LinkedIn is Changing Its Algorithm



Axios announced earlier today that LinkedIn would announce algorithm changes to favor conversations in its Feed that cater to professional interests, as opposed to elevating viral content.

Senior Director of Product Management at LinkedIn, Pete Davies, later confirmed what Axios reported. He posted an article on the LinkedIn Newsroom titled “What’s in your LinkedIn Feed: People You Know, Talking About Things You Care About”. In the article, he discusses how LinkedIn thinks about conversations and ranking, and best practices for seeing your own posts be successful and appear in others’ feeds.

To summarize, your LinkedIn feed is made up of the conversations happening across your professional communities: among connections; in the groups you’ve joined; and the people, pages, and hashtags that you follow. To decide what goes at the top, we look at who’s talking (People You Know) and what they’re talking about (Things You Care About).

Here is a brief summary of some changes:

LinkedIn will look at who you interacted with directly (in your feed through comments and reactions). This helps them figure out who you have something in common with. LinkedIn will also consider who you’ve told them you work with. These factors, and some others, will determine what you see in your Feed.

LinkedIn considers the quality of conversations. “As a rule of thumb, the better conversations are authentic and have constructive back and forth.”

LinkedIn invests a lot in understanding what you are interested in and matching that to what the posts are about. You can signal what you are interested in by joining groups, following hashtags, people, and pages. Along with posts from your connections, you will see those posts in your feed.

You can find more details about this in the LinkedIn article, as well as advice about “Tips and Best Practices”. Overall, it sounds like LinkedIn is nudging things towards more authenticity and away from viral, clickbait, junk. I think the changes LinkedIn is making are a great idea.