LinkedIn Algorithm 2024 insights were recently released as a report by Richard van der Blom from Just Connecting.
As someone using LinkedIn for professional and business purposes, understanding how LinkedIn works is crucial for our success.
Did you know that since LinkedIn changed the feed algorithm in November 2023, reach has dropped more than 50% for most LinkedIn creators?
Furthermore, follower growth has also slowed down to 40% for some compared to just a year ago!
Ever since I changed the language of my LinkedIn posts from my native Finnish to English and started to grow my international audience, I’ve had severe challenges with the reach of my posts.
With some peers of mine, we’ve wondered how much of it has to do with the language change and how much of it may have to do with simple algorithm changes LinkedIn has done periodically over the past few years
Why, I have asked, and I’m sure that’s what you are asking now as well. Here is the answer: LinkedIn made a significant algorithm update in September 2023. According to van der Blom, these changes have been substantial modifications impacting reach and engagement on the platform.
Ok, let’s move on to this week’s episode on LinkedIn Algorithm 2024.
In this episode of the Building a Modern Employer Brand podcast, I discuss the significant LinkedIn algorithm 2024 update and how these changes impact how we use LinkedIn today. My struggles with LinkedIn algorithm have put me off LinkedIn, and it’s time to regain the pleasure of engaging with and building relationships with you guys on LinkedIn.
If you are new to this podcast, my name is Susanna Rantanen. This podcast is a weekly dose of educational and inspirational news, ideas, tips and advice for everyone working in communications, marketing and branding targeted at current and future employees.
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The Many Facets of the LinkedIn Algorithm 2024
As a note, there are multiple algorithms on the LinkedIn platform, just like on the other social media platforms.
Our personal profiles and feeds are ‘operated’ by a different algorithm than company profiles, and the advertising function is run again by a different algorithm.
Richard Bliss, the author of Digital First Leadership, explains that the LinkedIn algorithm generally works almost the opposite of any other social media platform. LinkedIn doesn’t want your content to go viral; it wants it to be relevant.
The advertising revenue drives the social media algorithms on all the other platforms, but this isn’t the case for LinkedIn. The more your content is seen on other social networks, the better because that brings more eyeballs for advertisers.
But on LinkedIn, their revenue comes from memberships such as Premium, Sales Navigator and Recruiter, making it less irrelevant for them to think about advertisers on LinkedIn.
I want you to remember now that LinkedIn is the Alice in Wonderland of social media with its algorithms. LinkedIn’s algorithms work the opposite of those on other social media platforms, directly impacting what you should post on LinkedIn, when, and how.
According to van der Blom:
“For the first time, we’ve observed that factors such as the ideal length of text, subject matter, and posting frequency may differ depending on the format you choose.“
LinkedIn Algorithm is designed to connect us with our friends
Company content – everything you post from your company account – is shown only to 2% of your followers.
That’s right. Only 2% of your followers. The content you publish on your personal profile is shown to 10% of your followers. While that is a lousy reach, it’s still much better than posting from the company account.
In fact, makes me question why even bother. Doesn’t it?
Let’s talk about who then is privileged to see your posts. This is all based on who reacts to your post. Let me rephrase that. Who is shown your next post is based on who interacted, as in engaged, with your previous post.
Interactions on LinkedIn are similar to those on other social networks.
- You have the sentiments from likes to hearts to support and so on.
- Then, you have the comments as in sharing your thoughts as a comment on the post.
- You can repost a post and you can also send it as a DM, that’s direct message to someone’s LinkedIn inbox.
Based on the significant LinkedIn algorithm changes on personal and professional profile users, the reach of your next post is based on how many reaction points you received from specific people on your last post.
Who sees your posts?
- Getting likes increases the likelihood of your content being shown to those who liked it by 30% on the next post.
- Getting comments → 70%
- Getting them to share it → 80%
- Getting them to look at your LinkedIn profile → 100%
- New connections → 100% of posts will appear in the feed for the next two weeks. → be strategic about connecting and posting after!
LinkedIn algorithm wants us to connect with people, with our network on LinkedIn. Connection means having a conversation with other people. That’s why simply liking a post isn’t as important for showing your post to more people as it is to getting comments and getting them to share it.
Furthermore, the quality of your content is even more important. If you get people to consume your content or comment, then check out your profile, you will increase the likelihood of your content being shown to them by 100%. Everyone who looks at your profile sees your next post.
If you don’t want to see posts from certain people, don’t go check out their profiles.
If you want certain people – like potential clients or job seekers – to see your next post, comment on their posts and also go see their profiles.
How the new LinkedIn Algorithm 2024 Impacts Your Personal Profile
The updates on the LinkedIn algorithm on our personal profiles are not great. I have a recap based on the notes I made listening to Richard Bliss talk at Social Media Marketing World 2024, here it is:
- Who sees your LinkedIn posts? Only 10% of your followers see your posts during the first golden hour after posting.
