LinkedIn Algorithm Just Changed. Here's What Works Now

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LinkedIn really isn't the same platform that it was six months ago

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from sneaky pay to play manoeuvres to changes in the algorithm, and

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of course, always new features.

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So in today's episode, let's talk about what's working, what's

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changed, and what you should do.

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G'Day everyone.

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It is Coach Michelle J Raymond, your trusted advisor for building your

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brand and your business on LinkedIn.

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And this week, listeners, we're gonna be talking about all things LinkedIn and

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the state of play as we are right now.

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And it's really quite interesting to me because I think it goes in waves where

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it's like this love hate cycle where one minute LinkedIn changes things, then

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we all get used to it, and then they change it again and the whinging cycle

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begins and then we just put up with it, and it goes back to quiet again.

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And it's interesting because I think right now people are more confused

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rather than upset or excited by LinkedIn.

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We're left wondering what is going on?

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What is driving LinkedIn?

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Why do they keep making changes that don't really make sense to us mere mortals?

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As I always say listeners, this is LinkedIn's sand pit, it's

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us that chooses to play in it.

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So it's their rules and so I wanted to have a look into like, well,

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what's going on for LinkedIn?

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What is driving some of these decisions for them?

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And we're gonna go into that today.

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So a couple of the big shifts.

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One is the quiet and subtle move towards pay to play.

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The other was a change to the LinkedIn algorithm in June this

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year, and both of those things are definitely having an impact.

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Of course, we've got new features, which I'm gonna cover

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those later in the episode.

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But it's all well and good to understand all of these things, but really, what

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do I think you should be doing about it?

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I'm gonna save that till last.

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Stick around and I'm gonna share exactly what I think you should pay

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attention to, what things you should change, and what I think people really

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need to focus on to get results and business growth towards the end of 2025.

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Whether you are a B2B marketing manager or a business owner, or

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CEO that needs to stay up to date with what's happening on LinkedIn.

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I've got you covered, I've done the research, so you

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don't have to, so stick around.

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If you go to the LinkedIn about page on their website, it shows their vision and

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mission and other things about LinkedIn.

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But one of the things that you need to be really clear about is

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what's driving them right now.

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So the vision, which is create economic opportunity for every member

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of the global workforce, that is what they're out to do right now.

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Whether you're a job seeker, whether you're a business owner, they are trying

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to connect opportunities for people.

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Obviously to try and make some kind of money out of it.

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Like I like that idea.

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I love that that is kind of driving LinkedIn is to connect

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opportunities for people.

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To be honest, that's exactly why I'm there.

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B2B Growth Co we help our clients have a LinkedIn strategy that

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generates opportunities for growth.

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I'm in exactly the right place, my clients are in the right place.

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This is where we come to do business.

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So from that perspective, I'm on team LinkedIn as far as that goes.

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No surprises.

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But there has been a subtle shift over the last six to 12 months, and especially

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the last six months, where LinkedIn is definitely a pay to play platform.

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I don't think it ever was before.

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I don't begrudge them for turning it into that.

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We've had a pretty good ride for the best part of over 20 years,

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and so from that perspective, I can see where they're coming from.

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What are these shifts that I'm talking about?

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So little things like features not being available unless you have a premium

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account for your personal profile.

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Of course, LinkedIn Company Pages also have a premium option, which is

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slowly but surely improving over time.

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We're seeing a lot more focus on, hey, you can boost your

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post over on your Company Page.

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Individuals can run ads on their LinkedIn personal posts.

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That's a huge shift.

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When we look at, you know, some of the ad structures that they've rolled

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out, like the thought leadership ads where companies can pay for individuals

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to have their posts promoted, I hope that the future of that is all

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to do with B2B brand partnerships.

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I would love to see that blow up on this platform.

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Directly through LinkedIn without the use of other third parties.

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I think that would be amazing.

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You know, that's the kind of opportunity that I would love to see, and I

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would certainly pay for features that helped me along those lines.

