How long till LinkedIn goes the Facebook way?

Before you jump to any conclusions, I am not talking about LinkedIn becoming the Grand Central of hate where arguments on politics and religion is a common sight. I am talking about the mighty algorithm.

In the early and mid 2010s, ‘internet marketing gurus’ specializing in Social Media Marketing (SMM) and Social Media Optimization (SMO) told you how Facebook page likes are the way to go. So you spent money consulting these marketing gurus, you spent money on Facebook ads which garnered loads of page likes and your posts were doing great too. Everything was fine and you were happy with the engagement until one day came the dreadful algorithm change! All of a sudden the engagement on the posts went down the abyss. Nothing that you posted on your page made any difference. To drive my point home, below is a post from Coke’s official Facebook page. Look at the number of likes and as a reference, Coke’s official Facebook page has about 110M likes!

Its not like all pages are doing bad, its just that generating engagement on Facebook has now become super hard and that is why most of these Facebook marketing gurus have vanished. Some of them did survive long enough to see the action shift to Instagram. Late 2010s was when Instagram engagement was at its peak. You post something as basic as a quote and likes would pour in! IGTV in the initial phase was good and so were the reels but as of today, generating any kind of engagement that can be considered meaningful to a business has gotten exceedingly difficult. But unlike Facebook, at least the niches do good on Instagram, all thanks to the hashtags.

I hope you have already guessed where I am going with this blog. As of 2022, LinkedIn engagement is (in meme language) ‘Ultra Pro Max’. Make a post, get engagement, get discovered. It is a great opportunity. If you need help, there are ample ‘LinkedIn Coaches’ out there. But how long will this last? How long till we see an algorithm change that squeezes the life out of engagement? If Facebook and Instagram are anything to go by then that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

However, we must take into account a significant difference between LinkedIn and other social networks. The use case. LinkedIn is primarily a professional platform. People find jobs, sales leads and attract investments on LinkedIn. How difficult would all of this become if you are not able to reach a wider audience? Shouldn’t this have a role to play in the way LinkedIn algorithm works? Only time will tell.

End of the day, it is best to focus on your message and not the latest ‘engagement hack’. If your message is strong enough, if it helps others, if it educates or entertains, it will surely reach its rightful audience.

Do you use LinkedIn? Has your usage increased or decreased in recent times?