Over the past two years, and after going through several updates, the LinkedIn algorithm has spurred a more than 50 percent increase in viral activity. This means more than two billion videos, articles and posts are now filtered, ranked, and displayed in LinkedIn feeds of over 650+ million users. This may sound very complicated and a pain to walk through especially if you are not used to it, but in truth, understanding the LinkedIn algorithm isn’t as hard as you might think it is.
Still wondering how exactly does the LinkedIn algorithm work? To put it simply, it trends the post based on relevance and engagement. The next question is, how do you make your post relevant? There’s no magic behind it, just some simple steps that anyway can follow, and in this article, we will show you are four ways to master the LinkedIn algorithm in 2022:
Choose the Right Time to Post
The first and most critical step towards debunking the LinkedIn algorithm is knowing when is the right time to post. This is crucial in terms of reach and visibility, let’s say for example you upload your brand-new post that you spent hours perfecting at 4am when your audience would be most likely asleep. In this situation, your content will go unnoticed for hours until your followers wake up, thus, resulting in a big loss of engagement on your part that you could have easily avoided.
In fact, according to a study conducted by LinkedIn experts, the best time to post greatly depends on your time zone, location, and your target audience’s active hours, so be sure to keep all those factors in mind!
Fun fact, based on yet another research, half of LinkedIn users log in by using their smartphones, therefore you will actually have a much greater chance of reaching people after work hours.
Here are some important points to remember:
- The ideal posting time is from 7 to 8 am or 5 to 6 pm.
- Tuesdays between 11 am to 12 pm record the most amount of shares and likes.
- The peak time of use is 12 pm and between 5 to 6 pm.
- The worst time for LinkedIn posts is between 10 pm to 6 am or right after Friday night or before Monday morning.
Be Relevant
The first thing you need to do if you want to use the LinkedIn algorithm to your advantage by being relevant is to know your target audience, why? Because your relevancy depends on who is reding and seeing your content and whether it is satisfactory and up to date or not. This can be easily achieved by conducting extensive audience research. You can get access to this type of information by going through other social media platforms, analytics, and your top competitor’s profile to get an overall idea of building an effective persona.
Posting visual, stimulating, and eye-catching content such as videos, graphical posts, and pictures can be a good alternative of doing this process. Keep an eye on what types of posts are trending at the moment, and understand what factors push the audience to interact and try to replicate them in your content. In short, by incorporating formats that are popular with the LinkedIn algorithm, you are likely to check both the boxes; engagement probability and interest relevance.
Promote Your Posts
Accept it or not, promoting your post is still one of the easiest ways to beat the LinkedIn algorithm. Content creators across all platforms; whether Instagram, YouTube, TikTok etc. Have their own and different methods of reaching their audience. Of which we can mention; using keywords strategically, incorporating relevant hashtags, and tagging relevant companies and members. Using branded hashtags is another simple way to get your post trending especially if you take advantage of a certain event or situation that is going viral at that exact moment because you can be certain that a large number of users are searching specifically for it by using these hashtags to keep up with news or trends.
Encourage Engagement
One simple thing about the LinkedIn algorithm that everyone is aware of is: The more likes and comments you get on your post, the higher your profile or page is ranked. To keep it simple, the LinkedIn algorithm rewards and encourages engagement, especially the posts that trigger a conversation or debate in the comments or otherwise. One of the most effective ways to achieve this result is by asking a question or starting a poll that will make people want to interact and give their opinions about the subject. People are easily protective and easy to stimulate when it comes to their subjects of interest, so posting the right question will not only get you a larger audience, but as a business leader, it will help you in getting more insight and understanding your audience better.
To wrap things up, hopefully this article gave you a better insight of how the LinkedIn algorithm works and its secrets, as well as the most effective ways to counter attack and take advantage of it. Now you can understand why posts that once collected hundreds of likes and comments are now just considered as average and don’t see much interaction anymore.
The major reason is those past methods and techniques are now simply that, of the past. The internet is a fast-moving place and if you stay attached to your old ways you will be left behind in a blink of an eye. Engagement is critical for the LinkedIn algorithm, and it directly depends upon your reach, network, and relevance. So best advice to give you is to stay authentic to yourself, post creative and attractive posts that will catch the attention of your target audience and allow you to crack the algorithm code!