LinkedIn is a valuable social platform for professional interactions. As a centre for thought leadership and company updates; the tone of LinkedIn is the perfect place to sound social posts that are too professional or specialised for the likes of Facebook or more visual platforms like Instagram. But how do you post on LinkedIn? And how can you ensure your content ranks high on LinkedIn’s algorithm? This guide breaks down how the algorithm works, and how you can tailor your content for maximum effect!
What is LinkedIn’s Algorithm?
Essentially every post you publish is scored by the platform & then is arranged descending in a non-chronological order on a social feed based on user interest.
How does LinkedIn’s Algorithm work in 2022?
Unlike other platforms, LinkedIn is quite transparent with its algorithm. You can read about it on their official blog.
LinkedIn’s first port of call is deciding whether your post is spam or genuine content. It will sort your content into one of three categories: spam, low-quality or high-quality.
What is considered spam?
- If you use bad grammar
- Including multiple links in your post.
- Posting more than once every three hours
- Tagging more than five people
- Spam type hashtags like #comment, #like, or #follow should be avoided
What is considered low quality?
Low quality LinkedIn posts are posts that aren’t quite spam, but they aren’t following best practise and haven’t succeeded in LinkedIn’s golden hour (more on that later).
What makes high-quality content?
- The post is easy to read
- Encourages engagement through the copy
- Minimal hashtags (three or less)
- Includes strong keywords
- Doesn’t tag multiple people who are unlikely to engage or respond
- No outbound links in the actual post copy
Now LinkedIn has determined the quality of your post it will push your post to a handful of followers to determine how they react to your content. If it gets lots of engagement, LinkedIn will push it to more people. If it gets minimal engagement, the reach will be low and LinkedIn won’t share it any further.
There is only an hour window that LinkedIn uses for this ‘Golden Hour’ test. Here’s how to make the most of it.
- Posting when your audience is online
- Responding to engagements
- Post consistently, but remember quality over content
- Interacting as your brand on other posts (employee, customers etc.)
If your content passes the first test – what happens from then on? LinkedIn will serve your content to users based on:
- How closely you’re connected
For example, if they are a 1st or 2nd degree connection, they are more likely to see the content than someone who has no mutual connections
- Interest in the topic
The LinkedIn algorithm determines a user’s interests based on the groups, pages, hashtags, and people they follow. If your post relates to one of those, then that’s a good indicator that this content is relevant to the user.
- Likelihood of engagement
How likely is it that a user is going to engage with your post? For example, if they have engaged on your previous posts or recently engaged with your company page in some way it shows they are likely to interact.
Key Takeaways
Now we have learnt how content is distributed on LinkedIn. Here are some tips to make sure you are using the platform well.
- Schedule your posts for the best times
Getting good engagement in that first hour is critical. For a successful post, you should schedule your posts for when the majority of followers are usually online.
- LinkedIn members prefer to engage with rich media
Posts with images get twice as many comments as text posts. LinkedIn videos get five times the engagement.
- Avoid outbound links
LinkedIn doesn’t want you to leave the platform so it’s no surprise that the algorithm doesn’t prioritise posts with outbound links as much as other types of posts. If you need to share a link to something off-platform, pop it in the comments or try to use a LinkedIn feature such as documents/ lead forms etc.
- Encourage engagement
LinkedIn’s algorithm rewards engagement—especially posts that encourage conversations. One of the best ways to start a conversation is with a question.
- Create original content
Try to limit your use of sharing other people’s content. Your own content will perform a lot better as users haven’t seen it from anyone else.
With these tips, you’ll be able to place your brand front and centre and show off your expertise to a motivated audience on LinkedIn. For more information on social media marketing or how the team at Anicca Digital can help you strategise, build, and run campaigns contact us today.
