Why do you need to understand and beat LinkedIn algorithm? Let’s know why and how!

Social media marketing is the core of modern marketing strategy. To excel at this, you need to understand every platform. Furthermore, to master a social media platform, you need to understand its algorithms and adopt continuous changes. 

Social media algorithms are there to sort the post to the users’ feed according to the relevance, not the posting time. The algorithms of every social media platform are different, as they are all trying to outclass others. 

This blog explains LinkedIn algorithms and ways to benefit from them to perform better on the platform.

What Is the LinkedIn Algorithm & How Does It Work?

The LinkedIn algorithm is not the same as Facebook or Instagram but indeed has some similarities. If you want to know how to beat LinkedIn algorithm then first you have to understand how it works. Understanding the LinkedIn algorithm is less complicated as compared to Instagram. Below is a graphical description of how LinkedIn algorithm works. 

LinkedIn has implemented a four-step process for the distribution of content across the platform. First, it is to control the spread of malicious, inappropriate, and spam content. 

Content Filtration at the Beginning 

Every time you post content, a bot classifies your content in one of the three categories

• Spam
• Low-quality
• Clear

Your aim should be to land in the clear category. If your content is in the low-quality category, you still have a chance to move to the upper stage of clarity. It would be best if you do everything possible to optimize your content and avoid the “spam” area. 

Audience Testing 

The next step is when the audience tests your content. After you pass the content filtration, LinkedIn shows your content to a small portion of your audience first. Again, it is to test the response of your audience.

This step is crucial as it determines the fate of your content. Whether it will be shown to a larger group of audience or not.

You need to take care of two things at this stage.

• Ensure that the audience does not “hide” your content on their feed. For this, you have to create engaging content with a meaningful message. Always add relative images or videos in your post.
• Next is, you must try to avoid being categorized as “spam” by your audience.

Ways to Avoid Spam Filter?

Your post’s initial engagement decides whether it is good enough to pass the LinkedIn algorithm or not. You need to avoid “hiding” or being reported as “spam,” as discussed earlier.

To ensure this, you need to checkmark and consider the following questions while posting on LinkedIn.

• Is your content quantity exceeding the optimum level?
• Can the post offend any person or entity?
• Is your post matching the interest of your audiences?
• Is the post relevant to the profession of your circle?

LinkedIn is the leading B2B interaction social media platform. Here people share more about their profession on LinkedIn as compared to Facebook and Instagram. So, it is better to check the professional relevancy of your post to avoid being hidden.

Your Content Score 

LinkedIn ranks your content based on the type of engagement it receives from your audience. Like, comment and share are the three ways for your followers to interact with the content you post. Each mentioned interaction has some associated ranking points.

You can consider “likes” as having the least ranking points. At the same time, “comment” and “sharing” have the highest-ranking points associated with them.

Content Being Passed to People 

Once your post clears the content scoring step, it is shown to a larger audience group. They assess the quality and relevancy of your content and then decide to send your content to further people or not. If your content performs well, the editors may send it to the people outside your network. It will appear in the top content area of the app or the topical content of the newsfeed.

5 Ways to Beat LinkedIn Algorithm

We have evaluated and briefly described five ways on to beat the LinkedIn algorithm. Let’s take a look.

1. Post on Optimal Time

With the increase in competition and the algorithm change, it is critical to get more reach on your content. Timing plays an essential role in it. The highest activity time of people in your network is usually considered the optimum time to post.

However, the optimum time for various industries varies. It depends on the relevant users’ activity level. So, before posting, you must get the answer to the question, what is the best time to post on LinkedIn for you?

When you get to know the optimum time for your industry, you are automatically a step closer to benefiting better from the LinkedIn algorithm. The presence of extensive data and research on optimal posting time or activity rate for various industries shows that the posting time undoubtedly impacts the performance of the content while beating the LinkedIn algorithm as well.

2. Role of LinkedIn Engagement to Beat LinkedIn Algorithm

The ultimate purpose behind the attributes of the LinkedIn algorithm is to encourage behavior or socializing. But, of course, it is the ultimate purpose of social media as well. So, to beat the LinkedIn algorithm you’ll have to increase the engagement rate on your LinkedIn content. 