- Why is the reach so low? LinkedIn tests whether your content starts to drive conversation during the first golden hour when you post. In other words, there is a test period of 60-90 minutes that decides whether your post will be shown to more than 10% of your followers.
- How can you increase the reach of your post? Few things really matter.
- You need people to comment on your post during the golden hour. That matters the most. And, preferably those people who you want to see more of your post. And not just with a lazy emoji or one word. Like they have an opinion to share about it. That’s a conversation.
- Post only once a day. Posting more actually eats away the visibility from your previous post(s) on the same day.
- The best days to post are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays and the best times are local time 7:30-9:30, expect Saturdays slightly later until about 11:30. So, you want to post when your audience is more likely to react to your post during the golden hour. Think, when are people most likely to have the time to comment on my post. Not see and like it quickly, but comment.
- Optimising your type of post and the copytext on the post is also important. You want to opt for post types and copytexts that are best as conversation starters.
- The best is text-only, then comes text-only with a personal photo of you or people in general. The more selfie style, and informal, the better.
- What you must avoid?
- Scheduling posts as the algorithm reads those as ghosts, not posts. What this means is that when you schedule, you’re not there to have conversations. That’s how the algorithm works now.
- Adsy photos or stock photos. Apparently, LinkedIn’s audience does not like stock photos or adsy photos, and that’s why the algorithm works to prevent those posts from being shown.
- No video. Even though the video is one of the best content formats on other social media, remember, LinkedIn does not want us to watch silently but have conversations. Videos are the worst conversation starters. So, don’t post videos.
- LinkedIn articles. Can you imagine? They are not pushing even their own platform feature because it does not drive conversations.
- Additionally, increase the time you spend on LinkedIn commenting on posts of the people you follow AND the people who you want to see your posts.
- Commenting is LinkedIn’s most powerful feature. Every comment builds your brand and awareness on LinkedIn, so make sure your comments are intentional and help people understand who you are and can be for them. Always provide your insight so that the other people reading and commenting on the post can recognise the value you can provide.
Using LinkedIn content to grow your reach and build a community
Visual examples of LinkedIn posts that probably failed because of the new LinkedIn Algorithm 2024
Example 1: Sponsored post from a company profile
What you are looking at is a sponsored post of a Scandinavian bank posted and promoted from their company profile on LinkedIn.
This post is targeted at their stockholders and has a direct link with the preview image on what seems to be an invitation to the stockholders’ meeting.
What is staggering about this post is that this bank has over 250,000 followers on LinkedIn, and this post has been promoted, yet this post has only two likes.
There is nothing wrong with this post. The image is really nice and matches with the target audience who should be in plenty on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn algorithm is suppressing this post – even though it is promoted because, based on LinkedIn user behaviour, we don’t like to engage with posts from company accounts, and we don’t like to leave LinkedIn when we are there to get updates and network with our connections.
Here’s how:
- First of all, this is a post from the company account, so it is shown to only 2% of the followers anyway.
- It has a link, which cuts your audience by 50%
- The pre-view image from the link is shown. This cuts the likelihood of engagement to the post up to 70%. Comments are the most important engagement that could boost the visibility of this post. But they pretty much did everything not to show this post to anyone. And they even paid for it.
And, this is why the algorithm is not showing this post.
Example 2: Promotional-looking content vs personal content posted on personal profiles
Another example is a print screen from my LinkedIn notifications at the time of writing the shownotes article for this episode.
I have two examples on this print screen:
- The first one is a notification to a post from that Wednesday morning just after 8 a.m. I had just shared a post promoting my new podcast episode. I didn’t have a link on this post, but I used the podcast thumbnail image as a picture. I know how to copywrite posts, so that is unlikely to be why my post had only seven reactions.
- The second notification is from a fellow employer branding professional in Finland, who shared a personal achievement explaining her success in training many people. I commented on it with warm sentiments. And she loved the comment. Her post has 20 reactions and three comments. I have at least double the size of a network than her. But that doesn’t matter to the LinkedIn algorithm. What matters is that her post matched better the new LinkedIn algorithm 2024 rules.
To summarise the key learnings from these two examples.
- Company posts are far less effective in reaching anyone than posts published from personal profiles. That has a direct impact on talent acquisition and employer brand marketing posts.
- If you use a link on your post, remove the preview window generated automatically. It’s very easy. Just click the ‘x’ on the top right corner.
- Stop using images that look too commercial or promotional in your posts. Instead, use a selfie or other unformal image of people. Or, don’t use a picture at all.
- Create posts with emotionally appealing messages, learnings and journeys.
That’s all for this week, my dear audience!
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