The LinkedIn Algorithm | How does it work?

This is your LinkedIn marketing crash course. I'm going to teach you everything you need to know about the platform and how to grow on the platform.

I'll kick off by discussing best practices for LinkedIn algorithm success, but before I get into that, I just wanted to make it clear that yes, you can utilize the algorithm to your favor, but you shouldn't be overthinking it and posting only because you think the algorithm is going to help that post increase visibility. That's important to note because it is more important to have quality content than it is to try and play the algorithm. But in terms of what you can do to set yourself up for success, these parts are the most important:

The number one is consistency. 

Consistency is favored by the algorithm, so posting three to five times per week will tell LinkedIn that you're a serious creator, and it will push your content out to more and more users. The use of hashtags is a debatable topic. Some people use them and love them, and some people say that they don't really work in their industry. If you do choose to use them, use a maximum of three to five hashtags. The reason behind that is that anything more than that can be deemed as spam.

So, have a play around if you think there's a particular hashtag that works in your industry or even if you want to create a hashtag that is unique to you and what you post. Go for it, but play around with it, and don't over-spam the system by utilizing too many.

When it comes to posting frequency, I have touched on this, and the algorithm works based on three posts per week minimum. I say five posts because it sets you apart, and also, every impression counts. Let's just say you've got an average impression rate of 10,000 per post, and you post three times a week. That means you get 30,000 eyes on your posts per week. If you post five times a week, you'll get 50,000 eyes on your posts. So, spending that extra 15 minutes per day, in my opinion, is so worth it because you could literally double your impressions in that time, and the more eyes, the more leads.

It's also important not to comment first on your own posts, as it can be seen as self-promotion by the algorithm. I sometimes get my VA or somebody in my team to comment for me. So, let's just say I make a post and I say "Book a call if you would like to know more information or book a free consultation call." I'll get my assistant to actually put the link in the post because then it's not me self-promoting myself, but the link is still there as well. So just a tip for you, but yeah, commenting first on your own post can seem a little bit spammy for the algorithm.

There's something called the Golden 90 Rule, and that's that the first 90 minutes in which you post signals relevance. So if you post and it gets heaps of likes and comments within the first 90 minutes, the algorithm thinks it's a great post and pushes it out to more and more people. So it's important to note that posting times are important due to this factor. If you're writing your post at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning just to get it out of the way, it might actually be working against you because by the time people are logging onto their computer at say 9:00, your post is already way down on the screen, and the algorithm already thinks it's not suitable. In saying that, some people in your audience, let's say you recruit construction, maybe your audience starts work at 6:30, so that would be relevant for you to get your posting first. So think about when you think your audience is most likely to use LinkedIn and post around those times.

When it comes to post editing after you have posted a piece of content, you can edit the caption, but avoid editing it within the first 10 minutes. The reason behind that again is just the algorithm; it just limits the views slightly, and you need to be doing just everything you can to make sure that your post is being pushed out to as many people as possible. When it comes to tagging, don't mention more than 15 accounts per post. This is a LinkedIn algorithm rule, but I would say actually tag way fewer people than that because if somebody that you've tagged doesn't comment or like the post that you've tagged them in, the algorithm actually does think it's spammy as well, and again, doesn't push it out to as many people. So it can actually damage the impressions on the post.

When it comes to keywords, creators with SEO come up in five times more searches. So as you've learned in your LinkedIn profile optimization, when it comes to SEO and all of those keywords, if you've nailed that and your language is relevant to your target audience, you'll come up in five times more searches. So just keep that in mind and make sure that you've really optimized your profile to the best of your ability.

When it comes to engagement metrics that influence your visibility on your posts, with likes, each like on your post is equivalent to one additional view. Every time somebody clicks "see more," it's equivalent to four extra views. Every time somebody shares, it's approximately seven additional views, and anytime somebody comments, it's equivalent to around 12 extra views. So the reason this is important to know is when it comes to your call to action. I really want you to be encouraging as many comments as possible.

When it comes to commenting, let's say you comment on somebody else's post; the fact you've commented comes up on your feed, so your first connections can see that you've commented on their post. Now, when others comment on your post, exactly the same happens, and you want their first connections—the audience that is just like them—to see your post as well. So that's why I love the comment's call to action. Another tip is to respond back to people who comment within one hour, so the way that the algorithm works again is if you comment back to people within the one hour, it also increases the visibility as well. So just make sure you're always getting back to people.

