Decoding LinkedIn’s Algorithm: A Strategic Approach to Boost Visibility

Picture this: you’ve crafted a standout LinkedIn post for your business, crossed the Ts and dotted the… lower case Js.

You’re confident it’s chock-full of value and reflective of the top-tier services your business offers.

But then, instead of the flood of engagement you expected, there’s a discouraging trickle.

Sound familiar?

If it does, you’re not alone.

Many businesses, even those with a firm grip on their industries, grapple with this conundrum.

You’ve got the quality content and the professional credibility, so why then does it feel like your LinkedIn content is being “ghosted”?

The reason?

LinkedIn’s elusive algorithm.

This silent operator behind the scenes decides who sees your posts and, crucially, who doesn’t.

It’s this gatekeeper that could be keeping your brand’s visibility under wraps.

So in this guide, I’m going to unpack this and strip away the mystery.

l’m going to deep into the inner workings of the LinkedIn algorithm, to arm you with the insights you need to strategise effectively and turbocharge your content’s impact, even if you’re not using LinkedIn Ads.

This is not just about having a presence on LinkedIn, it’s about mastering the platform and making it work harder for your business.

Remember, in the world of LinkedIn, you’re not just competing with businesses like yours.

You’re contending with every piece of content that vies for your target audience’s attention.

Which is why understanding the LinkedIn algorithm isn’t just helpful – it’s absolutely critical for your business.

So let’s crack this code together, shall we?

LinkedIn, similar to the likes of Meta and Twitter, relies on a complex algorithm to determine which content takes the spotlight on users’ feeds.

But this algorithm isn’t some mysterious concept.

Instead, it’s a robust system that ensures users receive content that aligns with their interests, interactions, and professional needs.

Now at this point, you’re probably thinking: “Okay, but how does LinkedIn decide what is valuable to a user?”

The answer is that it’s based on a wide mix of of signals that include relevance, engagement (such as likes, shares, comments), and timeliness.

In the land of LinkedIn, quality reigns supreme.

The platform heavily favours high-quality content that is relevant, provokes meaningful conversations, and resonates with your audience.

This focus on quality stems from LinkedIn’s mission to foster professional growth and facilitate informed discussions.

But what exactly does ‘quality’ look like?

Well, let’s dissect it:

• Relevance: : Quality content on LinkedIn is relevant to your audience. It aligns with their interests, industry, or professional goals. It’s not about shooting in the dark; it’s about understanding your audience and crafting content that strikes a chord.

• Engagement:  Engaging content doesn’t just rack up likes. It starts conversations. It drives shares. It encourages users to tag their connections. Remember, engagement isn’t a one-way street. It’s about fostering a dialogue with your audience.

• Value:  Quality content offers value. Whether it’s an insightful blog post, a thought-provoking question, or a helpful tip, your content should enrich your audience’s LinkedIn experience. It should offer something that your audience can take away, learn from, or apply in their professional lives.

• Authenticity:  Lastly, quality content is genuine. It’s not about broadcasting salesy messages or churning out content for the sake of it. It’s about sharing authentic insights, stories, and experiences that resonate with your audience.

Now, there’s no definitive research indicating the exact percentage of your followers or connections who will see your organic content, like on Facebook or Meta, where the organic reach is often less than 1%.

However, LinkedIn experts often estimate that the organic reach on LinkedIn can be substantially higher, especially for posts that hit the sweet spot of relevance, engagement, and value.

This, combined with LinkedIn’s professional-oriented user base, makes LinkedIn an incredibly powerful marketing platform for organic growth.

In the digital realm of LinkedIn, two main entities warrant your attention — the personal profile and the brand page.

It’s an ongoing debate in the B2B tech space and beyond: where should we channel our efforts?

The face of the company, represented by its leaders, or the company brand itself?

To cut to the chase, the most effective strategy often incorporates both.

Here’s why:

The Significance of Brand Pages

On the other side of the spectrum, we have company pages. While it might seem that personal profiles steal the limelight, company pages are vital pillars of your LinkedIn presence.

