If you’re looking to maximize your LinkedIn marketing efforts, this is worth noting – the platform recently updated its algorithm in response to user feedback that too much irrelevant, non-professional content that was flooding their feeds.

This comes via Jason Feifer of Entrepreneur, who recently spoke with LinkedIn team about their updates. You can read Feifer’s full overview here, but the key elements you need to understand are:

• Non-professional content, especially posts designed to game the system, will no longer be rewarded in the same way. The reasoning behind this is that LinkedIn saw an influx of Facebook-style content during the pandemic, when most of us saw our work and personal lives merge together for a period. And because LinkedIn’s algorithm looked to amplify the most engaging posts, re-posts of viral content from other platforms also started to seep in, which it’s now looking to correct.
• LinkedIn is prioritizing content from first-degree connections. LinkedIn says that users regularly tell them that the most valuable content comes from people they know, so users are now seeing more updates from direct connections and users that they follow in their feeds.
• LinkedIn is also looking to highlight expert knowledge and advice. So how does LinkedIn know what constitutes expert insight? The system is now looking to identify each users’ interests, based on their profile info and activity, and if other members within your niche are engaging with your posts, that’s a strong signal that you’re sharing material of relevance and value. Along this line, comments are also important, but not generic, one word comments, which some have also used to game the system. More in-depth replies and conversation will also help to improve your post reach (pro-tip: respond to comments on your updates)
• LinkedIn’s system is also trying to identify opinion and advice, which feeds into the previous element. There’s not a lot of detail in how LinkedIn is categorizing this, but you should be looking to share insight, rather than just re-posting.

Overall, LinkedIn’s trying to get better at categorizing content into relevant topics, in order to then show it to more interested users. As such, generic observations and notes will likely be less amplified than sharing your expert opinion – and the more you share, the better LinkedIn will theoretically be able to understand who you are, what you do, and who wants to see your posts.

It’s a logical, and potentially beneficial update, though how good LinkedIn’s system is at penalizing engagement bait, and amplifying more relevant content, remains to be seen. Because of course LinkedIn is going to say it wants less junk and spam, but countering such, on a technical level, isn’t easy.

Filtering members into topical buckets could be one way to filter this, and if LinkedIn’s system can get it right, that could improve relevant connections and exposure, even if you actually see less reach as a result.

And it seems to be doing something right. LinkedIn also says that it saw a 42% increase in content shared between 2021 to 2023, and a 27% increase in overall content viewed.

That said, LinkedIn’s been trying to incorporate more topical filtering for the last few years, and clearly, that’s still a work in progress.

Either way, this is what LinkedIn’s aiming to achieve, which could help to guide your approach.