With over 1 billion users worldwide, everyone knows that LinkedIn is the place for B2B marketing, networking, and professional growth.
And if you’re an e-commerce leader or business owner, harnessing the power of LinkedIn can be a game-changer for your professional network and brand visibility.
It can be a great place to find new leads to grow your business.
But it can also be a very difficult platform to master.
Understanding how the LinkedIn algorithm works is essential if you want to grow your organization’s reach and engagement on this platform.
LinkedIn’s algorithm has always been somewhat of a mystery—until recently.
The social media platform recently underwent some key algorithm updates in early 2024, and their team spoke with Entrepreneur to explain the inner workings.
Lucky for you, our team at eAccountable has created a comprehensive blog that summarizes the LinkedIn algorithm changes and provides a detailed guide on how to create an effective LinkedIn marketing strategy:
Understanding the LinkedIn Algorithm
How does the LinkedIn Algorithm work?
Before diving into your LinkedIn strategy, it’s essential to get a good grasp of how the platform works.
Unlike YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram, which have Shorts, For You Page, Reels, and Explore Page, all content is featured in one place—your LinkedIn feed.
When you type in linkedin.com, your newsfeed is the landing page, so it’s your main impression of all LinkedIn content.
The algorithm is built so that if you create high-quality content relevant to users’ interests, this specific audience will see your content.
From the perspective of the user, what you engage with is what you will see.
If you keep engaging with B2B marketing content, you’ll see more of that in your newsfeed.
If you consistently post about B2B marketing, your target audience will see more of your content.
The more niche your original content is, the better the algorithm can direct your LinkedIn posts to the top of the right feeds.
What’s Changed on LinkedIn?
To get a better understanding of how the platform works, let’s dive into what has changed in the LinkedIn algorithm.
Metrics For Success On LinkedIn
What qualifies as high-quality content on LinkedIn these days?
The new LinkedIn algorithm uses ranking signals to evaluate your content:
- Relevance: The relevance of the post to a distinct audience.
- Expertise: The author’s expertise in the post’s subject area.
- Engagement: The presence of “meaningful comments” from people historically interested in your post topic.
As a creator, a successful piece of content needs to be relevant to your target users’ feeds, demonstrate a level of expertise in your particular niche, and cultivate meaningful interactions and engagement.
Virality Is Not A Factor (Anymore)
Unlike most social platforms, virality is no longer a factor in the LinkedIn algorithm.
Before the algorithm update, the LinkedIn algorithm would amplify the most engaging (viral) content.
This caused a lot of irrelevant, personal content like family photos and selfies to float to the top of users’ feeds, which often clouded the professional content that the platform is primarily made for.
With the algorithm update, a piece of content solely intended to go viral is more likely to hurt your visibility and engagement than boost it.
Viral-oriented content might start showing up on feeds where it isn’t relevant, separating yourself from your target audience.
Visibility for Connections First
Content from your first-degree connections is prioritized in your newsfeed. This was a user-requested algorithm update, as most people find the content from their current LinkedIn network to be the most valuable to them.
This stresses the importance of being intentional about who you connect with. If you want engagement, your network needs to be able to connect with your content.
How do you expand your reach beyond your immediate connections and followers?
LinkedIn’s new algorithm rewards knowledge-rich posts by extending their reach beyond the creator’s immediate network.
If you consistently post low-quality content, you’re not going to be able to expand your reach beyond your most engaged connections and followers.
Prioritizing Expert Content
Speaking of knowledge-rich content, the social platform is looking to highlight more knowledge and advice experts share.
For users, the algorithm determines what expertise is relevant to them by identifying their interests based on their profile information and browsing activity.
LinkedIn identifies creators as experts in a particular topic based on their skills, work experience, and engagement on the platform, which they’ve acquired through education, research, experience, and practice.
The level of engagement plays a big role in identifying experts on the platform. Specifically, in-depth replies and comments can help improve your placement in the algorithm.
How to Craft an Effective LinkedIn Marketing Strategy
Now that you know what has changed in the algorithm, how does one craft an impactful LinkedIn marketing strategy for their business?
There are a lot of factors at play when it comes to succeeding at LinkedIn, so here are some strategies to ensure your business stands out against the competition:
Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile
Your LinkedIn profile is the foundation of your presence on the platform, so it’s a good place to start when it comes to your overall LinkedIn marketing strategy.
Whether you’re optimizing your personal LinkedIn profile or your business page, here are a few tips:
1. Complete Your Profile Basics
First things first, you need to complete your LinkedIn profile.
For your personal page, this means adding a professional headshot, detailed experience, and verified skills to increase your credibility and visibility. Your headshot should be professional but approachable.
For your company’s LinkedIn page, add your company’s logo and a professional cover photo that aligns with your company’s visual identity. Then you’ll want to indicate what industry your business falls into.
2. Create a Professional Headline
Whether it’s for your personal or company page, your headline should clearly convey your professional role and expertise. It’s one of the first things people see and should be compelling.
