Episode 18: LinkedIn's Algorithm for 2023

Jack Hubbard  00:01

I've had the privilege of being in and around banking for more than 50 years. Lots of changes during that time. We've gone from Ledger's to laptops, typewriters to technology. One thing, however, remains the same. Banking is a people business. And I'll be talking with those people that make banking great here on Jack Rants With Modern Bankers. 

Thursday, noon Eastern time, 11 o'clock central time. Hi, Brynne!

Brynne Tillman  00:34

Hi, Jack, how are you?

Jack Hubbard  00:37

You know what, really good and people wonder about the hats. You know, I had a couple of questions last week, you always wear a hat. So I'm the hat man. And I do have a couple of 100 hats. And this one is very special because next week, in the next couple of weeks, I'm up at Madison, Wisconsin for the graduate school of banking. I'm very excited. It's my 12th year up there and I have a lot of friends and get to see a lot of bankers and I call them kids because they're so, so young but if anybody has a hat they want me to wear on the show. Just send it to me and I'll wear that university, your bank, your company, whatever you want to do. I'm happy to do, and I wear them on the golf course too. It's kind of fun. 

Brynne Tillman  01:18

Before you jump, I have a very special connection to Wisconsin too actually, my son in law went to Wisconsin, and I am very, very proud. And his entire man cave is Wisconsin and the Phillies. And my best friend's daughter, one of my best friend's daughter is there now. So we're big, big fans.

Jack Hubbard  01:39

We’ll you know it's a great campus, it's really safe. The town is so amazing. And it's wonderful. So I'm looking forward to being up there again. Well, we have a big show today, as Ed Sullivan used to say, on Sunday nights on CBS. People want to know about the algorithm. And we're going to talk about that. And thanks to our friend Richard van der Blom, who does these amazing research studies on the algorithm. And thanks to our friend, BrynneTillman, who takes a look at the research and then makes it practical. And that's what we're going to talk about today. I want to start with this Brynne, a lot of people say, okay, the algorithm, this is some unthinking unfeeling behind the curtain, whereas as kind of person, it's not a person. But talk about the algorithm and why that's so important on LinkedIn.

Brynne Tillman  02:34

So I love this question. And the algorithm, if you are putting out content, there's two ways to get people to see it. One is organically through the algorithm, the way LinkedIn presents it, and who presents to and the other other people that you actually send it to, right. And so you can control part two, there actually is a 1.5, which is if you understand the algorithm, you can do some proactive things to to take advantage of the organic algorithm. So that's a lot of what we're going to talk about today. The algorithm actually, to answer your question really is LinkedIn’s formula to how and who your content is showing up in front of and it changes all the time but again, thanks to Richard, we have some of the inside scoop of what it's looking like today.

Jack Hubbard  03:39

So let's start there. Your content can be many posts, based actually your comments can be many posts and that can be on your own content, and others. What does that mean?

Brynne Tillman  03:57

Yeah, so when we engage, it's not just commenting on someone else's thought leadership. It's actually creating your thought leadership inspired by someone else's post. So this is an opportunity to go beyond thanks for sharing, great post. You know, this is really I read your post or I consumed the content and upon reflection, here are my thoughts. This is my perspective. LinkedIn recognizes a great post. A two word comment versus a thoughtful response and that helps the algorithm but it also helps you to create content. 

I cannot even tell you how many times I make a comment and we've talked about collaborative articles before or I respond by perspective to an article and that becomes an entire idea for another post but every time you comment, this is an opportunity for you to get your subject matter expert or thought leadership out. And it helps your future content get seen better, more often.

Jack Hubbard  05:24

Here's one thing you also taught me on this, when you come in, commenting many times with a question, will beg more answers. I like that you taught me and I'd love you to comment on this. And also, when you comment on posts, mentioning them or tagging them, I would guess it would have some additional impact. I wonder if you can talk about those two things?

Brynne Tillman  05:52

Yeah. So the additional impact, so I'm looking at the stream…

Jack Hubbard  06:01

So responding with a question.

