LinkedIn is a good place to have your content seen by the right people. But it’s important to have a clear understanding of how the LinkedIn algorithm works in order to maximize your exposure. Ultimately, the algorithm determines what content is prioritized in your LinkedIn feed, as well as the reach of your content in the feed of others.

LinkedIn measures several factors to forecast how relevant your content is to your target market and then rank it appropriately. Your post is then pushed to a small group of your audience and waits to measure engagement. Depending on the results of this first test, the algorithm decides whether to push it to more people and continue testing or simply pull it off the feed.

How To Get The Algorithm To Work For Your Business

There are two key areas you need to look at when it comes to the LinkedIn, let’s examine these in detail below:

• Your Social Selling Index (SSI)
• Implementing a 4-step daily prospecting action plan

Social Selling Index (SSI)

The LinkedIn social selling index (SSI) is a score that analyzes how well you are using your profile for social selling. It’s measured according to four pillars of selling and is based on a scale of 0 to 100. The maximum score for each pillar is 25. The better your SSI score, the more LinkedIn will show your profile, posts, videos, and articles to people.

These Are The Four Pillars That Make Up The Score:

1. Create A Professional Brand

Under this pillar, LinkedIn looks at key elements such as whether you have a professional-looking profile picture and a well-designed banner telling prospects why they should connect with you. Sharing high-value, meaningful posts and articles is also an indication of how professional your brand is and is a good way to increase your score.

2. Find The Right People

Grow your connections and build meaningful relationships by reaching out to 2nd-degree connections, sharing well-written long-form posts that provide value, and generating endorsements. Remember, prospects are more likely to engage with strong, professional brands. Also, be sure to focus on the people that have a proven interest in what you’re offering.

3. Track And Engage With Your Insights 

There are several aspects to this score, but it’s all about discovering and sharing valuable information to begin or maintain a relationship. Regular and relevant posting and the amount of engagement you get regarding the number of likes, shares, and comments on your posts all play a part here.

4. Build Strong Relationships 

This pillar looks at how effectively you are expanding your network to reach not only direct potential clients but also those who may introduce you to potential prospects. If you can prove yourself to be a well-informed professional by providing valuable content and interacting with your network, your SSI score will increase steadily.

Industry SSI Rank And Network SSI Rank

In addition to these four pillars that measure your current SSI score, there is also an industry SSI rank and network SSI rank. The industry rank indicates how you’re doing compared to everyone else in the industry. The goal is to be in the top 1%. The network rank indicates how you’re doing compared to all of your connections. The goal is also to be in the top 1%.

4-Step Daily Prospecting Action Plan

Now that you know more about how the LinkedIn algorithm works and which stats are measured, it’s time to implement an action plan. The goal is to build a relationship with your prospects, stay at the top of their minds, and provide them with valuable information, tips, tools, and techniques.

1. Connect: Aim to invite around 150 highly targeted prospects each day to connect with you on LinkedIn – this should only take you about 15 minutes. Remember to individualize your invite message. The person receiving the connection request should feel like you’re only speaking to them.
2. Thanks for connecting: When people accept your invitation to connect, you want to send them a short thank you message, along with a link to a free guide that will be of value to them. The aim here is to make yourself known and start a dialogue.
3. Endorse new connections: A few days after you connect with a new prospect, endorse them for one or two skills. It’s an easy and effective way to make a small gesture and show recognition. It’s also a great way to get on someone’s radar. After endorsing them, you can continue the relationship by sending another message letting them know you’ve endorsed them and with a link to another free guide.
4. Notifications: Believe it or not, birthday messages and work anniversary acknowledgements are excellent ways to build relationships. Take a little time each day to go through your notifications and send messages to people who have had a birthday, started a new job, or had a work anniversary. You can even include a free gift/guide in your message. Reaching out to connections means that there is a chance that they will respond, and you can start a conversation from there.

Conclusion

Ultimately, it’s all about connecting, building strong relationships, and sharing content that is of value to your audience. By implementing the 4-step plan we’ve discussed above and focusing on improving your SSI score, you’re on the right track to cracking the LinkedIn code and making the algorithm work for you.

Are you working on figuring out what social media channels will work for your business? Check out this recent article about how to How to beat to Instagram algorithm. Let me know if you need help with your digital strategy, and I will be happy to help.