like to see more of and what you wouldn't.

As more and more members are now going to clean up their LinkedIn feed and remove irrelevant content and mute people who don't add value to their specific needs, it is becoming vitally important for you to apply the Rule of ONE, meaning you need to

• build your audience around ONE Demographic
• center your Profile around ONE Service
• focus your Content on ONE Problem

Join the LIVE LinkedIn MasterClass on 12th May

To learn more about how to master the NEW LinkedIn Algorithm, join Yathin Soni and myself (and 482 fellow LinkedIn Members) on

• Thursday 12 May 2022
• 15h00 SAST (GMT+2)
• Secure your seat here

About the Authors

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Our path crossed for the first time in 1994, shortly before President Mandela’s inauguration, at the University of KZN in Durban, South Africa, when I came out as a lecturer from Germany and Yathin completed his Degree in Mechanical Engineering

And then again at the Opening Game of the 2010 FIFA World Cup held in Johannesburg when we both witnessed what CNN would call “the most memorable World Cup of all time”

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Over our collective 30 years of working with global brands and structuring close to $2bn of corporate deals across 25 countries,

we have learnt that the best brands excel at activating the single most important Driver of Business Growth:

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In other words, building your brand to a stage where your target audience is buying into you and your brand before they even speak to you.

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? The Conference Executive Board found that 57% of Buying Decisions are made before Vendor Involvement

? Our own research has shown that 70% of purchase decisions in Telco’s are made before involving sales

? And Forrester has released data showing that 71% of all Tech Buyers complete their Vendor Selection without ever speaking to you

CONCLUSION: You may win or lose a Deal without ever being involved in the sale

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? Microsoft sells 96% of their products through Channel Partners

? Salesforce is planning to double their revenue by onboarding 250k Channel Partners

? The overall majority of Channel Partners (80%+) are non-transactional, meaning their job is to influence the market

CONCLUSION: If you wish to scale your business in the NEW Economy, focus your efforts on attracting Channel Partners & Promoters

Dr Nik's and Yathin's work has been featured extensively on the following channels:

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