Brynne Tillman  06:06

So there's two sides, right? So you don't want to just respond with a question you want to respond with a thought and then an additional question like, What's your perspective on my thought? Or, you know, which one is more of a priority for you, based on my thoughts? So just asking a question, LinkedIn will identify that you haven't really added anything to the conversation. So if you add, right, Jack, I really loved that post that you put out the other day on collaborative articles. I learned so much from you know, your video, or whatever that is. I'm curious, how do you decide what topics to write on? 

So what happens now is you are creating a stream of comments below your comment. And each one of those gives you more algorithm juice or points or whatever you want to call that, right? So when you ask that question, the other thing that you can do in every, every time you comment, at the top right of your comment, there are three little dots. If you copy, if you click on that, and copy the link to your comment, you can actually send it in a message or an email or text to someone and say, Hey, I just put this comment out on an amazing article that Jack Hubbard posts. I'm curious, what's your perspective? If you could add to it, it would be great. 

And so Jack is getting the algorithm juice because he put this out and all these people are commenting but now people are commenting on my comment. And I'm getting the benefit of that as well. Does that answer the question you asked?

Jack Hubbard  08:10

Yes. It's a win-win, certainly for everybody. And it's just another thing. This is where smarketing people do a great job. The salespeople that have a marketing mindset, because you got to look at the bigger picture. That whole idea around copying and messaging is absolutely so powerful. Well, let's move on to the next one. I was told there'd be no math, but that's okay. I'll try to work through this. Five plus responses equals 50% more reach. Talk about that.

Brynne Tillman  08:48

Yeah, so I this is so interesting to me that, you know, if one person engages or two people engage on your content, okay, and there's a little bit of a hit, but once you hit five, that's where their algorithm triggers instead, if there are five people that are interested enough, and by the way, we believe this is in the first hour. So if there are five people that comment, and not by the way, I believe the same person five times. So if you say something, and then one person says something, and then you say something, and the same person says something, it doesn't have the same effect. So it's five comments from five different people not including you, it's going to give an extra 50% Push in the algorithm, which means 50% More people will see your content.

Jack Hubbard  09:42

Fascinating. Another question from me, because I get this from bankers all the time. So if the algorithm is giving you credit for commenting, would it be better, If you want to get visibility, would it be better to just comment? Because what bankers tell me is, well, if I comment, it takes me a lot less time than to try to find or write a post, etc. So is it better to comment versus post? Brynne? What's your thought on that?

Brynne Tillman  10:19

So better is so hard, Jack, it's hard. It's like saying, what's more fun? Ice skating or roller skating? They're both fun. So, you know, so I would say, well, there's a five to one ratio, at least from the old algorithm report, I have not seen it contradicted yet. So for every post, it's actually 10 to one for every post engaged five times before you post, and five times after you post. And your posts will do significantly better in the algorithm, no question. That said, your original content, or the content that you share is important. And it shows up differently. So you know, in your activity, what you post is different from your comments. 

I think you should engage every day, you do not need to post every day, twice a week, maybe Tuesdays and Thursdays and maybe you share a piece of bank content one day, and you share a curated piece of content, something maybe that you found when you were exploring and RelPro or Vertical IQ or in your in, you know, how do I say ultimately in in your daily routine of talking with people and looking at trends and what's happening. And a lot of times, you could say, “Hey, I was talking with a client, we talked about, you know how the next kick in the interest rate is going to help and where that really affects the economy.” And is this ultimately good news or whatever that looks like? 

So I went out, and I did a little research, and I found this from the Wall Street Journal and some of the things that I have, and all of a sudden, you're providing insights, that one on one was great, but now you're reaching an entirely larger platform. So sharing your insights does matter but if you just share your insights and not engage, no one's gonna see them.

Jack Hubbard  12:41

That's very, very true, but see them. So I want to pick up that again. So seeing them means someone stayed on your post for a little while. You call it dwell time. Can you explain dwell time to me and what that's all about.