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So from this perspective, pay to play, what does that mean for you?

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Well, ultimately I think.

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Unless you are willing to invest some money with the platform, we

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are gonna see more and more features stripped back and put into some of

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the more paid options, whether it's Sales Navigator or just Premium.

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But if you are going to be leveraging LinkedIn for business growth, I think

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a paid account is a non-negotiable.

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So thinking about that for your team, I'm still not on

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team Sales Navigator just yet.

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I think that's a waste of money for most businesses who don't have good

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social selling processes in place.

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What else do I think has changed significantly that will have

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an even bigger impact on your business growth on LinkedIn for

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the rest of this year and beyond?

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Let's talk about that next.

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In June this year, there was a shift with the LinkedIn algorithm.

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Now I almost missed it 'cause I had a few weeks off and then I came back and all

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I saw was posts that were two to three weeks old and I thought, hang on a minute.

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What's going on here?

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It's a bit of a glitch in the Matrix.

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Don't worry these things happen from time to time.

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LinkedIn must be testing something and I'm just waiting for it

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to fix itself, and I waited.

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I waited some more and it never really changed.

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I am still at the time of recording this podcast, which is

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towards the end of July, 2025.

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I'm still seeing lots of old posts, so I did some investigations to find

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out what was going on, and I found an article that LinkedIn had answered

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some questions through Business Insider that this is actually by design.

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LinkedIn announced in this article that they are making the

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move away from vanity metrics.

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Vanity metrics are impressions on your posts, likes, these types of things.

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So engagement, the things that we're addicted to, the things that we've been

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taught the more impressions, the better.

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The more likes the better.

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And LinkedIn are now saying, actually, no, we don't actually think that

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generates opportunities for you.

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We're more interested in making sure that you see content that is really

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aligned with what you've been engaging with, that is on your topic, that

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they think you'll find valuable, and timing isn't as important.

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They call it recency versus relevancy.

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So the more relevant it is to you, they're not really looking at

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actually the timing of that post.

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If you think about it, that is a monumental shift in how we use LinkedIn.

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So things aren't as urgent now, you know that first hour after a post.

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It doesn't mean anything.

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Even the first few hours isn't going to mean anything if our posts are showing

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up to people two to three weeks later.

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Now, of course there's been lots of complaints because we are seeing

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posts on LinkedIn, which are, showing up two to three weeks later.

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The events already been and gone, so you know, they haven't quite got it right.

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They say that and they're doing some adjustments to find where that line is,

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so hang in there while they figure it out.

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I like this idea now that I understand how it works, and I will be changing how

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I take action on LinkedIn in relation to this, and I'll be instructing my

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clients on those changes as well.

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But ultimately, I think if LinkedIn's out to try and help me get more opportunities

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and connects my content, which will help other people discover opportunities that

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I'm all for that, but it's obviously not me that has to go and report to

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someone higher up and justify why all of a sudden your impressions on your posts

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have like just taken a huge nose dive.

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You are crashing and burning and you're thinking, wow, what is going on here?

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I used to get.

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Let's see two and a half thousand impressions on a post.

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Like pretty typically, pretty easily.

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Of course, they go up and down, but that's been the way for me for years.

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I'm talking, you know, the best part of the last five to 10

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years, roughly those numbers.

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Now if I have a look now, a lot of my posts will be sitting at around half that.

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So 1000 to 1200 on most days.

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Now, of course that felt like a punch in the guts 'cause I was thinking.

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Oh my God, what is going on?

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If people don't see my content, what hope have I got in growing my business?

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Now what's actually happened is it's had no impact 'cause the

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right people are seeing my content.

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Still hard to swallow, not gonna lie.

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But what I've discovered is when you write a very valuable and helpful post for your

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audience, those numbers go crazy high.

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So numbers like 6,000 impressions start to pop up.

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That's two to, you know, two and a half, three times more what I was averaging.

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I need to rethink my content strategy around what kind of content helps

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other people and how can I create opportunities for them to learn?

