Cracking the LinkedIn Algorithm: Hype, Broetry, and Egolympics!

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Intro

“My clients get leads from 7, 8, and 9-figure companies...

No cold emails
No cold calling
No cold ANYTHING”

…see more”

“I wasted over $50,000 on content, so you don’t have to.

Here’s everything I learned:

…see more”

I grew my LinkedIn followers by 52.2% in 30 days.

Here are 9 lessons I learned:

…see more”

Do you see a pattern?

Welcome to the perplexing world of LinkedIn, where career changes are milestone’d, acquaintanceships are forged, and algorithms rule supreme.

Where being a “thought leader” means thinking just the same as everyone else but wording it more eloquently and creating a personal brand means signing a deal with Satan.

It’s a place where a simple “Congratulations!” can make you feel like a Nobel laureate, and a virtual thumbs-up can give you the validation that you otherwise don’t receive in real life.

You’ll find a beautiful selection of broetry here, where corporate buzzwords frolic in toxic positive meadows and humble brags perform pirouettes on the dance floor of professional excellence. In fact, you can smell the stench of it all as soon as the home page hits your screen.

Did I mention the hustlers and freelancers who harmonize with their posts reaching a fever pitch and hitting crescendo to sell their wares, like in a busy shopping street in Guangzhou, China?

Brace up, because we’re about to plunge headfirst into the world of alter-egos and buzz, where content is hacked, copied, pasted, and sprinkled with digital fairy dust in the interest of pursuing that elusive LinkedIn algorithmic affection.

First, a bit of a recap for context.

LinkedIn is technically one of the oldest sites around, even more so than Facebook, having started in 2003.

It experienced massive growth in its user base for over a decade and established a dominant market position before being acquired by Microsoft for a staggering 26 billion dollars in 2016.

By this time, they had undergone a change in CEO, redesigned their site multiple times, and acquired other companies to integrate the services into LinkedIn. Under Microsoft’s supervision and administration, the corporation has seen even more growth and revenues than ever before, reaching around 930 million users today.

The Rise of the Algorithm!

This brings us to the beginning of the toxic algorithmic content push that LinkedIn has been doubling down on for the past few years, especially with its “Creator’s Program.” The doubling down of LinkedIn on the content and data game that it knows can be utilized to drive FOMO and content wannabes to flock around the site.

For all means and ends, LinkedIn has become an industrial factory of corporate toxicity wrapped up in a wise thought leader persona, puffing on cigars, and expelling BS fart fumes that newbies kissing their asses love to sniff and cheer.

Okay, maybe not that black and white. Let's break down how LinkedIn chugs along now.

Side A

On one side, there is the digital resume/portfolio aspect. This is how you and I show off our professional sides and aim to network. It’s a place where you go to maybe find your next job.

And this side inherently meddles with the corporate way of life. Basically, corporate culture is the least honest and unnatural way to engage with others and showcase oneself. Because LinkedIn is like work; it’s bad.

At work, you have to be both pleasant and empathetic while merely being there to collect your paycheck, all while maintaining a thin veneer of professionalism despite the amount of corporate BS you have to deal with (you can’t tell your manager their idea sucks even when it does). You put on an act for your colleagues and seniors, complete paperwork, and compose pointless emails.

On LinkedIn, this entails a great deal of ass-kissing in the form of wishes and comments, virtue signalling and/or exaggerating one’s accomplishments and, most importantly, those of one’s employer while putting on a facade, maintaining a “professional” demeanor, et al.

This highly toxic environment is extended virtually throughout LinkedIn. The worst part is that individuals become so accustomed to the game that they lose their social skills and embrace the mask as their new identity.

Side B

Now the other side of it is more of a social network. A social network that thrives on user content that amplifies the platform's reach and internet presence. LinkedIn has fine-tuned this so much that there is a complete lack of negative feedback.

Beyond the fact that everyone and their uncle is a self-described thought leader, CEO, serial entrepreneur, 10x certified coach, etc., it’s the sheer amount of banal content being presented as disruptive and revelatory that kills me.

