If LinkedIn’s latest updates have you puzzled, you’re in the right spot. This year, LinkedIn has fine-tuned its algorithm, spotlighting content that’s not just captivating but truly beneficial for its users. For recruiters, this is an exciting time, offering fresh avenues to shine—if you play your cards right.
Why Bother?
LinkedIn’s crackdown on spam and its push for original, engaging content means one thing: adapt or get left behind. As a recruiter, this platform is your goldmine for attracting top talent, opening doors to new business opportunities, nurturing warm leads and expanding your market reach. However, to excel on the platform following LinkedIn’s recent changes, you need to update your strategy to align with LinkedIn’s core mission. In this post, we’re going to reveal all you need to know about LinkedIn’s latest changes along with actionable tips to optimise your LinkedIn strategy and clear guides to measure your performance. We will cover:
Understanding LinkedIn’s Algorithm
Rising to prominence on LinkedIn is more method than magic. The algorithm - a sophisticated recommendation engine - prioritises posts for users based on a number of factors. As part of their recent changes, your posts are now more visible to your immediate network, ensuring your followers and connections see more of your content with reduced clutter from other sources. However, to expand the reach of your posts beyond your immediate network, you need to ensure that you content provides valuable, original and relevant insights to your target audience.
In line with LinkedIn’s primary objectives - to foster knowledge-sharing and strengthen network ties- sharing your expert knowledge on the platform is now more important than ever. Your core focus should be on publishing content that resonates, engages and adds real value - the algorithm favours high-quality, relevant content that fosters genuine interactions.
Decoding the LinkedIn Algorithm
Initial Content Check: Beyond the Basics First off, LinkedIn scrutinises your post against its community standards and spam policies. Any content flouting these rules—think emoji-stuffed reaction polls or repetitive, irrelevant messaging—is promptly sidelined. This step ensures that only genuine, value-adding content gets through.
The Golden Hour: Your Content’s Make-or-Break Moment Once past the initial check, your content enters a critical phase known as the "golden hour." This is where the engagement it garners from your network plays a pivotal role. LinkedIn evaluates the value your post holds for both your immediate and extended network through their interactions. Substantial, thoughtful comments from relevant connections are golden and count as high-quality engagement, propelling your content towards wider visibility.
Navigating the Visibility Labyrinth: Understanding Ranking Signals Finally, LinkedIn’s algorithm rests on three pillars to determine content visibility:
Personal Connections: Your network holds the key. Content from those you frequently engage with enjoys priority. LinkedIn's latest tweaks ensure your first-degree connections see more of your posts. This could extend to your wider network, influenced by past interactions. Your profile including skills and location also factor in, reinforcing the platform's focus on fostering genuine relationships on the platform.
Interest Relevance: The algorithm customises content feeds to match user interests, informed by groups, hashtags, pages and people they follow. It also analyses their interests based on social actions like posts, comments or reactions they’ve had to other content. The more relevant your content, the better the chances of being seen. For instance, if your connections frequently engage with remote work content, centring your next post around this theme could increase its reach.
Engagement Probability: Content predicted to stimulate user engagement, based on historical activity, is given prominence. This principle reflects LinkedIn's dedication to keeping users engaged and interactive, emphasising the need for content that not only captures attention but also encourages participation.
How to Create Content that Engages
To succeed on LinkedIn in 2024, your strategy should hinge on authenticity and responsible automation. Here's how:
Prioritise Genuine Connections: Share content that encourages meaningful discussions with your target network, reflecting your insights, expert tips and experiences.
Balance Automation with Authenticity: Use automation tools wisely, ensuring they complement rather than replace genuine interactions.
Engage Actively and Personally: Respond to comments, participate in discussions, and engage with your network's content. A good rule of thumb is to respond to at least the first three comments on your posts, fostering a lively exchange of ideas. This not only amplifies engagement but also strengthens your relationships within the network.
Stay True to Your Voice: Authenticity resonates. Let your personality and unique experiences and insights shine through your content. If you’re using generative AI to assist, make sure to use a hybrid approach, add your own thoughts and ideas as context and review and edit AI-generated drafts to ensure it reflects you and your unique personality.
By embracing these strategies, you can be sure to align with LinkedIn's core values, ensuring your content not only reaches a wider audience but also fosters meaningful connections and conversations. It's about finding the right mix of technology and touch—leveraging automation smartly while keeping the human element front and centre.
29 Actionable Tips for Success
Harnessing LinkedIn's potential in 2024 requires a blend of knowledge sharing, strategic timing, and genuine engagement. Here’s how to fine-tune your approach for maximum impact:
Share Knowledge That Matters: Zero in on content that resonates with your audience's professional needs and interests. Share insights, tips, and trends that enrich their knowledge base—whether it’s crafting an outstanding CV, unveiling benefits that truly motivate employees, or spotlighting industry trends. Each piece of content should pass the litmus test of adding value, being original, and fitting the professional context of LinkedIn.