What makes you stand out? Your headline is the perfect place to share what makes you different and what your core value propositions are.
It also should contain relevant keywords so people can find what makes you and your brand stand out via a LinkedIn search.
3. Completing Your Page
Now that you’ve created the foundation of your page, it’s time to fill in the gaps.
For your personal page, add a paragraph or two to the About section. Think of it as a cover letter—talk about yourself, your career ambitions, your experience, and what makes you different in the professional space (i.e., your personal brand). Add your professional history with all the jobs that you worked—this will serve as your CV. Then, add all of your professional skills, which you can have current and former colleagues endorse for verification.
For your company page, create a detailed summary in the overview section that outlines your business’s mission, services, and unique selling points. Add a services section to list your offerings clearly for potential leads to see. And don’t forget to include a call-to-action, such as inviting visitors to contact you or visit your website or landing page. Finally, display recommendations and testimonials from clients to give your page social proof and credibility.
Create High-Quality Content
1. Understand Your Audience
Knowing your target audience is crucial in order to cultivate the meaningful engagement that you need to grow on LinkedIn.
Where do you start? Get a good idea of what type of content resonates with them.
Are they interested in industry insights? How-to guides? Thought leadership pieces?
Find your niche and tailor your content to meet their needs and interests.
2. Create Valuable Content
The promise of the algorithm is that if you create valuable content relevant to a specific audience, they will see your content.
How does one define valuable content? Content that addresses the pain points of your audiences and provides something of value for them that they can apply to their real lives.
Share insights, tips, and knowledge that can help your audience advance in their careers or solve common problems in their industry.
If what you’re sharing is genuinely helpful, more people will engage with it, and more people will read it.
And a quick note: don’t share content with outbound links. Even if the source is valuable, LinkedIn’s algorithm is built to keep people on the platform, not off of it so this will hurt your visibility.
3. Use Relevant Keywords & Hashtags
You can have the most valuable content in the world, but it won’t matter if no one sees it.
When it comes to expanding your reach, using relevant keywords and hashtags will help improve your content’s visibility while categorizing your content towards your target audience.
Relevant keywords will make you easier to find on the LinkedIn search engine. If you’re writing about the different digital marketing channels, you should utilize terms like “content marketing,” “social media marketing,” and “SEO.” You can include these terms in your LinkedIn profile and headline to make yourself easier to find.
Next, use relevant hashtags to categorize your content and make your posts more discoverable in people’s newsfeeds. Remember not to overload your post with hashtags. LinkedIn recommends using 3 hashtags for each post, so choose wisely.
Engage With Your Audience
It’s one thing to make high-quality content; it’s another to get your target audience to respond to it.
As you’re well aware, meaningful engagement is a critical ranking signal for the LinkedIn algorithm; it’s what sets you apart as a thought leader in your field.
Here are a few ways you can drive more engagement:
1. Ask Questions
Encourage interaction by asking questions in your posts.
Try to start or end your post with a question to encourage meaningful comments and discussion.
Or even better, post a poll once or twice a month so your audience can easily engage with your post.
By cultivating a forum for conversation with your posts, you can build a community around your content and your organization.
2. Tag People
Another great way to drive engagement and boost visibility is by tagging relevant people and pages in your posts.
An employee spotlight is a great way to tag someone in your organization for their great work while boosting your organization’s reach through their personal network.
Make sure you tag people who are more likely to engage with your content.
3. Leverage Rich Media
Did you know your brain processes visuals 600,000 times faster than text?
No wonder rich media posts with images, videos, and documents tend to drive more engagement than plain text posts.
LinkedIn users are more likely to engage with visually appealing content; by leveraging rich media in many of your posts, you can make your brand stand out against the competition.
4. Post During Peak Hours
When you post, it can significantly impact your content’s performance.
Want people to engage with your posts? Don’t post in the middle of the night.
The first hour after posting is essential for your posts’ reach and engagement.
This is why it is essential to schedule your posts during peak hours when your audience is most active. Typically, mornings and midweek are the best times to post on LinkedIn.
According to social media scheduler Hootsuite, the best times to post on LinkedIn are between 8:00 and 9:00 AM on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
5. Maintain Consistency
How often you post matters to the algorithm.
Consistency is key.
Regular posting keeps your audience engaged and signals that you are an active, regular user.
But how often should you post? It depends on your industry or niche, but LinkedIn recommends 2-5 posts a week to start out with, as well as 1-2 long-form articles a month. .
Work With An Expert Team
Optimizing your content for the LinkedIn algorithm involves a blend of optimizing your page, creating high-quality, relevant content, and engaging your audience.
The good news is, you don’t have to master LinkedIn alone.
By partnering with eAccountable, you can leverage our hands-on account managers who stay informed on any changes to the LinkedIn algorithm.
Whether you’re a small business owner or an e-commerce leader, we can help steer your organization’s LinkedIn account in the right direction so you can reach the right audience to help you achieve your business goals.
Interested in learning more about how we can help you grow your LinkedIn? Drop us a line here for a free consultation.