Using the LinkedIn Algorithm to Your Advantage: A Guide to Maximizing Your Brand’s Exposure

By Jack Carignan

LinkedIn is one of many important tools in a social media marketing tool belt. But, when it comes to professional connections, fundraising efforts, career advice, and more, no other site does it better than LinkedIn. The web service offers many ways to connect you to colleagues and businesses with similar interests and helps you find the right accounts to further your own career. Professionals in every industry can deeply benefit from having an active LinkedIn presence, but figuring out how to advertise yourself correctly on the site can be tricky.

Whether it is for your personal or professional brand page, you can use certain universal tricks for your LinkedIn that garners consistent engagement and exposure from your target audiences. The algorithm for LinkedIn is pretty intuitive and straightforward, so once you get on a schedule and gain a basic understanding of how it works, you will immediately be far more competitive than most on the platform.

The LinkedIn exposure algorithm ranges from basic common sense practices to a much more advanced coding that places you in a very specific market, depending on your activity. To start off easy, let’s take a look at your posting schedule:

You Should Be Posting Anywhere From 3-20 Times Per Month- LinkedIn rewards members who are consistent on their platform. If you are actively contributing to the community with your own content, LinkedIn will recognize your effort and start promoting your page to a broader audience.

Posting too little will keep your page in the dark, and there will not be enough content for the site to take notice of, but if you start posting too much, LinkedIn may mark you as a spam account rather than an avid professional.

7:00 AM – 10:00 AM Are Prime Posting Times- The morning is exactly when LinkedIn wants you to post, so the day can get started with fresh content that they can start promoting throughout the day. So if you are managing a brand page, consider scheduling all of your original content for the mornings for maximized results.

Initial Reactions Are Vital For A Post- The first 30 minutes of a post usually shows you how successful your content will be. If you don’t have any likes, shares, or reactions an hour after your post, it has most likely lost its primetime in the algorithm. If five people have seen your post, and four of them interacted with it, that post will be far more likely to go viral than if ten people have seen your post, and only one person interacted.

Utilize At Least Five Hashtags or More Per Post- Hashtags are a fantastic way to connect to different audiences depending on your post. By specifying what content you are putting out there with a hashtag, the algorithm will place your post into the feed of people who have liked other posts with a similar hashtag. The more you use, the more likely you are to show up on other feeds.

Now that we have gotten through a bit of bit of the basics of the algorithm let’s dive a little deeper and talk about the LinkedIn SSI.

SSI stands for Social Selling Index. It is made up of four components: Professional Branding, Identifying Audiences, Engaging in LinkedIn Insights and suggested materials, and Gaining Connections by interacting with your network.

• Professional Branding refers to creating a fully developed brand page, filled with website links, ways to find out more, company mission/vision, job boards, DEI, etc. If you complete your profile to its full extent, and LinkedIn has no more suggestions for you to fill out, then you have successfully completed this category.

• Identifying Audiences is a broad form of utilizing LinkedIn tools to research and efficient marketing tactics. LinkedIn has a variety of advanced search tools and other capabilities that help you find the right connections and base audiences you may need, but they will take a look to see if you are actually utilizing them.
• Engaging in Insights refers to how you interact with the suggestions LinkedIn sends your way, and if you are interested in the feed it brings.
• Gaining Connections is simply about the interactions and literal connection base you have on your account. Separate from identifying audiences, gaining connections is about your colleagues and people you The more you personalize your page and post about and with people you like, the more you will get put on other people’s pages as well.You can click here to see updated SSI rankings within your industry and personal sphere.

  With this new knowledge of the SSI, I can share with you a few final insights on how to use the SSI with your page to get the results you want.

  Comments Show Up Twice As Much As Shares and Reactions- Encouraging your connections to tell their stories on your posts, give advice, thank mentors, share progress, and ask questions will boost your views significantly.

  PDFs and Data-Analysis Attachments Have A Large Preference- Images and videos no longer have different preferences for an algorithm boost. Still, PDF’s and data analysis attachments generally go far more viral in the algorithm. It may not be easy for a lot of casual content creators, but

  putting in the time and effort to make an infographic, or PDF with some kind of data for your audience may go a long way.

  Do Not Post Links To Sites Outside of LinkedIn– Although there will always be exceptions, and there are times where it is appropriate to direct people to your new website, a product release, or an important article, the algorithm does not appreciate when you direct its users off of LinkedIn.

  Keeping users on-site and recycling content within their feed is the main goal of LinkedIn, so keep that in mind if you are consistently directing people to different pages away from the site.

  Interact With Pages You Aspire To Be Like- Simply put, interact with as many pages in your target audience as you possibly can. Making sure to place yourself in the environment that you want to be in and make yourself well known in the community is a sure-fire way to gain exposure in front of the right audience.

  While the algorithm has dozens of small nuances and different keys to going viral in front of your desired audience, remember that quality and original content will always take you further than trying to cheat the system into a viral post. Making sure you or your organization’s page is transparent and open about the work you are doing will be rewarded by your audiences, and you can use the tools you just learned to bring that content to light in the business world.

  LinkedIn is one of the most powerful tools of the modern business world, and having some knowledge on how to gain more exposure on the site will give you or your company a competitive advantage that has endless upward potential.