Brynne Tillman  12:59

So dwell time is how people are handled, how long people are hanging out on your content. So content, like PDFs that you upload in their sliders. They're great, because people are hanging around mini videos, people are hanging around text where you have to click to see more people are hanging around. So dwell time matters, the interesting thing, it still matters, it matters a little less than it did last year. You know, Richard, in his study, talked about how shorter posts are doing just fine, which is less of a dwell time thing. I think potentially, people went overboard with extremely long texts that people were not reading. So if you have short text, they still think you need enough text for someone to click See more, because that's a trigger to LinkedIn that they're interested in continuing to read that. So the See More button is still important. But you know, get to the point quicker. And then just like you said, Jack, have a question and comments, put a question at the end of your short text post. What to share in comments, your perspective on this, what you predict what you think is gonna happen. And you'll get a lot more engagement.

Jack Hubbard  14:24

Yeah, and I specifically can think of two people who do this really well, Neil Stanley, who does a lot of work in deposits. And Bill Fink, who is a very senior guy at TD, both of them really are very thoughtful in that and it does cause dwell time to increase so that's really good. Well, this one is really interesting to me. It talks about the ratio of two to one followers to connections and it would seem that Richard believes that following or getting followers is better than having connections. I'm curious about that one.

Brynne Tillman  15:03

Well, I don't know if it's better, but it helps the algorithm more. So personally, your connections, you have a better communication with them, you can see more there's, so I like my connections. But from an algorithm perspective, I think it's a two to one if I remember correctly. So if one connection comments, it's great. If one follower comments, it equals two connections, engaging, right? So your followers engaging on your content are twice as valuable as a connection. So that said, I mean, it's interesting, there are people that are following if they follow you, it's simply for your content. 

They're following you because they are interested in your content. So when you are in creator mode, which we talked about a while back, when we were talking about profile, your Connect button turns to a Follow button, which encourages more people to follow. I used to say, go through all those followers and connect with the ones that make sense. The interesting thing is you have to decide, do I want a more powerful algorithm? Hit? Or do I want to build relationships? So I'm gonna say, even though we're telling you about algorithms, the relationships are more important than the likes or the comments.

Jack Hubbard  16:39

There's absolutely no doubt about it. If you're trying to go out there and beat the algorithm, or make a number then, then the following is, followers is absolutely the answer. But but there are so many benefits to connect with someone, for example, when you're doing an event like this, and we go through and when we do our subject, we go through and and invite people, but you can only invite your first degree connections, you can't invite your followers if they're not, if they're not connected with you. So there are a lot of benefits to that as well. Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about piggyback on content that does well.

Brynne Tillman  17:22

Yeah. So this is interesting, and I still don't understand it. 100%. So I'm gonna give you my best guess on what I read. But if you have a piece that happens to go a little viral, maybe you have 345 1000 views, and you're used to 700, you want the next day to send another piece out. Don't wait a week. So when you put out content that does well, LinkedIn will push that next piece, because they Oh, they're of interest, people liked it. 

So don't wait a week, make sure Wait 24 hours, 48 At the most, and three pieces. So the first one, two pieces after that are going to benefit from the first one. Now, if the second piece does exceptionally well, you still have two more that can benefit from that. But if you have a dud in the middle, your third piece will still benefit from your first piece. So I know that sounds really confusing. But yeah, if you want to clarify that just a little bit.

Jack Hubbard  18:36

I think that's right. And one of the things that bankers have said to me about these programs is they really like them because they're so practical. So let me give you a practical how I do this. And Brynn doesn't know me, so I'll say she can just react to this. On Monday, what I try to find is content that will positively affect marketing, leadership, sales, social selling, and I leave the I'll leave, I'll leave one as a variable. And I'll go find the content. And I'll put it up on my Chrome. And so I'll look and if I see a post that does really well, the one day, I will then again, right away, do something on let's say it's a Wednesday versus you know, from a Tuesday, I will do that. And that way, I'm ready to do something like that.

