LinkedIn Algorithm Research 2020 Highlights

Why do some posts on LinkedIn succeed at generating thousands of views while others barely register?

In his annual report, “LinkedIn Algorithm Research 2020, Richard van der Blom goes into great detail about how LinkedIn functions and how you can take advantage of this knowledge.

Here are the highlights from his extensive research and methods of applying the LinkedIn algorithm to maximize your presence. 

Personal Reach

Many are surprised to discover that when you post to LinkedIn, only a small percentage of your connections see the post, usually 6% to7.5%. Several factors can influence this number, including your Social Selling Index and profile All-Star status.

Social Selling Index Impact

Your Social Selling Index (SSI) measures your social selling efforts, how effective you are at establishing your professional brand, finding the right people, engaging with insights, and building relationships. Each LinkedIn user has an individual score, a number between 1 and 100. 

You can find your score using this link: https://www.dhirubhai.net/sales/ssi.

Your SSI score affects the performance of your post. If your score is between 60 and 75, your content receives an average reach. If your score is below 60, the reach of your post will be less than average. The higher your score is, the better your posts will perform.

Be an All-Star 

Having an All-Star profile will establish your professional brand and boost your content. All-star profiles receive 1.5x the average reach. This translates into an average of 10% of your connections will now see your posts.

There are five status levels, depending on how complete your profile is: Beginner, Intermediate, and All-Star. LinkedIn awards the All-Star level to users whose profile is 100% complete.

Being an All-Star can be done by completing seven components of your profile: Professional Profile Picture, >2 Experiences, 5+ Skills, a Summary, your Industry, Location, & Education, and 50+ Connections. 

IMPORTANT: Company Linked profiles that are 100% completed are gaining more reach than last year. 

Be Aware of Over Posting

There is a limit to how often you can post to LinkedIn. The frequency of your posts should depend on the performance of your content. 

LinkedIn will not show more than two pieces of content from the same user in the timeline. If you post twice on the same day,  LinkedIn will hide one of the posts from your network.

You’re content will not have a chance to be shared with the right people unless you give it time.

If your post has high activity, do not post new content until you experience a significant drop in the engagement rate. 

PRO TIP: The best time to post is between 8:00-10:00 am, especially on Tuesdays. Another opportunity to post is on Saturdays and Sundays because the average activity is 50% but only 25% post content. 

The Power of the Comment 

The “like” or “love” icons are polite,* sharing content is only useful if you use our hack, commenting is the most effective way to get results

*The newly introduced “Support” icon actually has a slight correlation in increased views. 

Sharing Hack

Shared content is rated poorly by LinkedIn because it is considered a duplicate of original content. Instead of asking people to share your post, encourage them to publish it directly on their own profile. 

But thanks to tips and experimentation from Robert Knop, we discovered a method of boosting shared posts.

After sharing, ask the original author to comment directly on the shared post. When the original author comments on a post you have shared, the post will get 3-4 times more views than a regular shared post.

Introducing Dwell Time

LinkedIn assumes that members value their time and will spend it appropriately on feed content in which they’re interested.

The algorithm ranks members’ content based on time distribution spent on the feed.

Thanks to dwell time, the type of posts where people need more time to consume your content are performing very well, like longer text posts that encourage the reader to click ‘See More..’.

Native Video

While the poor performance of videos on LinkedIn has increased somewhat from last year, they continue to underperform as a whole when it comes to sharing content on LinkedIn. If you are going to post a video, LinkedIn promotes native videos, i.e., uploaded directly to the platform. Luckily, LinkedIn does, however, consider Vimeo video as native, but not YouTube.

Pro Tips:

• Videos between 30 and 60 seconds long perform the best. 
• A square format is ideal to utilize maximum screen space.
• Always add subtitles to your videos. Over 50% of LinkedIn users watch with the sound off. 

@Tags and #Tags

Tags can help you get more views and build relationships, but only when the tagged people engage with your content. 

If <50% of people you tag do not respond or remove the tag, LinkedIn will reduce your post’s reach. 

As the author of the post, it is crucial to respond to comments that tag you within the golden hour. 

The optimal number of hashtags has increased since last year. Research now shows the maximum benefit when using 3 to 9 hashtags. Less than 3 is a missed opportunity - more than 10 is considered spam. Choose a combination of hashtags with 100,000+ followers and some specialty hashtags. The optimum number of followers is anywhere between 3,000 and 10,000 followers.

Conclusion

I am curious about what features LinkedIn will add in the upcoming year. At the end of 2019, LinkedIn introduced this type of newsletter, which they are currently rolling out to all global members. 

I look forward to discovering how the changing platform will reflect in Richard van der Blom’s 2021 LinkedIn algorithm report. 

If you want to know more, leave a comment, and read the full report here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/newsletter-4-linkedin-algorithm-research-2020-you-van-der-blom/.

Richard van der Blom is the founder and managing partner of Just Connecting, currently providing social selling trainer services and consulting work for various international clients. 

In this culmination of 3-months worth of research and analysis, >4.5K posts were analyzed every 15 minutes (compared to 3K in 2019), using the Open University, SproutSocial, and Shield, among other specific market research tools. 

Disclaimer: The conclusions in his report are not absolute and are, therefore, freely interpretable. Apart from the elements examined, several other factors play a role in the success of a post.