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If you post on LinkedIn for your business, the people you most want to reach probably don't follow you yet.

On Nov 9, LinkedIn's engineers explained how the feed now picks posts for those people. It reads each member's profile and shows them posts from outside their network that match their work: their job title, industry, skills and location (LinkedIn Engineering).

So the words in your post now help decide which strangers see it. There's also one catch in the fine print, and it decides whether any of this works for you. 👇

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LinkedIn now compares what your post says with what a stranger's profile says. It builds a summary of each member from their headline, summary, skills, job titles, companies and education, then scores posts against it on topic, job title, company, industry, seniority, education and location.

These people don't follow you, so LinkedIn leans on your words and their profile to decide. I'd name who the post is for and the problem they have in the first lines, in the plain words they'd use on their own profile (say "dental office managers" instead of "healthcare professionals").

Do this: before your next post goes out, check that it names the job title or industry you sell to and the problem you solve for them.

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LinkedIn matches your videos on what you say in them, too. It reads the post text, titles and video transcripts when it decides what a post is about.

That means a video where the point only shows up on screen gives LinkedIn less to match. I'd say the job title and the problem in your first sentence, the same way you'd write it in the caption.

Do this: in your next video, open with one spoken line that names who it's for, like "If you run a small accounting firm, this one's for you."

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Your post only goes out to matching strangers after one person outside your network likes, comments on or shares it. LinkedIn added that rule because posts that only matched on topic couldn't compete with posts people had already engaged with.

Likes from your connections don't count toward it, but a repost does help. When a connection reposts you, their network sees your post, and a Like from one of those people should count. I'd ask one or two connections who work in a different industry or city to repost your best post with a line of their own, since their networks probably overlap less with yours.

Do this: pick your strongest post this week and ask two connections outside your usual circle to repost it.

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LinkedIn now adds your country to the match. Its engineers found the matching was missing location, so they added the country from each member's profile. Members are now more likely to see posts from their own local professional world.

It's country-level, so it won't put a Denver accounting firm in front of Denver specifically. But if your location is blank or out of date, you're giving LinkedIn one less thing to match on.

Do this: open your profile and make sure your location is filled in and current.

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LinkedIn's post analytics now split your impressions into in-network and out-of-network reach. You'll find it in the discovery section of each post's analytics, as a percentage under impressions (PPC Land). It's been rolling out to creators since June, and LinkedIn hasn't said whether company pages get it.

Don't expect a jump overnight. In LinkedIn's tests, the share of posts going viral rose 0.94% and people hid 18.8% fewer posts (Social Media Today). The win? Members with little activity history saw 17.7% more viral engagement, so newer and quieter LinkedIn users are probably where your posts have the best shot.

Do this: write down the out-of-network percentage on your last 5 posts, then compare it with your next 5.

Write every LinkedIn post so a stranger's profile would match it, then get one repost from outside your circle so LinkedIn starts showing it to them.

I'm curious: which job title do you most want every post in front of?

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That's all for today. Thanks for reading. Now…

~ Josh from "This Week in Social Media"

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