Know How the LinkedIn Algorithm Works
LinkedIn is one of the most important tools that most businesses must have a flair for in today’s fast-paced, highly-social media driven competition. More so, when it comes to B2B marketers.
LinkedIn is a great place for businesses to maximise the reach of their content to the right audience and for lead generation but for that you must understand how the LinkedIn algorithm works. LinkedIn is all about connections and relevant content.
LinkedIn’s algorithm is similar to any other social media algorithms, but what makes it different from another platform is how it helps your business to increase the chances of reaching the relevant audience. Unlike other platforms, LinkedIn gives the most effective organic reach and helps businesses achieve their goals smoothly.
Understanding the LinkedIn Algorithm
Understanding how the LinkedIn algorithm works can help you ensure that your LinkedIn marketing efforts pay off. Since it is difficult to know exactly how the algorithm works for sure, we can analyse, observe and experiment to understand the basics that seem to work.
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LinkedIn’s algorithm prefers relevancy over recency and that is the reason sometimes users see older or more popular posts before they see more recent ones. The goal of the LinkedIn algorithm is to display content that is relevant to the audience, even ahead of more recent posts.
To predict the relevance of your content, LinkedIn has a few factors on the basis of which it measures and ranks accordingly to show it to a larger audience.
Linkedin tests by showing your content to a smaller audience and on the basis of the audience engagement it decides to either project it to a wider audience or stops including the post in the feed of your audience.
According to LinkedIn algorithm, it filters your posts based on the below 3 factors:
- Spam content
- Low quality content
- Most relevant or high quality content
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So how does LinkedIn identify that the content is spam, low quality or high quality?
If your post is categorised under spam content, then it will not reach your audience and won’t give you the appropriate result. Following are some tips to take care while working on your content to not let it become spam or low quality content:
- Take care that you use good vocabulary, easy to understand and relevant content.
- Even though it is preferred to post frequently, it should not be more than three or four times a day (depending on the industry).
- Try to avoid tagging unwanted people and it is suggested to not tag more than four to six people in your post. Only tag those you think will respond.
- Using multiple links can also affect the quality of your post so use the most relevant links only and avoid outbound links. Instead use them in the comment section.
- Avoid using generic hashtags. Use hashtags category wise – a broad one, a narrow one and one that is niche.
- Use content that encourages your audience to respond or comment.
- Give utmost priority to the keywords, which make the content.
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Once you post your content on LinkedIn, you will have to wait for responses. After you post, LinkedIn analyses the relevancy of the content. The platform starts observing the engagement rate for your post so the initial couple of hours are the most crucial.
LinkedIn looks at the initial engagement of your post and measures how capable your content is to move to the larger audiences’ feed. So if your post does well in that period of time there is a high probability that your post will do well for a longer time. But if it fails to perform in that initial period and your audience doesn't see or engage with your post, then the chances of your post becoming relevant becomes low.
What and When to Post?
It is important to know what to post and when.
Understand your audience, analyse when they are online or active and then post for more reach and better engagement.
If your content is relevant to your audience they will certainly respond.
Always respond on time to all the comments to your post. Never let any comment go without a response. Commenting also helps in increasing your reach and engagement.
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You may be surprised to know that LinkedIn ranks different types of content differently:
- The platform prefers the users to stay right on the platform, so if you put outbound links in your posts, Linkedin will spam your content. If you wish to add any links, it is suggested to use the comment section.
- LinkedIn favours new and unique types of content and tries to populate more and more in the newsfeed.
- Only related images will be helpful for your content. If you use any unrelated image, then it will be of no use to you.
- People on LinkedIn prefer to read text more often than watching a video or looking at an image.
Multiple Features of LinkedIn
- LinkedIn Stories
- Live Videos
- LinkedIn Polls
- Carousel Images in Organic Posts
- Video Meetings
- Highlight Featured Posts on Profile
- Event Tab to Create Events
- Notify Employees About Your Post
Conclusion
Engagement, relevance and connect are on the high priority list of the LinkedIn algorithm. LinkedIn is the best place to share your content and reach the right audience, you can experiment, analyse and update your strategy on the basis of how your content works for your audience. Expand your content types – images, video, text and more to see what works for you.
It is vital that you keep a check on the content you post to ensure that the audience engages with your content. Don’t just post and ghost!
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