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“How some LinkedIn members cheat their way to more views on LinkedIn in 2022!”

Every LinkedIn trainer, expert, consultant, and content creator will tell you to create content your target audience wants to read.?And you painstakingly create?and share content but you get limited eyes on that content.?Why? Because LinkedIn content (and other platforms) content is subject to an algorithm when it comes to distribution.

Many LinkedIn specialists have tried to give us insight into the LinkedIn algorithm and the conclusion is really simple:

The algorithm is driven by engagements (Likes, Comments, and Shares).?And thus LinkedIn experts tell us that we need to create content that generates engagement.?

People want to get high engagement from the word GO!?And since this does not happen, people resort to other tactics. Thus Enters “Content amplification techniques and PODS”.

These pods are hyped to be the quick way to success even though they are not allowed under the Terms of Services of LinkedIn (Section 8 of the ToS). It looks like LinkedIn is not doing much of anything to stop these practices.

As Mr. Spocks said:

“The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few”

Or creating new features is more important than stopping some illegal practices.

When we talk about Pods we oftentimes only look at the use by individual members but to a certain degree companies are using this too.?The latter creates a very big grey zone and will be a source for discussion and controversy.

Let’s start by looking at the personal side of pods and end with the Company side.

How bad is the problem really?

That is a very good question.?People who profit from these pods are people that create content on LinkedIn.?We all know that is up to 4% (let’s be generous) meaning 4% of 810 million = 32.4 million users.?Not all will be using these techniques and let’s be generous here too and say 10%, that leaves us with only 3 million cheaters.?Personally, I think it is far less than that.?And let's be honest some influencers and VIPs are also guilty of these practices.

Let’s define “engagement pods” or “engagement groups”?

At the origin of LinkedIn, pods are a few communities of people grouping together on Facebook and LinkedIn to pool their efforts to enhance each other’s posts in the eyes of the LinkedIn algorithm by exchanging Likes and Comments on each other's posts.

The concept of content amplification (and thus also a pod) is really simple:

1.?????The author creates content and posts on LinkedIn

2.?????The author informs a Group of people about the new post

3.?????People engage in the content with Likes, Comments & Shares

4.?????Result = Post gets more visibility (or as some call it virality)

When it comes down to point #2 there are several mechanisms to get step 3 going.?There are “Engagement Groups” and there are “Automated Pods”.?

Engagement groups?

These are a “manual” process. It involves joining a group of people. They come in a number of different formats:

• Groups on platforms such as a LinkedIn or Facebook
• Messaging apps such as WhatsApp, LinkedIn Messages, Messenger, Slack or even SMS
• Email distribution lists

Members that join either of these 3 schemes agree to like, comment or share the posts of other members.?The popularity of this approach is far bigger than we can imagine.?It’s big and frequently used!

They are often started by a few “friends” that invite more friends.?Most of the time these “Engagements Groups” are Free but there are paying versions around too.?

Most of the Free Engagement Groups leave it up to the members to actively engage while in the paid Groups you are committed to engaging on every post.?Hopefully, this “tricks” the algorithm and possibly increases the visibility of the post.

Engagement Group pods cannot be easily detected because the following reasons:

• Once people start to engage with the author, the author’s post will show up in the Home Feed where they can be engaged on instead of having to be notified through the engagement group.?So LinkedIn can’t tell if you commented because of the Home Feed appearance or engagement group notification
• The timing of engagement is different and based on the actual usage of LinkedIn making.?The randomness makes it hard for LinkedIn to detect.

Advantages of these groups:

• Mostly free (with paying versions being around)
• Not compulsory to engage on every post (some free ones do as well as paid versions require it)
• If and when people comment it is (potentially) of higher comment quality
• It looks like “True” engagement in the eyes of the algorithm (as pointed out above)

The downside of these schemes are

• Initial engagement is high but very quickly the willingness to engage drops quickly.
• it’s very time consuming on a daily basis to comment on publications from a large number of people so people resort to Liking only which generates less visibility
• There is often an insufficient volume of comments as the support dwindles over time.

Automated pods

The “Engagement Groups” often fade fast. Thus some people resort to automated pods.?Today I have seen 3 of these pods in the market:?Alcapod, Podawaa and?Lempod.?It seems that Alcapod is no longer available but there is contradictive information around.

These tools use Chrome-based extensions and work on the same principle as manual pods: you join a group (= pod) of people who will engage AUTOMATICALLY on the posts you put into the pod and vice versa.?Pods have a bad reputation because they come with pre-configured comments that are meaningless and easily recognizable.?The Pods also allow you to craft comments that will be used as automated comments.

The kings of the “automated pods” are those who not only write the post but also write meaningful comments they want to get on their posts?What is the point you say??Well, it’s not a standard comment that people can recognize and hopefully spark more organic engagement by others (or even the Commenter)

The key thing is that the?engagement is automatic without the intervention of the pod members.?You can even set the timing and frequency of when you want your post to be engaged.

Advantages of automated pods:

• Considerable time savings for all involved
• Possibility to join many pods (oftentimes geographically and industry-focused) and therefore get many likes and comments resulting in a large number of views

The downside of automated pods:

• Poor quality comments suggestion (unless you are willing to write your own meaningful comments)
• It takes time to create your own real and meaningful comments and it’s not genuine
• The quality of the profiles that engage is rather random, inducing a poorly qualified audience
• It is always the same people who are engaging in your posts, so the LinkedIn algorithm realizes this and devalues the “weight” of their engagement over time

?

Automated Pods are, of course, not for free.?Their pricing model is based on the number of pods you belong to.

Lempod

Podawaa

Alcapod

????? - No pricing available

Time for some controversy

There are of course other ways to create a pod-like scheme that are even supported by LinkedIn.?I would like to bring 2 to this article:

• Ringing the bell.?When you ring the Bell, you want people to “always” see your content and hopefully engage with it.?Of course, the reader decides whether they want to or not so you’d better have good quality content;

• #personalized #hashtags: By asking people to Follow your Hashtags, you are creating a group that hopefully gets to see your content.?The odds of getting to see your content every time are fairly low but your intention is the same.

Now I know I went on a limb here but if you think about it… Let the discussion start!

Time to move along to Company Pages…

Company Page pods?

When it comes to Company Pages, we tend not to think about pods.?However, there are in my opinion also forms of pod schemes and techniques but LinkedIn does not seem to mind these practices.?

Here is what I mean and could consider as “Engagement Group” for Company Pages

• The “Notify all employees” button sends a notification (message) to all employees to make sure they engage on the new posts. Of course, this is not compulsory
• Employee Advocacy programs also fall under the category of Engagement Groups except that they are located outside of LinkedIn.

Company Pages could also use the automated pods but that is something unlike to happen.?Most Company Page owners will resort to Sponsored Content to get more eyes on their content.

Conclusion

LinkedIn content amplification and automation remain against the policy of the Terms of Service on LinkedIn.?But until LinkedIn seriously stops these practices and people who abuse the system, people will continue to use these practices.?People are looking for quick wins and do not consider the consequences if any.

For those of us that complain about these practices, we just have to accept them and take the necessary actions so they stay out of our Home Feeds. We can stop them by blocking them.

My advice: DO resist the temptation!

If you feel tempted now, don't use the following comments on this post please:

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