Now there are optimal posting times on LinkedIn. I don't know whether this is a bit outdated or not, and I definitely believe it's industry-dependent, but LinkedIn has said that this is the time when users are most active on the platform:

Monday: 9:00 a.m. until midday

Tuesday: 8:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m.

Wednesday: 9:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m.

Thursday: 8:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m.

Friday: 1:00 p.m. till 3:00 p.m.

Remember I said to you when we were doing the content calendar, people are very different on Friday afternoon compared to Monday morning. Keep that in mind because maybe your fun, party post is suited between the hours of 1:00 till 3:00 on a Friday.

On Saturdays, it's 10:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m., and on Sundays, it's 12:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. Now, I personally don't post on weekends. I see some people do, and that's great; people do use LinkedIn on the weekends, but ultimately, there are way fewer users than Monday to Friday, especially if you recruit corporate roles. So what I'd recommend is, even if you do post on weekends, don't post your absolute best piece of content on a Sunday. Wait until a Monday morning or Tuesday morning for your best piece of content. There's just going to be more eyes naturally because there are more users on the platform Monday to Friday.

When it comes to reach per format on LinkedIn, this is the order in which posts do the best. So when it comes to carousel posts, typically they get 1.8 to 2.3 times more reach than other methods. Text and picture posts are 1.3 times to 1.7 times reach. Video posts are 0.8 times to 1.5 times reach. With video posts, it's important to know video posts do actually do really well, but only if the video is great and engaging. So if you're somebody who's quite new to creating videos, you'll probably notice that they don't do so well, but as you become more confident, they'll start to do better and better, and people do watch them if they're engaging. So give videos a go, but just know that it's going to take that little bit of practice to get a high level of reach on those posts.

With external links, so that's when you tag your company website, for example, or you add your email address in there for people to email you, they actually get about half the reach compared to other formats. So the algorithm actually marks it down if you add an external link. The reason behind that is LinkedIn wants to keep people within their platform because the longer people are on their platform, the more money they can make from advertising and other things. So if you're sending people off the platform, naturally, the post won't do as well.

Articles get the least reach out of all methods, and interestingly, they're the most time-consuming. So this is why I don't recommend posting articles unless you've got a lot of time on your hands or you've already got quite a big community who is going to read the articles. If you're just getting started and you're investing hours into these articles but you don't have a big audience to post to, it won't reach too many people, and you'll probably spend a lot of time with very little return. So just keep that in mind.

Now, what should you track when it comes to LinkedIn? There are five things:

• Your profile views
• Your impressions
• Your engagement
• Your followers
• Your search appearances

So, profile views - if you've got a premium profile such as LinkedIn Recruiter, you'll be able to see how many people view your profile. You want this number to constantly be increasing. It doesn't matter how much it's increasing, but just always increasing. You just want more interest in your profile month in, and month out.

When it comes to impressions, this is how many people actually view your post. So with LinkedIn, it will show you every seven days your impressions on your homepage. You want this number again to increase every single week. And then you can also go into the analytics, and you can actually see and track whether it's a week, a month, 90 days, or every year, so the last 365 days where your impressions are at. Again, no real number that you want them to increase by, they just always have to be increasing. And if they're increasing, you're doing a good job.

The same goes for engagement. So engagement is actually who likes, comments or shares your post, and again, you can track that. When it comes to engagement, something to keep in mind is that you are a recruiter, and your audience may not want their boss to know that they're engaging with a recruiter. So quite often, you'll notice that your engagements may be quite low, but you'll get private messages sent to you. Don't stress about engagements and likes and comments because that's not the be-all and end-all. As long as people are seeing your posts, that's what's important because that's how people are going to start to know your name, and with consistency and posting those five days a week, it's going to become a no-brainer because they've seen your name so many times, and they know that you can help.  Keep in mind as well, that some people just actually aren't commenters, um, so because of that, they just naturally wouldn't comment on a post, and it's not personal. It's just they just wouldn't. They're more likely to send you a message.

Your followers as well, so just make sure that number is always increasing. And search appearances, so you can definitely track your search appearances. How well optimised your profile is will affect your search appearances as well, so the better the optimized profile, the more searches you will come up in. So again, your goal is to always increase this number.

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