We take a look at the latest LinkedIn algorithm and tips to help you succeed at marketing on this platform.
What is LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a social media platform where business-minded people congregate. There are close to 600 million business professionals on the site, broadening their networks and contacts, sharing their CV’s, head-hunting, and sharing content.
Companies and brands can make use of this platform if they are a B2B seller or if their target market is the business world. The platform offers companies and brands the opportunity to reach a highly qualified or specialised target market, and the algorithm ensures you’re reaching only the people who will find your content relevant. Be sure to include a marketing strategy for LinkedIn in your social media strategy for 2019.
How does the algorithm work?
The LinkedIn algorithm does not post content in chronological order. What’s most important in the algorithm is native, organic content prioritised by relevance rather than by recency. That means LinkedIn users will see content on their feed that is relevant to them, and not necessarily all the most recent content. Users do have the option of sorting their feeds by most recent content, should they wish.
LinkedIn recently released this graphic to help us understand how their algorithm works:
When you post content, here’s how it gets processed by the algorithm. First, the LinkedIn algorithm assesses your content to determine if it’s spam or low quality. If not, you pass this first filter and your content appears in the feed.
At this stage, LinkedIn’s bots check your content to see how users are engaging with it. If your audience likes, comments, reads, and enjoys it your content passes to the next level. The more engagement the better. On the flip side, your audience could also mark your content as spam, report it, or hide it. These kinds of responses will demote your content. In fact, if your content is reported or hidden frequently, the algorithm may even filter it out altogether.
After a short period, we get to step three. LinkedIn decides whether to keep showing your content in users’ feeds by looking at your network. They decide if it is spam, or if users are enjoying the content. Based on this assessment, your content could either be shown to more users or displayed less frequently.
If your post passes these three phases, you will have made it to part four. Here actual humans will look at your post to decide if they should keep it around, include it on a channel, or gain insights for future algorithm updates. Basically, they’re trying to figure out why your post has done so well.
The longer people engage with your content, the longer it will stay up. It could stay up for WEEKS if your content performs exceptionally well. This is a benefit you won’t find on other social media platforms, so the rewards of creating great organic content that connects with your network are big on LinkedIn.
How can I ensure my content works on LinkedIn?
Consider the below factors when creating and posting content to increase the success of your content ion LinkedIn:
- Regularity. Post regularly, but not at the exact same time each day. You don’t need to post 20 times a day, but you shouldn’t post once a week either. The LinkedIn algorithm looks for spammy behaviour, so your content could be penalised if it looks like a bot is posting it.
- Timing. The more engagement you receive right away, the better. This means optimising the time you post to your best engagement times will increase the likelihood that your content performs well.
- Diversify. Post videos, tips and tricks, opinions, news, quotes, and images. Link to other relevant content. Variety is important. Don’t post the same kind of thing over and over. This behaviour may be seen as spammy by the LinkedIn algorithm.
- Mobile First. If you have not yet, optimise your content and strategy for mobile-first viewership as over 60% of LinkedIn users access the platform from their mobile phones, and the trend is on the up-tick.
- Hashtags. Hashtags on LinkedIn do not work the way they do on Twitter or Instagram. Here, they’re more of a category, and you won’t find a unique and quirky hashtag trending. Keep your fun hashtags for other platforms.
- Keywords. We’re sure by now you see a pattern: don’t look like spam. This includes your keyword use. Yes, you should use keywords that are relevant and can increase engagement, but don’t sound like an SEO bot. Don’t sound generic.
- Network. Build your network on LinkedIn. The algorithm decides how relevant your posts are by looking at your audience demographics, and in particular their careers. To increase the relevance of your network, ask your employees to follow the company page and set it as their workplace. Follow relevant and prominent industry leaders on LinkedIn. You can join industry-relevant groups and comment on relevant content.
- @names. LinkedIn is interested in keeping users on the platform for longer and engaging more. You can pull other users into conversations by tagging their @names and by posting content that asks relevant questions that evoke a response.
- Content Marketing Score. This score is constantly updated by LinkedIn, and its relevant factors should play a big role in your content strategy. The algorithm looks at employee engagement, content quality, paid content, and partnerships with influencers. If your employees are sharing your content, it benefits your content marketing score. If your content is considered relevant and influential, if it’s high quality, with lots of engagement and a high frequency rate, this benefits your score. Your content marketing score is a big part of how the LinkedIn algorithm assesses your post, so strategize with this score in mind.
- Content Preferences. LinkedIn prioritises certain types of content above others. Because it is a professional network, things like the trustworthiness of your sources, industry relevance, and benefit to professionals matters more. Post content that can benefit your network, offering professional tips or insights, and post content that is relevant to your brand and audience from trustworthy sources.
- Use their stuff. Like any platform, LinkedIn wants you to use the stuff they’ve invested into developing. They will favour content that makes use of their new tech. For this reason, we suggest posting long-form content through the LinkedIn publisher and using the live LinkedIn video functionality. Use the LinkedIn conference frames and native videos to use their own bias for a greater chance of success with your content. You can even SIGN UP HERE and in the beta testing for LinkedIn’s new live streaming feature!
It all comes down to these four things: Quality. Timing. Relevance. Engagement. To ensure the LinkedIn algorithm is working for you and not against you, you need to prove that your content is engaging for your audience and relevant to their interests. Your content should be high quality and NOT SPAMMY.
Sources: falcon; social media today;
