The changes to LinkedIn in 2024 have been huge. Not just in terms of new features and updates, there’ve been more than 200 of them and we still have 2 months of the year to run.
Rather, the changes are more macro.
The deluge of AI. An algorithm change reducing organic reach and follower growth. The splitting of the feed into 2.
All these have a huge impact on what we see, who’s content we see and who sees our content.
How?
The impact of AI
For the past 2 years we’ve seen LinkedIn openly embrace AI. We can use it within the platform to write posts, messages and sections of our profiles. LinkedIn creates Collaborative articles also generated by AI which we members can ‘contribute to’ aka comment on.
The quality of this is pretty poor compared with the abilities of off-platform AI apps.
Where AI has truly made an impact is in the feed. Posts and comments on posts are routinely created by AI and posted as authentically the work of the author. Fortunately, it is still easy to spot these posts and comments.
In the Updated Algorithm Insights report created by Richard van der Blom (a world authority on the LinkedIn algorithm) of Just Connecting, posts created with 50% of AI content rose by 130% between May and October 2024. Worse, fully AI-generated posts rose by 18% while AI-generated comments increased by 340%.
Richard says, ‘This influx of AI content has led to a decline in meaningful engagement and connection on the platform. As more AI-generated content fills the feed, users experience less authenticity and personal interaction which has resulted in reduced engagement overall. While AI can be a useful tool, relying heavily on it may contribute to a decline in reach as users feel they are interacting with bots rather than genuine content creators.’
Algorithm change
Added to the onslaught of AI, have been changes to the algorithm which begin early in the year and likely continued. (LinkedIn is notoriously silent about its algorithm.)
There has been a significant reduction in content reach this year which reduces visibility generally but also means our connections see fewer of our posts while our followers and 2nd degree connections see more.
Check your feed and you will likely see many more posts from 2nd degree connections which have been liked (or less commonly) commented on by your 1st degree connections. This has implications for your content and network growth strategies.
Split feed
Also new in 2024 has been the standalone video feed which has had huge impact despite being available only on the app.
LinkedIn has been giving an algorithmic nudge to videos for this feed, a common practice for the platform when introducing new features. Reach for some people with some videos has been stratospheric and totally out of sync with normal results.
Currently, videos that appear in this feed are mainly highly produced and created by big players such as LinkedIn themselves, major news networks and the likes of Harvard Business Review. We are also seeing videos republished from YouTube and other platforms.
In fact, you will likely need to scroll through many videos to find any from your 1st degree connections, despite many of them likely jumping on board with this while the algorithm is favouring them.
Surprisingly perhaps, videos enjoy strong engagement levels despite fewer videos appearing in our main feed and the ease with which videos can be scrolled past in the new feed.
As the feed is relatively new it is highly likely that most members are unaware of its existence and so do not yet use it. This may change depending on members’ appetite for watching videos on LinkedIn.
What all this means
The deluge of AI, changes to the algorithm and the new video feed have all had significant impact on what we are all seeing on LinkedIn in this latter part of 2024.
The makeup of the feed has changed as well, with a substantial increase in promoted posts, Collaborative articles and LinkedIn adverts, alongside the reduction of personal posts. This cannot be what members want to see.
Will this cause them to leave the platform in droves? Possibly. This is not in LinkedIn’s best interests which depend in part on members spending time on the platform. This is what they sell to advertisers.
It is unlikely to deter content creators although, like us, they will likely be revisiting their strategies and looking at changes in 2025. However, the main options available – an increase in direct messaging and emphasis on engagement – require more manual input unless automation and other external apps deemed illegal by LinkedIn are employed.
LinkedIn is already focused on making members pay for features – on profiles and company pages – and is likely to double down on this if revenue drops because more of us spend less time on the platform.
It’s a conundrum for the leaders at LinkedIn. They’re beholden to Microsoft and its expectations yet it’s the members like us who really hold the power. If we desert in droves, LinkedIn may have to change the way it operates.
How likely is this? Not very. Too many of us are highly invested and do not want to have to reinvent ourselves somewhere else – if we could even find a comparable platform.