To increase engagement on your LinkedIn posts, you must add a comment or caption to your post. It encourages people to engage in your posts, guiding you towards better socializing. If you do not add comments or captions to your post, all people see is a random link or photo with no context. And it does not seem pleasing at all!

Adding a comment on your post not only increases the visibility of your post but also encourages others to comment back thus increasing engagement on your posts. If you analyze a viral or trending post on LinkedIn, you will see their posting style similarities. Thousands of comments being the closest similarity. All viral posts have several comments because the post creator encourages their feedback.

Open-end comments are the best way to encourage people to comment back and engage. Just like the one shown below.

When people are commenting on your post, you should also comment back. It promotes socializing, which is the primary purpose of LinkedIn. If you successfully get a conversation going on your post, it increases the chances of higher engagement and reaches of your post.

You can use the scheduling features of social media tools such as SocialBu. It can help you create relevant and interactive posts, thus guiding you towards social media success.

3. Add Hashtags to Your Posts

In addition to comments, using hashtags is another effective way to increase visibility and engagement on your post.

Hashtags allow your post to be searchable—both online and on the platform, by the people interested in the topic you are posting about. Just like this LinkedIn post.

Three well-searched hashtags can do wonders on your posts. First, try to do a thorough search about the trending or demanded hashtags related to your niche. There are many social media management tools in the market that you can use for this purpose, just like the hashtag tracking feature of SocialBu. It allows you to search recent posts with hashtags related to your niche.

Using well-searched and self-created hashtags has completely different results. They show a high discrepancy in their effectiveness regarding engagement, visibility, and searchability of your post.

4. Post According to the LinkedIn Content Demand

Although LinkedIn is often incorporated in social media profiles, it differs in nature and content consumption. On LinkedIn, people are not interested to see your selfie, great vacation pictures, or anything about your daily life. Instead, it is a business and employment-related platform. Here people like to see job posts, the latest news, new corporate rules, creative employee benefits offered by a company, etc.

So, to excel and create a strong LinkedIn network, it is better to stick to the content demand of LinkedIn. It can be a review of working conditions in a particular company or industry. Any seminar, webinar, or discussion session arranged by you or your business. Post about ways to successfully tackle interview questions related to jobs. Share the latest world or business world news, and much more.

5. Adopt SMM Tools to Beat LinkedIn Algorithm 

Even if you understand the working algorithms of a social media platform like LinkedIn, it is still not enough. Not until you make an effort to overcome the algorithm and make it a part of your posting habits.

Everything we discussed above, like posting on optimum time, adding open-end comments, using well-searched and trending hashtags, and knowing about the in-demand content, all play a crucial role in beating the LinkedIn algorithm.

Trying to cover all the demands of social media platforms manually is almost impossible. To carry out all these actions properly, you will need to step up your social media management strategy. That’s why you should start using social media management tools. These tools like SocialBu can help you schedule and monitor your content’s performance as well other than many other functions.

Social Bu offers various features to help optimize your social media posting. For example, the schedule feature allows you to schedule your posts at the optimal time, even if the optimum time for your industry is outside your official working hours. 

Similarly, analyze feature allows you to track the performance of your LinkedIn posts. You can also study the response and behavior of your audience and act accordingly. 

Moreover, the feature of a social calendar allows you to keep track and review your plan, scheduling, posting, and publishing of the content in one place. 

In short, using tools like this can shape your social media profile for good. It can be your special friend helping you beat the complicated LinkedIn algorithm.

Final Words

Understanding the key features and algorithms of social media platforms is of core importance to overcome and beat the ever-rising competition. For example, the unique working of the LinkedIn algorithm requires a separate and dedicated strategy to perform better on the platform.

Strategies like the use of comments on the post, and appropriate and trendy hashtags can make you clear the four-step verification process of the LinkedIn algorithm and give your post a super-fire chance of landing in the trending area of the app. Moreover, social media management tools can help improve the performance of your social media profile as well.