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How can I create opportunities for them to grow?

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And I believe that LinkedIn will reward that for me as time goes on.

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What do we do in the meantime?

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I don't know.

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Save this podcast, share it with your bosses, but have some storytelling

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to go with the numbers because it's gonna feel pretty bumpy in the

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meantime until we get that new level where that becomes the new normal.

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And yeah, it's easier said than done.

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Right.

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So they are the two main shifts.

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We've got this quiet pay to play approach, and we've got shifts

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in how the algorithm is focused.

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Next, let's take a look at the features that have rolled out that

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I think you should pay attention to.

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What are the new features that I think you should be paying attention

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to that are worth keeping an eye out for and experimenting with?

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To be honest, that list is gonna be pretty short in today's episode.

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It's been super duper quiet, pretty much this year compared to last year with

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how many new features we had rolled out.

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Now I'm not sure whether that's by design because LinkedIn have had a lot

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of layoffs over the last few months but ultimately, I hope that it's kind of

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stable and locked in for a little while.

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'cause change for change's sake is not helping any of us.

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What have they been focused on?

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Actually, analytics is probably one of the pieces of the puzzle that

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has changed more recently, and some of this aligns with those two big

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changes that we just spoke about.

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So if you're no longer measuring yourself on impressions and likes

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and comments and that kind of stuff.

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What are you gonna measure on?

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And LinkedIn is now showing you, hey, as a result of the work you're doing, we

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can now show you how many people went to your profile after your post, or how many

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people became followers after your post.

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From this perspective they're trying to get you to focus on what matters,

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driving people back to your profile.

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So if your profile hasn't been updated recently, I really recommend that you go

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back and spend some time on doing that and make sure that people are really clear.

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What you do, who you do it for, and what makes you different.

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And it's been so cool to see some of my listeners have implemented

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that in their About sections, and I can immediately and obviously see

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that that's what they've been doing.

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Shout out to any of you who might be listening that have done that.

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We've got some analytics on your personal profile typically only show

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up when you're on a premium account.

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We're now seeing that you can record a video that will go as the cover image on

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your LinkedIn newsletters or articles.

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Everyone knows that I am such a huge fan of LinkedIn newsletters,

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like I'm probably the number one fan girl for LinkedIn newsletters.

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I love them If you don't have one and wanna know why I'm so

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passionate ,reach out, drop me a message on LinkedIn and ask me.

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There's also an episode of the podcast I did a little while back that I can

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share, which shows you the difference between my LinkedIn newsletter strategy

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and my email newsletter strategy, which my email newsletters is only brand new.

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So if you haven't checked it out yet, the details are in the show notes.

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So, from that perspective, videos, will it make a huge difference?

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I don't know.

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Play around with it.

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Test it.

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Let me know what you discover.

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Realistically, is there anything else?

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I'm sure there's some shifts in the AI tools within the platform that

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LinkedIn are trying to encourage you to use, but honestly, that's not my jam.

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I don't see that they're really that good right now.

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So for me, I'm just focusing on using AI tools off the platform.

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When it comes to Company Pages, besides the changes to the premium options and

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what's included with premium, honestly, I haven't seen anything come through

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on pages for a while outside of that.

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So again, if you pay to play, you'll get new options.

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I do love that the Company Page Premium is geared towards helping you grow your

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followers fast on your Company Page.

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I love that idea.

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So I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna test it again and report back in on my learnings

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about whether I think now Company Page premium is a worthwhile investment or not.

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Hopefully it is doing enough now to justify the spend.

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But for those of you who think if you pay for it, your content gets seen by more

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people, unfortunately that's not the case.

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So they're our major shifts and they're our new features.

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So after this, let's talk about what I think makes an even bigger difference than

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understanding all of these features and functions on LinkedIn and what I think you

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should be doing for the second half of the year to make sure that you can leverage

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LinkedIn to really grow your business.