 The problem is when when one of your posts is seen by 3000 views or four or 5000 views, and you're not ready for that next post you either a don't put anything out at all, or be put something out that isn't a value to the audience because again, it's not trying to trick the algorithm so that you're the cool kid. It's about providing value to the network. So I'd love to get your reaction to how I do it.

Brynne Tillman  19:59

I love it. And I'm going to start doing it. It's fabulous. That my reaction is awesome.

Jack Hubbard  20:08

I like that. I like that positive feedback. The algorithm is using AI to assess emotion and impact. Talk about that a little bit.

Brynne Tillman  20:19

Yeah. And again, this is based on the report. And I tried to do a little deeper dive research on what this actually looks like. And by the way, algo, the algorithm is all AI. It's all artificial intelligence. There are people that are programming it, but then it goes off on its own. Right, it's it's, so the AI seems to based on this report, understand positive versus negative. It understands emotion and impact versus great post, right like it. And at this point, although we are strong in AI in a lot of areas, LinkedIn does not let you look under its hood very often. And that's why we rely on Richard every year to do this report, because he lets us know but the point I think, is just to make this more personal. I think I'm leading into the next one, which is the new messaging and the high messaging, right. This is really about you connecting one on one, even though it's at scale, right. 

So that when you want so as our network is out watching us you feel like we're talking to you. And we are by the way, it's you right? Yep. That Yeah, you were talking to you, and you feel connected to us. We want you to do that too. Right. So to talk to you in your comments. You know, I feel your point is well taken, it creates more impact, there's more of an emotional connection. And all of this is my guesstimate based on the study. But I think it makes a lot of sense. Same with selfie pictures, selfie pictures used to get buried in LinkedIn, they are not now, we recommend your selfie pictures, be professional. Like don't take one at the beach, just just don't unless you sell beach balls for a living or right. Like just just make them professional. If you have branch events, if you're at a chamber of commerce, make it personal networking and personal business connections. But it's working and people are reacting to you as a human being.

Jack Hubbard  23:04

You know, it's interesting, I'll tell you a quick story. As I mentioned, I teach every year at the Graduate School of Banking in Madison. And last year, I was taking my as I do every year, sadly, my Mustang convertible up to Madison, and we took a picture of me getting in the car. And I thought well, okay, that's kind of a neat thing to do when I posted on LinkedIn 15,000 views. Yeah, comments. All I did was just post a picture and say, Madison, here I come. Go figure.

Brynne Tillman 23:39

Because people connect with it on an emotional level. Right? Like, there's a connection, you, you show up with a Wisconsin hat. And I'm like, oh, Haley, and Scott are Wisconsin people. I have an emotional connection to your hat. Right? Like, that's who we are as human beings. So that's what, what you do. And then you'll get people that are like, Oh, I wish I could be there and they have FOMO. So they're commenting. And they're people like, oh, I can't wait to see you. Right. And so it becomes and that's why it becomes emotional. And that's impactful for people. So that's the point here, that as long as it's still leading to you as a banker, as long as it's not.

Brynne Tillman  24:31

You know, I just you know, you can do a vacation picture if your post is five, five insights I had on vacation that lead to whatever right, just keep bringing it back to professional here. This I think is the litmus test and Jack pushback because I'm just doing this off the cuff. If you wouldn't show the picture in a networking meeting at a Chamber of Commerce event. Don't put it on LinkedIn.

Jack Hubbard  25:01

I think that's a great litmus test, I completely agree with you no doubt about it, what we don't want. And I think there are others who are concerned that this is going to become Facebook and it's not Facebook for business, if you can move the content toward business, that's great. You have to kind of spin it a little bit. But I want to ask you another thing about positive versus provocative. You know, there are a lot of people out there who post some very provocative things. And I'll shout out to one gentleman who I like, and I love his book, his name is Keenan, and he wrote gap selling and he is incredibly provocative in his videos, and in his commentary, etc, does doesn't mean that the algorithm won't benefit him, because he's very well seen and very well respected on LinkedIn. But there's also this positive thing that we've been talking about. And I'm curious that it seems that positive does better than provocative.

