LinkedIn Engagement & Marketing Spend Boom

As with most social channels, COVID 19 has been kind to LinkedIn.

While it took an initial revenue hit this time last year, it has since recovered well, and usage has surged amongst locked down white-collar workers. 

Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, earnings call February 2021

“We once again saw record levels of engagement across the platform, as LinkedIn’s nearly 740 million members use the network to connect, learn, and find new opportunities. Sessions increased by 30%. Conversations were up 48%

LinkedIn’s advertising business had a record quarter, accounting for more than a third of LinkedIn’s total revenue. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions was up over 50%, as advertisers increasingly turn to the platform as the trusted way to reach professionals ready to do business.”

Although, sadly, as user growth and engagement escalates, problems scale correspondingly.

Thankfully, LinkedIn is now doing more to reduce spam in feeds, weed out nuisance posters and deliver more of what you want while allowing you to banish more of what you don’t want.

Liz Li, Director of Product, LinkedIn

“We’re giving you the control to decide who can comment on your post. You can now decide if you only want to hear from your connections, or if you want to hear from the broader community on LinkedIn.”

New LinkedIn Posting & Feed Options

As per above, LinkedIn now enables users to restrict better who can see and comment on their posts, so you’ll be able to communicate with a trusted circle of connections or a targetted community on LinkedIn – if you want to.

LinkedIn further announced that you’ll also be able to turn off replies to your post, although that option will probably only be used for statements. LinkedIn is still a social media after all, and removing the chance to reply isn’t very social.

These settings can be tweaked per post, and LinkedIn has given users a lot more control. For one, you might want the entire LinkedIn universe to be able to view, like, comment and share your post. For another, you may want a select few to be able to able to share their 10c worth with you.

LinkedIn is also adding a ‘mute’ option, which will allow you to remove people or brands from your feed entirely.

These options are designed to clear out nuisance on posts. Giving users the power to decide who can comment will increase constructive debate and ensure conversations remain civil.

Post Reach & Engagement Impact

Posting with lots of restrictions could damage organic engagement, though.

The LinkedIn algorithm is a curious beast, and often posts turn up in the news feed months after they were posted. Limiting replies might have the unwanted negative impact of shutting off healthy debate and restricting reach.

On the flip side, it could be useful to narrow down your focus to a particular audience who are likely to be more engaged with your post than the broader community.

Liz Li, Director of Product, LinkedIn

“For example, you might want to ask your connections, who you know and trust, for a particular piece of advice. Or you may want to ask an industry question just to a specific group you are a member of. You can quickly indicate the audience you want to reach while creating your post.”

LinkedIn’s latest update will create a spam bonfire. Any post, person or brand who is clogging up your feed with irrelevant industry chatter can be thrown on that pyre – leaving you with more of the content you want to see.

Cutting down the chaff is easy:

1. Click on the three dots (…) on the post.
2. Hide the post by clicking ‘I don’t want to see this’
3. Mute an individual or a Page
4. Or you can unfollow

You can also curate your feed, which will give you more of the content you enjoy.

Liz Li, Director of Product, LinkedIn

“Make sure you follow people you want to hear from and engage with their content when you see it. You can also subscribe to Newsletters and follow hashtags and influencers to ensure you’re seeing content relevant to your career and industry.”

Understanding The LinkedIn Algorithm

Within LinkedIn, each post of yours can be seen by your connections and the people that follow you in their feed unless you’ve changed the post’s visibility setting.

However, LinkedIn will also make your post visible to others on the platform beyond your connections and followers if they believe it’s relevant or sparks useful debate.

LinkedIn says that examples of relevant conversations include posts that ‘are timely, authentic and reflect real-life conversations in the workplace’. Some of the most popular content, LinkedIn continued, centred around subjects like working from home, how to build diverse teams and tips for the unemployed.

With this in mind, users may not want to limit who can comment or see their posts too much.

It’s clear that LinkedIn can organically improve reach, and as a consequence, engagement, for content that is relevant and reflects real-life conversations.

*LinkedIn image via inlytics | LinkedIn Analytics Tool.