LinkedIn is basically Instagram now. With more words.
A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with the tenacious Beth Massa, who, like many of us, was wondering why her LinkedIn posts had stopped getting the impressions she’d come to expect.
It’s a common frustration among people who post on LinkedIn. Especially women.
I told her what I’d already noticed and written about previously: LinkedIn now prioritizes posts based on first-hour engagement, much like Instagram. It also prioritizes what it considers “relevant” over what’s recent.
The day after I posted, Beth wrote a very sarcastic response of her own: a post about how she was going to shave her legs, since LinkedIn is basically Instagram now.
The numbers:
| Beth’s post | My post | |
|---|---|---|
| Likes | 47 | 55 |
| Comments | 9 | 65 |
| Impressions | 4,000+ | 1,500 |
In both cases we’d normally see a lot more traffic. Especially me, since there were sixty-five conversations happening in the comments.
And since someone will want to know: Beth has 10,500 followers. I have 8,000. We both pay for Premium.
The difference? Hers was a “human interest” story, and the algorithm decided that made it more relevant. Including to the men who responded. Or maybe it decided her post produced more “meaningful” engagement.
Neither of which, it should be obvious by now, was actually true.
So is the algorithm biased? Absolutely.
Then what’s the solution? More women need to post. A LOT more. And a lot more often. And I don’t mean the “hey look what I did, here’s an event where I spoke” kind of post. I mean stuff that fires you up and makes you mad enough to vent or scream or be truly delighted.
Anyway, I made a couple of new logos for LinkedIn while I was at it. Hope they like one. (Gemini did a fine job. The LI logo in IG colors is my favorite. Subtle but effective, IMO.)
(h/t to Joshua David Mardice for posting his story and asking the questions that triggered the comparison in this post. Because clearly LinkedIn isn’t listening to women.)