Oh, and don't forget the humblebrag — when you post that you’re so “humbled and honoured” to win an award that no one’s heard of, you’re hardly being humble. It’s also likely that, if you have to say that the award is prestigious, it isn’t.

You can’t dislike a post (I think they even removed the ‘thinking’ reaction because people were using it as a dislike button), and most people won’t comment negatively because it’s not anonymous and they’re afraid of looking bad on a professional network.

The result is a network of toxic positivity.

Even if a cringe-worthy, narcissistic post is hated by 9 out of 10 people, every tenth person might like it, leading the author to believe they have created a Nobel prize-worthy post.

The LinkedIn algorithm is the source of this evil. And the LinkedIn content game is a mystical art of sorts.

Celebrating wins or highlighting engaging content is one thing. But what about when the CEO of a certain company lays off people and posts a selfie on LinkedIn of him allegedly crying due to the action he had to take?

The algorithm went into a frenzy and it fed more of the same across the LinkedIn multiverse.

The post, at the time this article was researched, had 59K reactions, 10K+ comments and 1K+ reposts!

I mean, one could say LinkedIn is where good content commits suicide. Corporate and societal expectations force even the uninterested to be part of this charade, making it almost an antisocial network.

Nobody reallyyyyy wants to be there and if you are there you have to post some stuff that you reallyyyyy don't want to post in the first place. And to top it all off, there are those few people who post stuff that wipes LinkedIn’s royal derriere and gets massive engagement through what seemingly looks like pure black magic!

Of course, this isn’t a blanket statement. I know creators who provide actionable and value-added content that helps people learn and upskill. Truth be told, building a personal brand on LinkedIn does reap the benefits of enhanced lead generation and building topical authority.

Heck, I still use LinkedIn more than Instagram or TikTok, despite all of my sarcasm and jabs. And no, I can’t claim to be being my authentic self when traversing the hallowed halls of LinkedIn.

The truth is that authenticity doesn’t matter in the face of being able to write the specific type of “Hook, line and Sinker” content that the algorithm is horny for. The ones that accede to its lustful hunger and feed it become the top voices, thought leaders and influencers of Hunger Games Island.

The recent revelation of the algorithm favouring images over text content broke Pandora’s box. The ever-so-dumb content mystics, who didn’t care two flying hoots about the veracity of the image accompanying the post, started posting their selfies.

Tadaa…

Selfie posts are on the rise with no care in the world of being married to a completely unrelated post, pretty much like arranged marriages in India.

Narcissism much?

Is this what LinkedIn is doomed to become?

Possibly. Very probably.

Microsoft does have the money and resources to overhaul this toxic dystopia of a network and lead the change in the flawed job search system, hiring practices, and networking that the world so sorely requires.

I mean, how could they not see what LinkedIn has become? If you think they care, the odds are stacked against you since they don't. Businesses aren’t in the business of care; they are in the business of ‘money’.’

Clearly, the current state of affairs isn’t affecting their bottom line or else there would have been spring-cleaning sprints to overhaul this mess.

However, amidst the devil and the deep sea of algorithi-mified content and chanting hypemen, there lies a tiny sliver of hope. Despite its present state, LinkedIn is still a powerful tool for professional networking and career advancement. Other social media giants have been toppled over by upcoming young Turks every other decade, yet LinkedIn still stands tall.

The answer — Users.

Should Microsoft decide to turn ‘face’ (WWE reference), it could use its army of sentinels to declutter and make the platform reborn as a more cohesive and powerful networking giant, especially given the lack of competitors. The users can spark this charge by collectively demanding transparency, authenticity, and meaningful engagement.

It is wishful thinking, yes.

But still, it’s hope against hope.

To not lose sight of the human element that underpins our professional and personal interactions.

To help genuine connections flourish and for professionalism to be a given, not an act.

To be the bastion against unemployment, workplace issues, and other corporate evils.

To make LinkedIn into something that transcends from being just another content-churning, algorithm-appeasing, attention-grabbing platform into something that truly brings the workers of the world together.