Your company page acts as your LinkedIn headquarters. It’s the go-to place for users to learn about your business, your products or services, and your company culture. It’s where you share your official updates, achievements, and branded content.

Moreover, a well-maintained company page enhances your brand’s credibility, attracts potential employees, and can also serve as a touchpoint for customer service.

Remember when you were told as a child not to put all your eggs in one basket?

That concept isn’t just for eggs.

It applies to your LinkedIn content strategy as well.

The platform thrives on variety, offering a range of content types to cater to the diverse tastes and preferences of its user base.

From short and sweet posts to in-depth articles, engaging videos, and interactive polls — LinkedIn has it all.

Each format has its unique appeal, and understanding when and how to use them can boost your visibility significantly.

Here’s a deeper dive into this idea:

The Short, the Long, and Everything in Between

• On LinkedIn, you can dabble in different lengths of written content.

  Short-form posts allow you to share quick thoughts, insights, or updates with your network.

  These posts are typically a couple of sentences to a paragraph long and are excellent for engaging with your audience in a casual, conversational manner.

  On the other end of the spectrum, LinkedIn’s long-form content, known as Articles, lets you delve deep into a topic.

  You can write up to 125,000 characters, giving you plenty of room to share in-depth insights, elaborate thought leadership pieces, detailed tutorials, and more.

  These articles can help you position yourself or your brand as a go-to resource in your field.

The Video Advantage

• It’s no secret that video content is a powerful engagement magnet.

  As humans, we’re naturally drawn to visual storytelling, making videos a hit across social media platforms, LinkedIn included.

  Whether you’re sharing a behind-the-scenes look at your business, a product demo, customer testimonials, or an explainer video on a complex topic, videos can convey your message in an engaging, easily digestible format.

  While the LinkedIn algorithm doesn’t blatantly favour video content, it’s observed that videos – published natively in LinkedIn vs sharing something housed on YouTube – often attract higher engagement rates – more likes, comments, and shares.

  Given LinkedIn’s preference for engagement-rich content, this makes video a winning contender in your content mix.

Engaging with Interactive Content

• Another engaging content type that deserves mention is interactive content like polls.

  Polls are a fantastic way to drive interaction, gather insights, and stimulate conversations around relevant topics.

The Secret to a Winning Content Mix

• The key to leveraging the power of content types lies in your ability to vary your content while keeping it relevant, valuable, and engaging.

  Each piece of content, regardless of its format, should add value to your audience and align with your brand’s voice and message.

  For instance, you could share a mix of industry news, company updates, success stories, thought leadership pieces, and personal insights.

  You could present a data-driven report as a long-form article, share a quick tip or insight as a short post, conduct a poll to gauge industry trends, and use video to introduce a new product feature.

  It’s all about knowing your audience, understanding what they find valuable, and delivering that value in diverse, engaging ways.

  This versatility in your content strategy keeps your LinkedIn presence fresh, appealing, and, importantly, aligned with the algorithm’s preference for quality, engaging content.

When we talk about effective content on LinkedIn, or any social media platform for that matter, the power of storytelling is often highlighted.

But why is storytelling so important?

Simply put, we, as humans, are wired to respond to stories.

Stories engage us, make us think, elicit emotions, and most importantly, they stay with us.

In fact, science supports this. Neuroscientist Paul Zak’s research shows that hearing a story – particularly one that evokes emotion – causes our brains to produce oxytocin, a hormone that enhances empathy, and fosters trust and cooperation.

Stories have the unique ability to pull us in, connect us with characters, and engage us in a way that’s more profound and lasting than facts and figures alone.

Now, let’s delve into how storytelling can be incorporated into your LinkedIn strategy:

The Art of Business Narratives

• Storytelling on LinkedIn isn’t about spinning a fictional tale; it’s about presenting your business journey, insights, or experiences in a narrative format.

  As an example –  rather than just announcing a new product, share the story behind its creation.

  Take the audience on the journey your team embarked upon – the initial idea, the challenges encountered, the solutions discovered, and the final triumphant result.

