I’m seeing an increasing number of LinkedIn posts from people complaining that LinkedIn is now just another version of Facebook, with too many posts focusing on people’s personal lives (it seems like a recent post from a woman about her period crossed the line for many people). I completely understand LinkedIn users desire to share more human stories (particularly as the algorithm gives them greater weight), but how far is too far?
Nevertheless, one of the most common questions I’m now getting during my workshops is ‘how do I make the newsfeed more relevant to me’ or ‘how can I exert greater control over what I see on the newsfeed’? So there is good news and bad news. Getting the bad news out of the way, there is obviously a limit to what you can control as the newsfeed is governed by a pretty complex algorithm that is dictated by LinkedIn.
And therein lies the good news. All LinkedIn users have various options alongside every LinkedIn post that they can use to tailor their own newsfeed, so I thought I would break them down here (in increasing order of severity):
- ‘I don’t want to see this’ e.g. you aren’t interested in the post or have seen it too often
- Unfollow – you remain connected to the person but won’t see their posts
- Mute – when a first line connection has shared someone else’s post, you can mute that other person
- Remove Connection (and don’t worry, they won’t be notified)
- Report this post – for various reasons e.g. spam, harassment, adult content, copyright
- Leave LinkedIn! Drastic, but may be the best option for your mental health
All of these can be found via the 3 dots at the top-right of every post.
The trick to having a more relevant newsfeed is to spend a few seconds each time you log into LinkedIn deciding what you do and don’t want to see and take the appropriate action. Over time, the algorithm will begin to learn what you aren’t interested in and will provide you with more relevant content (though the occasional random post will still find its way through). You need to nurture and curate your own newsfeed – no-one, including LinkedIn, will do it for you!
I recently told someone what I do and their immediate response was ‘I hate LinkedIn’. It turns out that they log in around twice a year, had an incomplete profile and 5 connections who post rubbish content. No wonder they hate it!
