I Made a New LinkedIn Discovery!

I am excited to share 3 things with you today:

1: The new discovery about timing

2: This type of content is currently working magic

3: The rule of the first hour

Let’s get into it.

The New Discovery About Timing

I accidentally discovered this when I was trying to test something else. I was trying to test making 2 posts per day (with each one in a different niche).

I wanted to make posts about content marketing, as well as posts about remote work. But I abandoned the test after 2 days. And there is a good reason for it.

First, I have seen someone who also experiments on LinkedIn posts say that she posted 3 times per day for a week. And her conclusive result was that it didn’t make much increase to her reach but it made her make posts that she would have otherwise not posted. And some of those posts ended up performing well.

From everything she said, my main takeaway point is that relevant post is king.

This means if you publish 30 posts per week, if none of them are relevant and compelling, your reach will be poor.

But if you do 5 posts per week (as I recommend) and 2 of them get great traction, you will have more reach than someone who made 30 posts (with none compelling).

The best LinkedIn post is often one you are inspired to write because of your experience (which a lot of people can relate to) or someone else’s content that triggered you. More about that in a bit.

What happened in the 2 days of my experiment was very interesting. I made a post about remote work (my niche) around 6 hours away from the time I usually post.

The next morning when I checked, (about 10 hours after the post was made), crickets.

The post had only my reaction and the comments I made on it when I posted it. It had less than 100 impressions. If I knew what would happen next, I would have taken a screenshot of this.

This was an advocacy post on remote work and posts like that generally perform very well for me. So, what happened?

At this point, I almost deleted it to post it afresh. But for some reason, I left it there. I would just make another post at my usual time.

I got carried away with work and I was about an hour late to my usual time of posting on LinkedIn. And by the time I got back, this post has already gathered 5 reactions and the impression count picked up greatly.

Could it be??

This reminded me of an incident several days prior. I had scheduled a post to go out at my usual time. But during the schedule, I didn’t notice it was “am”, not “pm”.

So, the post went out at a very odd time (for me to post). I only saw what had happened the next morning. The post had only one reaction (not even mine) and a very low impression count. I think it was around 50.

I deleted that post and rescheduled to post it later. When I later posted it (after a few days), it got about 300 impressions. Nothing fancy. It was a positioning post (not for maximum reach).

Anyway.

When I this experience with the advocacy post, it made something very clear to me. The LinkedIn algorithm has learned my behavior and schedule. It throttles my posts around a specific time each day.

This is the new discovery – LinkedIn knows when the people who love your posts are active and it throttles your post during that specific time window.

If you post outside that time window, LinkedIn will not throttle your post. Instead, it may show it to a few connections, but then wait for that time window to throttle your post. This period is the make-and-break for your post to join the ranks of “suggested posts”.

The new discovery is that making your posts around the same time every day is more advantageous than posting multiple times per day.

I have conclusive evidence on this right now. I have a 2-hour window for my posts to go live each day. I could extend by another 3 hours. But anything outside that 5-hour window will perform poorly, until the 5-hour window the next day.

The moral of the story here is that you need to know what your 5-hour window is. And stick to posting during your 5-hour window, especially during that hot 2-hour window.

There are two ways to know this for sure…

The first way is to observe your account and note when your impression count surge. I am sure there is a tool for this, but I can’t recommend any right now.

The second way is to train the algorithm on what time of day works for you. I believe over a period of 30 days, you can make the algorithm become accustomed to when you post so as to throttle your post during that time.

If you missed everything I have said so far, this is the point – Post around the same time every day.

This Type of Content is Currently Working Magic

If you are having trouble coming up with compelling LinkedIn content, you should start by reading this.

In recent times, I have discovered that “I” content are performing exceptionally well. These are LinkedIn posts that begin with the personal pronoun, “I”.

Just say what you did that is a bit unusual, that is connected to your niche.

If you want to put rocket fuel to it, add a selfie to the post. And your selfie must be compelling and be related to the post somehow. Bonus point if it is at a place or location that you mentioned in the body of the post.

It works.

Try it. And don’t forget to incorporate the viral content framework into it.

The Rule of the First Hour

From my recent discovery, you can see clearly that the rule of the first hour has been broken.

That post I made that got nothing in the first 15 hours, ended up with over 3,000 impressions after a few days.

Take a look:

A whole 15 hours passed and the post was dead in the water. But suddenly it picked up when my time range came back around.

This breaks the first hour rule that says your post must gain traction in the first hour otherwise the algorithm will drop it. Mine didn’t and the algorithm is still holding it up, even as of writing.

The only thing I will say here is that when people write comments on your posts, make efforts to reply the comments as early as possible. It helps greatly, especially during your time range.

The LinkedIn algorithm is now focused on relevance over recency and initial traction. The best kind of posts are posts that drive thoughtful conversations.

Think about that.

If you learned something from this, help us reach more people by sharing with a friend or colleague. Thanks!