If there’s one thing I wish for LinkedIn this year, it’s to move away from growth, feeds, and algorithm hacks. Instead, a focus on helpful features and content that represents what LinkedIn still is at its core: a business network. When a social network grows as fast as LinkedIn, it changes how content is created. It will be “more suitable for the masses” and diverse. Nothing wrong with that at first, but LinkedIn has a severe problem. This problem is homegrown and not an accidental development.
Too Much Focus On More And More Likes And LinkedIn Followers
Unfortunately, LinkedIn must make more mistakes here than we have seen on Facebook or Instagram. Content is not rewarded for its added value, message or valuable information. Everything is geared towards interactions and the associated statistics. You can, of course, do that, but there is a difference. LinkedIn is not Facebook, nor is it Instagram or TikTok. At least, that’s how I see it, and I’m sure many of you do too. Instead of preparing and optimizing content in such a way that it generates as many interactions as possible, the focus should be on the message of the posts, and that is precisely what I want for 2023.
Of course, content for optimizing LinkedIn posts has its place. Definitive. But LinkedIn is so much more than formats or post formatting. Primarily when this formatting only aims to generate more interactions while completely ignoring the content and usability of the feed. Sometimes my LinkedIn feed feels like the Reels tab on Instagram. Post after post, supposed hacks for formatting posts are published, which are supposed to bring more likes and reach as if by magic. That’s why I’m not on LinkedIn, meaning I use the platform less often. And honestly, if everyone builds their posts like this, not only do they all look the same but what makes LinkedIn so appealing is lost, namely the professional added value and the exchange.
Click And Engagement Baiting Was Still The Correct Targets
The goal of a LinkedIn post isn’t to ‘hack’ people to click and interact. You want to avoid that, and you should approach your content with the same motivation. You don’t see that as often with company posts as with private profiles. LinkedIn should also think about what the goal of its creator program is. Interchangeable creators like on Instagram shouldn’t and can’t be. Therefore, I am glad that many corporate influencers have yet to jump on the bandwagon and are concentrating on the message, the added value and helpful information for their followers in their content.
Engagement baiting is one of the scourges of social media. Meta knows that, and so does LinkedIn, in principle. But it is something else to convince your users of this. Or the proportion of users who create content of this type and are then rewarded for it by the algorithm. I’m interested in feed hacks and in interchangeable and irrelevant content that was annoying on Instagram years ago and has increased the nerve factor on LinkedIn by a factor of 100. I see many of these posts, even though I’m very consistent about hiding them. But I also see at least as many posts that get angry about such posts or make fun of them.
LinkedIn 2023 And The Danger Of The Banal
LinkedIn must avoid falling into the banality and interchangeability of other social networks. But LinkedIn is well on the way there. In the long term, this will hurt LinkedIn and the profiles that rely on such content. Yes, you may quickly get a lot of interactions and followers, but as the saying goes: class is not quantity. I’m already seeing LinkedIn accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers who won’t get 20 likes on their posts in a few years. But if you consistently rely on content with helpful information, you may not have 250,000 followers. Still, you will have a loyal community that follows you because they appreciate the content, and that is always more valuable than a following built up through hacks.
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