Bite Size Comms
Bite Size Comms is a weekly podcast that will give you a perspective on an aspect of public relations and communications practice. Bite size as they are short opinion pieces on topical issues. The episodes are sometimes contentious, sometimes funny, and they all aim to provoke thought.
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Bite Size Comms
Playing the LinkedIn algorithm game
Many of us have moved to using LinkedIn as our prime social media platform for work. How can you gain a good reach and engagement with your LinkedIn posts? How can you play the algorithm game? That's what we explore in this episode.
Playing the LinkedIn algorithm game
Many of us have moved to using LinkedIn as our prime social media platform for work, especially in B2B, for promoting consultancy and freelance expertise, and for personal branding and thought leadership. In addition to LinkedIn’s traditional use as a recruitment platform.
How can you gain a good reach and engagement with your LinkedIn posts? How can you play the algorithm game?
LinkedIn gives us a few clues. The first is to pay for their Premium service. I bet they are aggressively marketing this to you already! However, at around £600 per year, this is expensive and probably only viable if you use LinkedIn as your primary promotional tool. LinkedIn says Premium Business will give you 13 times more profile views on average.
For users on the free version, subtle ways exist to work with LinkedIn’s algorithm. Go to your ‘analytics and tools’ page. It is a bit hidden under the ‘Me’ tab. I get there via ‘analytics’ from my last post and then ‘View all analytics and tools’ at the bottom of that page. There may be a quicker route!
You will see that LinkedIn first tells you that if you post once a week, you will receive four times more views. A decent algorithm boost. You can squeeze more out of the algorithm. On that analytics page is a tracker for the given week: how many posts you have created, how many comments you have made on other people’s posts, and how many contributions you have made to those cheesy AI-generated collaborative articles. You need one post, comment, and contribution every week, and LinkedIn will note that you have achieved your weekly sharing goal. Your posts will get a further boost.
How I play the game: I write a weekly thought leadership-style post on LinkedIn. Before posting it, I make sure that I have commented on someone’s post that week and find an AI collaborative article to add something to. Then, I post my weekly article. I have noticed a 50% boost in my posts during the first 24 hours.
The type of content that LinkedIn’s algorithm promotes is important to consider, too. Above all, the algorithm likes authentic posts that appear relevant and valuable to your audience. For example, LinkedIn highlights:
- long-form posts or articles (posts - character limit - get greater visibility than articles - indexed by Google)
- document posts (mixture of text and imagery, can be a carousel)
- newsletters (LinkedIn have been pushing this form of content)
- video (LinkedIn want a piece of the short video action)
- single images or infographics.
Think about the authentic, relevant and valuable mantra. Here are some ideas that are proven to increase engagement levels:
- short, personal video for silent viewing
- educational content or industry insight
- personal stories or experiences
- actionable tips
- inspirational or thought-provoking posts.
Last of all, find the best day and time to post. Buffer research of 1 million LinkedIn posts shows that higher engagement is achieved between 2 and 4 pm, Mondays to Fridays. Avoid weekend posting.
Above all, enjoy creating and sharing your content on LinkedIn.
[Image: Alexander Shatov on Unsplash]
