LinkedIn’s algorithm has changed. What you need to know.

As an executive coach, it’s likely you use LinkedIn as a primary means of sharing about what you do, the people you help, examples of past work and thought leadership items such as articles, infographics, longer posts with actionable ideas and processes and the like.

Since LinkedIn now has roughly 1.3 billion users and counting, it’s the world’s largest B2B social platform by far. If you want to be known and thought of, then you pretty much need to have a regular presence on LinkedIn.

But things have changed lately on LinkedIn. You may be finding that posts that worked for you in the past are not working as well. You may have had some posts that you thought would rock not achieve much. You may even have tried native video posting with the understanding that LinkedIn wants this type of content only to see it underperform.

I’ve been there with you. I’ve been posting on the platform for years and have done a lot of reading about LinkedIn lately. I want to share what I’ve learned from those who spend tons of time on the platform and help others be more successful.

A major update to LinkedIn’s algorithm was rolled out late last year. It uses AI much more than before to determine what to reward with greater visibility and what to punish with less.

In a nutshell, it’s all about congruence. Does your profile, posts and comments all align around who you say you are? For example, if my profile says I’m a cybersecurity expert and most of my posts are about saving the environment, they’re not aligned and the new algorithm is going to reduce the visibility of my posts.

This probably isn’t too much of a surprise that you may be rewarded for congruency, but what is new is the thought that LinkedIn is taking it so seriously. I’ve always held the view that we are complex beings with lots of interests and we share what’s on our mind, what we think will be interesting to our connections, and what has captured our attention. This type of random posting that might approximate the breadth of real world conversations we’d have in a given week could absolutely kill our reach on LinkedIn.

Now it might be fine for us to post this way on social networks like Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok and the like. After all, we’re whole people on those platforms engaging with friends and acquaintances who are also whole people.

On LinkedIn we need to operate more narrowly as a focused professional. This is a deliberate approach to work with the algorithm and increase visibility. It feels mechanistic to approach LinkedIn this way, but if we want to be seen, understood and remembered on the platform, then we should probably go with the new flow.

What’s tricky for me is choosing the lane to swim in. I offer a variety of services to other businesses. How can I choose one to focus on for LinkedIn? I’ve been turning this over in my mind for months now. What I’m thinking about is employee engagement with an understanding and application of emotional intelligence. I care deeply about both topics and believe they’re not foreign to each other.

I’ve yet to overhaul my profile to be congruent with this lane but am thinking deeply about the approach and will likely act on it soon.

A few more things to keep in mind about how LinkedIn is operating today.

1. You don’t need to add a string of hashtags to your posts anymore. The new algorithm isn’t going to be taking prompts from your hashtags to decide what to make of your content. It’s way smarter than that. So, the days of stuffing the end of your post with a list of hashtags are over. Instead, if it makes sense, add 1 – 3 hashtags. Consider doing what you might do in a search-optimized blog post and appropriately blend in keywords such as executive coaching, leadership development, and team coaching.

2. Don’t rely on AI to write your posts in full. Sure, you can use AI for ideas and angles, but don’t just paste in what it writes for you. Add some human touch that distinguishes your writing style from that of others. And mix up your post types. If you just shamelessly repeat a text format style that does seem to work (see below) the positive effects will wear off.

a. Hook – I always thought executive coaching made a difference,

b. Revelation – After reading the research findings from an analysis of 5,500 executive coaching engagements, I realized that true transformation only happened in 33% of them,

c. Takeaway – I now have rolled out a new coaching method that ensures transformation happens

AI certainly knows the formulas and can guide you to create the post types that seem to resonate in the feed. Just bring more creativity to bear that makes people feel like you’re just a little different.

One post type I’m seeing so much lately is the upgraded infographic that has a boxy look following a step-by-step path with bright colors and bold fonts. Here’s an example.

The posts showing up in my feed are getting tons of interaction. So, naturally you may want to create posts like that to get on the bandwagon. And that’s probably a good idea if it’s created in alignment with your expertise. Just do it before every post looks that way. And be sure not to make every one of your posts look that way. You might do a text post, an infographic type post, a carousel post, a video post and so on.

3. Speaking of video, don’t give up on it. Ironically, LinkedIn says they really want people to upload native videos to the platform. To make your videos better, open with a hook in text on the screen like, “I bet my day starts differently than yours.”, then pull them into a 1 – 2-minute video that has alternating screen angles, b-roll if possible, on-screen subtitles and good sound in a vertical format. The weird news is that many people who have posted videos trying to do what LinkedIn said they wanted are not seeing great reach on the posts. LinkedIn is asking us not to give up. You might do better if your video is aligned with some trending news of the day. LinkedIn is actively looking for content like that. Here’s an example of a guy who’s killing it on LinkedIn with humorous videos.

4. Quality over quantity. You don’t need to post every day to win. In fact, you’ll probably hurt yourself doing that because it’s pretty hard to be valuable and congruent posting that often. Instead, 2 – 3 quality posts each week should suffice.

5. Teach. If you’re posting something that teaches people how to do something, then your post is likely to do better. This is the type of post I like to share. Here’s a recent example of such a post.

6. Use question phrases and your posts might be indexed by AI. People are asking AI questions like “How do I raise employee engagement?” My posts with that question embedded may be indexed because they are phrased appropriately.

7. Comment smartly. Comments are being read by the new algorithm as part of determining who you are and what you stand for. So, be careful with your comments and seek to align them with what your profile says about you. It’s possible for comments to get seen by hundreds of people so don’t discount their importance in your overall plan. Here’s a post that helps you go deeper on a content strategy.

8. Selfie posts do well. People like seeing you. Now, this is LinkedIn so don’t just put up the selfie but include some teaching in there too. If it aligns with your photo, great. If not, that doesn’t seem to matter too much. Here’s an example of a selfie post from someone who says they are generally her best performing posts and she knows LinkedIn!

Winning on LinkedIn is a challenge to be sure. If you’ve read this far, I hope this information helps you to think about how you can improve your visibility on the platform. LinkedIn is playing a long game. It’s rare for a coach to post once and get clients though gold has been struck a few times, I’m sure. What I will say is that if you post consistently and in alignment with the new algorithm, you’re going to dramatically up your chances of being seen, understood and connected with.

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