Unlocking Your Own LinkedIn Algo: Introduction (Part I)

This story starts with the ending: results.

Profile Views: +51%

Post Impressions: +40.7%

Engagements: +110.2%

Followers: +6.7%

These are the numbers after implementing a new LinkedIn Strategy being guided by gurus, testing out analytics platforms and home-brewing some AI elixirs. I love metrics - a SMART goal, a SWOT analysis, KPI’s. Wrap me in a security blanket of spreadsheets, and I’m happy. But I can’t help thinking every time I see these statistics….How does this translate to ROI?

I'm a business owner and I care about money. But I know that what you measure matters and with LinkedIn, I'm investing my most precious resource, time. I know that investment yields sales - I've seen it. In less than six months I went from zero to six figures with no advertising, no sales team, only word of mouth amplified by a community of online cheerleaders.

But what I chose to measure is neither in vanity metrics nor dollars. It's in three basic principles: trust, community, abundance.

Over the next three weeks, I'm going to take you deep into my exploration into how to optimize my LinkedIn presence, for you and for me. We'll see what experts like LIAM DARMODY , Melanie Borden , and Julie Michelle Morris have to say, alongside business leaders like Kinga Vajda , Melissa Cohen, Osnat (Os) Benari, Elliot Felix , Jennie Blumenthal, Seth P. , Mariana Saddakni, Conor Grennan , Susan Whittemore, and Carmen Vitanza , who work across industries creating passionate communities. And of course, we'll look at the AI tools that can help take our human efforts to the next level.

So to lay the groundwork, let's begin by exploring the metrics that matter:

Trust

Trust is earned. Period. My customers need to believe that I am:

1. Educated and experienced enough to be an authority
2. Wise enough to offer advice that’s meaningful
3. Approachable enough for us to connect
4. Honest enough to tell them the truth

Without trust, everything else is meaningless. I strive to earn that trust daily, one word at a time. How I speak, what language I use, and how I structure my thoughts matters in earning trust. And I can use AI to assist in measuring the sentiment, frequency and readability of my writing.

Sentiment

To gain trust, I want to teach both sides of an issue, radiate optimism and sprinkle in some sobering facts. According to Daniel Kahneman's nobel prize winning Prospect Theory, humans feel loss 4X as much as gains, so I aim for an average 60% positive, 30% neutral, and 10% negative sentiment to achieve balance.

To measure sentiment, I use the Vayner Sentiment Analysis, a text analysis tool that measures the overall positivity, negativity, and neutrality of written content using advanced natural language processing. And you’ll find me delivering most of that negativity with a spoon full of satire.

Word Frequency

I teach AI with a human touch, which means I want to make sure to talk about AI, but not so much that I come across as a robot. So, I shoot for a weekly target not to exceed 2%. The Natural Language Toolkit (NLTK) can analyze text to calculate the frequency of words and ensure I stay below 2% for key terms like "AI". This reminds me to bring a seemingly human post back to an AI lesson, and to humanize the AI insights.

Readability

Some big words are beautiful, but too many makes it difficult to read. I am talking to an educated executive audience, so I don’t want to speak like a simpleton, but I do want to speak in a clear and understandable way. I am often explaining complex technical concepts in short snippets. I’m intentional with my word choices. This is not a vocabulary lesson. 

The LIX readability formula calculates text complexity by counting long words over 6 letters and dividing by the number of sentences. This helps me optimize for clarity without oversimplifying.

Community

Community is built on trust. I think of every post as an opportunity to play Mrs. Dalloway hosting a dinner party. Success is when the people at the party start talking to one another and forget that they are at the host’s house! For many years, I used to host a “Friendsgiving” in my tiny NYC apartment. People came the first year for the food, and the second year, for my friends.  

If you look at any successful social media influencer, it’s like stepping into their home each time you engage with a post. And if they are really good, they make you feel a VIP the moment you enter the room.