  This narrative engages the audience on an emotional level, fostering a deeper connection with your brand.

  Imagine you’re a B2B tech business launching a groundbreaking software solution for the financial sector.

  Instead of a straightforward announcement, you could share a LinkedIn post narrating the journey: how the need for such a solution was first identified, the brainstorming sessions, the late-night coding marathons, the testing, the setbacks, the breakthroughs, and finally, the joy of a successful product launch.

Unveiling the Human Side of Business

• One of the most engaging stories you can share is the one about your clients or customers.

  Have they overcome significant challenges using your products or services?

  Have they achieved impressive success, thanks to your partnership?

  These real-life stories not only showcase the value of what you offer but also humanise your brand.

  They enable potential customers to see themselves in those stories, envisioning how your product or service can help them achieve similar results.

Interaction: The Key to Visibility

• The crux of LinkedIn visibility lies in engagement or interaction.

  When your story resonates with your audience, they’re more likely to react to it, comment on it, share it with their network – all forms of engagement that LinkedIn’s algorithm loves.

  The more engagement your post gets, the more LinkedIn’s algorithm favours it, serving it to a wider audience.

  And what better way to encourage engagement than by sharing stories that your audience can relate to, learn from, and find valuable?

  So, take a moment to reflect on the stories within your business, your customers, your journey.

  Each of these narratives is a powerful tool, ready to be harnessed in your LinkedIn content strategy.

LinkedIn operates on a dual model of ‘connections’ and ‘followers.’

This can be a little confusing at first, particularly in terms of how each influences the visibility of your posts.

Here, let’s unpack the differences around LinkedIn connections and followers and how they tie into your overall visibility on the platform.

Connections: The LinkedIn ‘Friends’

• When you add someone as a contact on LinkedIn, they become a ‘connection’.

  Connections imply a more personal relationship – typically, these are individuals you know well or with whom you’ve had professional dealings.

  They could be colleagues, friends, mentors, or even business partners.

  Each connection automatically becomes a follower, meaning they’ll see your updates on their LinkedIn feed.

  But while having a large network of connections may seem impressive, it doesn’t necessarily correlate with greater post visibility.

Followers: Your LinkedIn ‘Audience’

• Now, let’s talk about followers.

  These are LinkedIn members who’ve chosen to follow your updates without being directly connected to you.

  They may have found your content valuable or insightful, prompting them to follow you, even though you’ve never interacted personally.

Why does having followers matter?

• Followers can significantly boost your visibility on LinkedIn.

  They can engage with your content, like, comment, and share your posts within their networks.

  This engagement is noted by LinkedIn’s algorithm and can lead to your content being shown to a broader audience beyond your immediate connections or followers.

So, Connections or Followers?

• When it comes to LinkedIn visibility, it’s not so much a matter of connections vs followers.

  It’s more about the quality of your network and your content’s value.

  A vast network of connections might seem ideal, but if these individuals aren’t interested or engaged with your content, their value for boosting your visibility is limited.

  On the other hand, a smaller, more engaged follower base could significantly amplify your content’s reach.

  They’re more likely to interact with your posts, boosting your content’s ranking in LinkedIn’s algorithm, and thus extending your visibility.

  The bottom line?

  Don’t solely focus on expanding your connections.

  While a robust network is beneficial, cultivating a dedicated and engaged follower base should also be an integral part of your LinkedIn strategy.

  By sharing valuable, relevant content consistently, you’ll naturally attract and retain followers, thus enhancing your visibility and influence on LinkedIn.

With all these elements in mind, let’s wrap things up with a summary of a strategic approach to optimising your LinkedIn content for visibility.

To recap – it all starts with understanding your audience – their needs, challenges, and interests.

Once you know this, you can create content that provides value, sparks conversation, and encourages engagement.

Leverage the power of different content types, from blog posts to videos.

Use storytelling to create an emotional connection with your audience.

And remember, growing your follower base can be just as important as building connections.

The LinkedIn algorithm might seem like a mysterious beast, but with these strategies, you can tame it and use it to boost your visibility and engagement.