Link in bio!

Instagram already doesn’t let users share links in their captions. And it looks like LinkedIn is going to start deprioritizing content that includes links to third party content as well.

Moving forward, LinkedIn posts that include third party links will be reduced in size, and images in the link previews will be smaller (and thus less eye-catching) in users’ feeds.

If you don’t want your links to get buried in people’s feeds, you’ll need to use LinkedIn’s Ads Manager. aka: LinkedIn wants you start paying them when you link to outside content.

The goal here isn’t to penalize users, or limit the sharing of content. The idea is to increase how much time users spend on LinkedIn, and to improve the overall quality of the content being shared. These are the main priorities of just about every social media platform in existence. The more time we spend on their apps, the more money they make.

So, what can businesses do about this change?

Social media platform algorithms have been increasingly rewarding organic platform-based content for the past few years, but this change really highlights the importance of social-first content, especially for brands.

Social media is an essential part of any marketing strategy today. And it’s no longer acceptable to be posting content that drives people to click on a link for more info. Brands need to find a way to make the content itself all the info people need. Think social first, backlinks second.

Unsure of how to beef up your LinkedIn strategy? Get in touch ✌🏻