Optimise Your Posting Times: Timing is everything. Schedule and publish your posts when your audience is most likely to be active. While general guidelines suggest peak engagement times, the real magic happens when you tailor this to your specific audience. Experiment to discover these golden windows, but as a rule of thumb, the professional crowd tends to engage during typical work hours, from 9 to 5.
Cross-Promote: Promote posts both within LinkedIn and on other platforms such as emails, articles and website pages, to increase visibility and followers.
Avoid Outbound Links: LinkedIn has put measures in place to try and keep more members on the platform. As such, avoid including outbound links in your posts to increase visibility of your posts. As a tip, if you want to include links to outbound sources such as your website, include these in the comments section of your post rather than the actual caption.
Foster Meaningful Engagement: Transform passive scrolling into active conversation. Dedicate 5-10 minutes daily to engage with your network by interacting with their posts by commenting, reacting or even sharing their posts with your wider network. The more people you engage with, the more likely they are to see your posts while at the same time, strengthening your professional relationships.
Originality Wins: Create original content that offers unique perspectives or insights. If you’re using AI to help with content creation, make sure you adopt a hybrid approach. Add you own thoughts and expert advice as context and edit the first draft to ensure it reflects your own personality. If you simply rely on reposting other peoples content or news articles, ensure to include an original comment or caption highlighting why it’s of value to your audience. Remember - quality over quantity reigns supreme and your expertise is what brings your content up to the forefront.
Cultivate Strategic Connections: Build and maintain a strategic network of connections relevant to your field. Keep connecting and prioritise quality over quantity - the more you connect with your target audience - the better the visibility, engagement and quality of interaction.
Let Analytics Guide You: Utilise analytics to understand what content performs best and when, and use this performance feedback to refine your strategy, focusing on themes and types of content that consistently engage your audience, shaping your future content direction.
Mix It Up: Post a variety of content. Alternate between job postings, insightful articles, quick tips and engaging questions. Experiment with formats - images with text and videos often perform better. Variety helps to sustain and engage your audience.
Understanding how to make the most of LinkedIn's algorithm changes is about much more than just playing by the rules; it's about understanding the essence of what makes content impactful. By aligning your LinkedIn strategy with these principles, you can enhance your professional presence, build meaningful connections, and achieve your business objectives getting the edge over competition.
Understanding Performance Analytics
Unliked on other platform's, LinkedIn's status as a professional network and career site make performance analytics a little more complicated. For example, if you're not getting as many likes or comments as you might have hoped for a post, this does not necessarily mean that your content hasn't performed well. Many users, particularly when it comes to engaging with recruiters and sensitive industry topics, exercise caution in their public interactions on LinkedIn, fearing employer scrutiny or peer judgment. This discretion in engagement underscores the importance of recognising success and performance measures on LinkedIn through various lenses, acknowledging that impact extends beyond visible and immediate metrics.
Key Success Measures
Profile Views and Post Engagement: The journey starts with the basics. An increase in profile views and engagement (likes, shares, comments) signals a positive trajectory in visibility and interaction, indicating your content's resonance with the audience.
Who’s Viewing Your Profile?: LinkedIn’s analytics go deeper by revealing who’s viewing your profile. If these viewers align with your target demographic—industry peers, potential clients, or candidates—it signifies that your content and networking strategies are on the right track.
Increasing Followers and Connections: An uptick in followers and connections marks a quantifiable measure of success, indicating growing influence and professional recognition.
Content Performance: The performance metrics of individual posts provide insights into topics that captivate your audience. LinkedIn's detailed analytics on content reach and engagement guide you towards what ignites interest and what falls flat.
The Influence of Silent Observers
It's vital to recognise the significant segment of LinkedIn users who are often influenced by your content, but take more of a passive stance when it comes to engaging with your content publicly. These “lurkers" prefer to consume content silently but, they take note of who you are and keep you top of their minds when they’re ready to engage for a specific reason. Indicators could range from an increase in website traffic to receiving a direct message from a promising candidate ready to explore the market, an inbound call from a new client seeking assistance with their recruitment needs, a new referral getting in touch or even an invitation to participate at an industry event. These interactions, coupled with a growing familiarity within your network, pave the way for warm leads and more effective conversions.
In essence, measuring success on LinkedIn requires a holistic view of your digital presence, considering both visible and not so immediately obvious engagement metrics. By closely monitoring these indicators and continuously adjusting your strategy, you ensure that your LinkedIn efforts not only broaden your reach but also deepen your professional influence, fostering valuable connections, and unveiling new business opportunities.