LinkedIn Trust Score: Why My Reach Plummeted and How I Plan to Fix It

Discover why LinkedIn reach drops and my 30-day plan to improve my own trust score

Ever wondered why your LinkedIn posts barely get seen? I just found out it might be your trust score—and mine is in trouble.

Looks like my "trust score" on LinkedIn might be abysmal.

Didn't know LI has a trust score? Me, neither. But it turns out that I've been breaking a bunch a rules, so despite the fact that I have:

➡️ An 80%+ connection acceptance rate
➡️ More than half of which start conversations in my DMs
➡️ An account that's nearly 14 years old
➡️ High engagements in the comments of others' posts
➡️ Always responded quickly to comments on my posts
➡️ Lots of good conversations in the DMs
➡️ A paid LI account

What's happening with my LinkedIn reach
My reach has plummeted. Where I used to get minimum mid-4-digit impressions, often 5, I am now lucky to break 1500. Or even 1000.

So my question is this: Is it ONLY the algo?

Challenged by one creator's claim that posting daily for 30 days will prove his claim that the algorithm isn't to blame, I spent time this weekend continuing down the rabbit hole of figuring out how to fix my reach here on LinkedIn. Ever since June, my reach has been really, really low. And that IS b/c of the algo.

However, the other problem is that it looks like my trust score has taken a hit (probably exacerbated with the updates).

Possible rules I've broken
Here are the rules I sometimes break:

Too many hashtags (cap at 3-5, I usually do about 5)
Tagging companies if they aren't likely to comment (for example, LinkedIn)
Use external links in the body of my post
Share external links in the first comment (need to wait 10-15 min before sharing them there)
Stick to one form of content (usually text, rarely carousels, never video; it's best to have a mix)
Post titillating (even if relevant) headlines (like when I posted "Female founders are pretty enough to f*ck and too pretty to fund," which got taken down and likely hit my trust score pretty hard)
Swear in the first 100 characters of a post (yes, even "f*ck" counts)
Post more than once a day

Next Steps: My 30-Day Experiment
Are these rules stupid? Maybe. Do they all make sense? No. But I'm going to play the game for the next 30 days to see if they really work and actually make sense.

In a couple days, I'll post my plans and the rules I'm engaging to see if I can substantially improve my reach here on LinkedIn. And then I'll give you updates.

One thing I'm NOT doing? Changing my gender to "male" in the demographics of my profile (which I've asked LI several times to not track). At least not yet.

I’ll be sharing updates on my trust score journey over the next few weeks. Follow my blog here, my personal LinkedIn page, or the Love Your LinkedIn Profile company page on LinkedIn to see what works—and what doesn’t—for cracking the algorithm

Categories: : Algorithm, Content & Engagement, LinkedIn Strategy, Personal Brand Strategy