Understanding how the LinkedIn Feed Works

This summer, I rejoined the LinkedIn team to enhance the Feed experience to continue to surface timely, relevant content and conversations that help professionals advance their careers. The LinkedIn Feed has evolved significantly over the past few years, mirroring the drastic shifts in the world of work. More than ever, people are turning to LinkedIn for insights, knowledge and news. According to new LinkedIn data, 50% of U.S. professionals are feeling overwhelmed and many (48%) are worried about being left behind. It's our responsibility to prevent that by making the Feed your eyes and ears, delivering the most timely conversations and impactful news to help you stay in the know. With this in mind, I wanted to share more about how the Feed works and how it continues to improve. 

Here are a few factors that influence what appears in your Feed. 

• Your Profile: Your experience, your skills, and your education help us determine your interests, and the most helpful content to you. 
• Your Network: The people and organizations you connect with or follow directly impact the content in your Feed.
• Your Actions: When you like a post, join a conversation in the comments, or repost an article, it  helps us understand what content is helpful to you. On the flip side, when you scroll past a post, mark it as “Hide,” or indicate you don’t want to see a certain type of content, we learn from that too. 

Now, let’s get to the type of content you’ll see in your Feed, and why. The key here is that we’re analyzing all that content and surfacing what is most relevant and timely to you. Here is a quick breakdown of the types of content in the Feed:

“Connected Content” refers to posts, videos, newsletters or articles shared by people or organizations you’re connected with or follow. This could also include content they’ve created or reposted with their perspective. A couple examples:

• A connection of yours got a new job. This could be important for you to see, especially if you regularly engage with that person.
• An industry expert you follow shares a short video giving her take on some recent news. 
• Someone you follow shared a more personal story and lesson learned. We know you want to hear from them because you chose to follow them, and we also know that knowledge-based posts are what our members want to see more of.

“Un-connected Content” refers to content surfaced based on your interests, professional experience, and what your network is engaging with, shared by people and organizations you haven’t followed. This could include: 

• A company in your industry sharing a video about their company’s earnings and what trends they are seeing in the marketplace. 
• A journalist or publication sharing breaking news relevant to your daily work. 
• A post from an industry expert that your connections are engaging with.

What you won’t see as much of? More personal posts from people that you aren’t connected to or follow, or posts that fall into “click-bait” territory (designed to get you to click with no substance). We’ve heard from members that these posts aren’t helpful, so we’re continuing to iterate and test how to surface only the more relevant content from outside your network. We encourage you to tap the “hide” button on things you don’t want to see in your Feed. 

A more relevant Feed experience

Your Feed will look different everyday, because the world of work changes everyday. On top of this, as you scroll, we’ll be updating your Feed in real-time based on your actions. The more you engage on LinkedIn, the more relevant and impactful the content on your Feed will be. Follow me to stay informed on improvements we’re making, and other insights about the LinkedIn Feed.