With LinkedIn being an excellent platform for industry leaders to brand themselves, we work with clients to ensure their stories reach their desired target audience. Most recently, we managed to help one of our clients reach over 14,000 organic impressions and 130 reactions in one of their posts, rising to become his top performing knowledge-sharing post of all-time for their LinkedIn profile.
Before we dive into why we believe this post managed to find success in the ocean of LinkedIn posts, let’s take a look at the various factors that impact the LinkedIn algorithm, and subsequently increase the visibility of your post and how well it will perform.
The Factors that Influence the LinkedIn Algorithm
LinkedIn’s algorithm uses machine learning to determine what kind of content is displayed on a user’s feed. Below are the key factors that have a major impact on how the LinkedIn algorithm addresses your post:
Relevance
The LinkedIn algorithm does its best to show only relevant content to users, taking into account each user’s identity, including personal interests, the industry they work in, and their job title. The algorithm also considers what kind of content users have interacted with in the past to determine what shows up on their feed. In addition, posts with relevant hashtags can help the algorithm understand which audiences the post is most suited for.
Recency
LinkedIn prioritizes fresh content over posts made in the past. This is why users who post high-quality content regularly will be more likely to appear on users’ feeds, which subsequently leads to higher visibility.
Quality
LinkedIn considers the length of the content, the media used as part of the post (video, image, link etc.), and the number of connections a user has with the author of the content. The algorithm also tries to detect excessive self-promotion or spammy language, which are factors that reduce the visibility of a post.
Engagement Rate
Content that leads users to react, comment, or even repost, have a strong impact on the LinkedIn algorithm. These engagement rates are taken into account alongside a specific framework of time, meaning if a post receives a high amount of reactions and shares within a few hours, this signals the algorithm to increase the visibility of the post even more. This is why posting on optimal times, such as during mornings on Weekdays, can help a post perform better.
Our Client’s Case Study of Success
Now that we’ve gone over the factors that influence the LinkedIn algorithm, let’s take a look at how our client managed to achieve a top performing LinkedIn post. Below, we’ve analyzed how our client performed within the context of each factor.
Relevance
Our client’s profile listed them as being a business leader and part of the retail industry, complemented with a large number of his connections being also strongly affiliated with these two industries. This meant the algorithm considered a large number of their connections as individuals who would potentially find the post engaging and worth reading. In addition, the post implemented effective use of relevant hashtags to further strengthen post relevancy.
Recency
During the time of this blog post’s writing, this was our client’s most recent post, making it more likely to appear on other users’ feeds within a framework of time. The average half-life duration of LinkedIn posts are within 24 hours (half-life meaning the duration of time it takes for a post to receive half of the total engagement).
Quality
This factor is strongly tied to engagement rate, due to the simple fact that if users deem the post to be of high quality, the post will inevitably have a higher engagement rate. The writing in our client’s post used an engaging hook sentence, and struck a good balance between the amount of words, the knowledge shared, and the structure of the overall post. Another key factor is the topic the client chose to share, which was about an innovative campaign Lululemon created. This campaign was not only unique and interesting to learn about, but provided real informational value for other retailers.
Engagement Rate
More than half of our client’s engagements for this post occurred within the first 24 hours of posting. The post quickly gained traction through engagements, including leading a certain number of users to comment and repost, all of which were strong indicators for LinkedIn to increase the post’s momentum in achieving more impressions and engagements.
Conclusion
Although the LinkedIn algorithm is constantly changing and re-optimized, the key factors of relevance, recency, quality, and engagement rate will remain significant for all users looking to gain a wider reach through their LinkedIn content.
In summary:
- Users need to take into consideration how relevant their post is to their connections and target audience
- The more recent the post, the more likely it will appear on others’ feeds
- The quality of the post ideally must be attractive enough for other users to be drawn to read through it fully, and leave a reaction, share, or repost
- The higher the engagement rate within a short period of time, the more likely it will achieve an even higher visibility rate
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