Brynne Tillman  26:14

Well, at least in Richards' study, that's what it's showing now. I adore Kenan, I think he's just I have so much fun with him. And I've just, I've spoken with him many, quite a few times. And what he teaches is brilliant. And when we teach the Ask golfer ratio, it's inspired by Kenan actually. So I mean, there's so much I grabbed from that, but he is provocative. And there's a gentleman named Jeff Molander, who's very provocative. He starts huge debates. I am not sure. Well, no, because when you upload a video now, LinkedIn is captioning it. So it is grabbing the words, I was about to say, I don't know. But I do know, they do know the words that are in there. And according to Richard's study, the positive is going to do better. I will tell you, though, my experience is provocative, you get a ton of people jumping in, that's going to override the provocative versus positive. I would. I would say, though, you can be provocative, but make sure your comments now are positive. So here's an issue, how would you handle it? Potentially? Or what is the best way you would handle this? And so at least the engagement becomes provocative.

Jack Hubbard  27:50

Well, that's right. And that's, you know, my daughter in law, Ember named me. You know, Jack Rance, who says, You rant, why don't you call yourself chakras. But I won't go over the edge, because it's just not what I do. But I will be provocative about certain things like CRM. I have some strong opinions on CRM, asking better questions, and I have strong opinions on getting prepared. And I'll put it in, as, you know, a thought provoking kind of thing, not as, not as maybe as provocative as Kenan does. So I want to ask you one more thing. And then we want to talk about what we're going to do next week. The bell, one of the things that I've always learned from you is that and the bell is fairly new, it's right in the middle of the right under the job title, or the company that you work for, there's a little bell that you can actually click on, and we call it ringing the bell. And once you do that, what we were told was that you would receive all of the content from that person, but Brynne from what I'm understanding now, in the study. That's not true.

Brynne Tillman  29:03

Well, so it's telling us about 60% of the content is showing up when you ring the bell. And you'll actually see when you ring the bell now and they'll say top posts, you'll be notified on top posts. So I think they've moved from all posts to top posts. And I think they're pretty transparent about that. When you ring the bell. There was a moment in time where you could choose Do you want all posts or top posts? I hope that comes back. But I think I think that's the direction. Yeah, so

Jack Hubbard  29:45

Wow. Well, this is not a one and done because the algorithm like LinkedIn continues to change. So I'm sure we'll continue down the road and we're gonna talk about that. What are we going to talk about next week?

Brynne Tillman  30:02

Oh, what are we talking about next week, we are talking about ideas and thoughts, strategies and tactics to nurture existing connections. So we've got tons of connections that we're ignoring. And we're going to talk about how you take inventory, identify who you want to have a conversation with, and how to nurture them, and start that.

Jack Hubbard  30:27

And it's just like banking. You know, prospecting, in a recent survey that I saw was the number one thing bankers needed, felt they needed to be doing in the second half of the year. And that's all great, prospecting can be a lot of fun and very exciting. But we've got these clients that we have that we need to build a fence around that have trusted us. And it's sort of similar to that we don't want to lose touch with a connection, who trusted us enough to give us that privilege of being connected with so we'll be talking about that next week. Thank you, Brynne.

Brynne Tillman  31:03

Thank you. It was a lot of fun.

Jack Hubbard  31:06

A lot of fun. Don't forget to join the public library. This program, Brynne recently did a program for rail Pro that was outstanding. I did a community bank podcast, all those things are being dropped into the public library. And as well as all of these, this is our seventh one of these. I think Brynne, all of them are in the public library. This one will be up very, very soon. So thanks for being around today. Really appreciate your time.

Thanks for joining us for Jack Rants with Brynne brought to you by our good friends at Vertical IQ and RelPro. We're live on LinkedIn every Thursday at noon Eastern time helping bankers turn connections into conversations. 

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