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Anybody that's been listening to this podcast for long enough will

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know that I am gonna go back and say to you, strategy beats features

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every single day of the week.

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If you're new here, you are going to get sick of me reminding you that we

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need to go back to the foundations of marketing, the foundations of branding.

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And really have a LinkedIn strategy that's aligned with your business goals.

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Why do I keep going back to this?

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Because every time I'm connecting with people on intro calls,

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the discussions we're having, they've skipped over this step.

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We skipped straight to content, and they're wondering why it's not working.

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One of the things that we fix with the B2B G.R.O.W.T.H masterclass is making

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sure that you have a game plan in place.

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It's G is for game plan, making sure that you actually start in the right place.

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Content is still king but ultimately it's content in service of your audience.

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How are you connecting them to opportunities?

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How are you creating opportunities between you and your ideal audience?

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So that is something to think about.

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On LinkedIn I think consistency is better than novelty.

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This week has been horrendous.

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If I see one more post that is totally unrelated to anything

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that people do around the Coldplay CEO drama on the kiss cam.

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I'm going to go crazy.

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That has been a huge distraction on the platform and one, I have some pretty

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strong opinions on, which I won't go into it in this episode, but ultimately

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from that, getting back to consistency and persistency over the long term.

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So none of this go hard because you've got an event and then disappear or hot and

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cold and it's a game of hide and seek most of the time with, people or their brand.

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And I get you're busy like we all are.

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Find me somebody that's not busy, but your audience will notice

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when you're there and not there.

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So you need to come up with ways to be able to stay present but not

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drain all of your time and resources.

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And my clients love that I give them strategies on how they

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can actually get around this.

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What do I think B2B marketers should be doing for the rest of 2025?

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Ultimately, I think you shouldn't be relying on new features

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and algorithm changes as the lifeboats to try and save you.

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That is not what they are designed to do.

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They are designed to help LinkedIn and LinkedIn alone.

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So yes, they want you to keep coming back, but it's up to you to experiment

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and figure out how you can do this.

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Last week's podcast episode was all about team alignment.

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If you do not get your internal teams aligned and on the same page,

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be it sales and marketing, employee advocacy and Company Pages, leadership

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and employees, all the different ways that companies interact when it

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comes to LinkedIn, you have to all be on the same page and understand

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what you're all trying to achieve.

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I don't care what your KPIs are for each individual team.

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You will not grow your business on LinkedIn if you're

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not all on the same page.

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So it's time for some new KPIs that align the whole business so that they're going

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in the right direction and not against it.

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You know enough about the LinkedIn algorithm, but please

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don't ever get distracted and make that your primary focus.

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Understanding what content can you create in service of your audience

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will have a bigger impact in the rest of 2025 than anything else.

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And probably the last thing that I would say that I want people to start

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thinking about is how can you put some personality into your content?

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Most content is so boring and so bland and blends in with every

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other piece of content that I see.

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It is not having an impact.

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So it's a tick and flick exercise where people play it safe,

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they play it professional, but they're not getting results.

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Why?

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Because I can't even remember you.

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I've probably scrolled straight past because there was

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nothing remarkable about it.

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What will you do in the second half of the year to change things up?

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Doing what you were doing six months ago will not work.

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So my challenge to you is it's time to take a moment.

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Walk away from LinkedIn, sit down as a team and work out what is

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your new strategy for the second half of this year, and what things

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will you be trying for your brand.

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And I highly recommend the Power of Two, bringing employee brands and

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company brands and working together.

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That is where you will get the big results.

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If you don't have a game plan that goes beyond, let's just do three posts

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per week then we really need to talk because I would love to show you how

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you can grow your business leveraging LinkedIn with all of the things that

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we've discussed today, taken into account in our new growth strategy.

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So if that sounds good to you, reach out to me.

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All the details are in the show notes.

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If we're not connected on LinkedIn, please make sure that you do that.

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I love hearing from you listeners.

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It makes my day.

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So until next week, cheers.