Engagement Rate

Rather than focusing on likes and comments, I look at the composite metric of engagement rate. This is calculated by dividing total engagements (likes, comments, shares, etc.) by total impressions. Typically a high engagement rate is correlated with high impressions, but not always. So, I focus less on reach with the majority of my posts and more on targeting specific communities within my network to drive meaningful engagement.

My Engagement

While difficult to quantify, I can estimate my personal engagement by tracking time spent. I make sure to spend at least one hour daily engaging with my community through posts, comments, and DMs. Though LinkedIn doesn't surface comment metrics publicly, I can request access to my data or use third-party tools to get insights. 

Beyond vanity metrics, these interactions have led to meaningful relationships that extend beyond LinkedIn. I hold office hours for an hour each day to meet new people, many of whom I first connect with on LinkedIn. Time invested is an important indicator of my commitment to cultivating community.

Asking For Help

Asking for help is difficult for me, but it's a critical way to gauge community strength. The willingness of others to assist when asked reflects the trust and goodwill I've established through consistent engagement and value provided. Though uncomfortable, I force myself to make thoughtful asks of my network - whether advice, calls to action, polls or rallying cries. 

The response rate and quality of responses indicates whether I'm giving more than I'm taking from my community. Asking for help is a reciprocity test and one of the best measurements of the health of relationships with my audience. And this community is generous beyond measure.

Abundance

Abundance flows from community, but is not self-sustaining. I aim to empower others to pay it forward - creating, serving, and fueling their own communities. Metrics for abundance include tracking the professional opportunities, collaborations, and expanded networks that arise through connections I've facilitated.

Speak My Name in Rooms

I know I'm generating true abundance when my name comes up in conversations I'm not part of - people recommending me and my work organically. This is the Net Promoter Score effect! On LinkedIn, it surfaces through mentions, shares, and spotlight features. The frequency and context of unprompted references measures my influence and the value I've contributed to others' success.

A Diverse Network

A diverse network is the natural result of doing my job well - building an inclusive community rooted in trust. Rather than relying on diversity metrics, which can be biased and limiting, I look to see that my audience is different from me across many dimensions - gender, race, age, orientation, industry, culture, and location provides tangible evidence that people feel welcomed being their authentic selves here. 

As a white woman, these metrics also keep me accountable to continue doing the work of addressing racism and my own implicit biases out loud. Diversity is not about quotas, nor is it an entitlement; it's the harvest of the seeds of equity and justice I strive to plant daily.

SMA Sundays

SMA stands for simple moving average, a metric that smooths out fluctuations to show overall trends. For LinkedIn, I calculate the SMA of impressions over time. This indicates how consistently evergreen my content is and how well my network sustains engagement on rest days when I'm not posting. While individual posts are like stock returns, SMA is the annuity. In triathlon terms, it's like active recovery - when consistent training lets your body absorb gains on off days. 

I only review this metric on Sundays, when I refrain from posting and trust my community to interact with my body of work. SMA shows the value of building a strong foundation over chasing viral posts.

Now What?

The first rule of LinkedIn: Talk about LinkedIn. 

So this week, that’s what I did. I connected with people who've ventured into the dark depths and emerged wiser. Folks with quality content, genuine connections, and consistency that I admire. I knew I needed their insights and discipline to take the next step down the winding staircase.

This is for anyone on LinkedIn who wants to amplify their presence with AI's help and take control of your own metrics. It's for leaders aiming to wield data analytics and AI responsibly and strategically.

Next week, I'll reveal tactics, frameworks, and insights from LinkedIn experts, followed by my experiments with discriminative and generative AI, when it’s useful and when it’s not.

The goal? To equip you to find the keys, meet the wizard (spoiler alert: that's you!), and unlock the chamber to your own LinkedIn Algo. Let's level up together.

I'm Lori Mazor and I teach AI with a human touch: empowering intelligent business. If you're interested in bringing Generative AI training to your employees, check out my website for course offerings or DM me on LinkedIn for more information.