Introduction
Are you ready to navigate the whirlwind of LinkedIn’s latest changes?
With algorithms in constant flux and user habits shifting, what actually still works?
Join Mikkel Svold, the ace behind Montanus, as he reveals his LinkedIn makeover journey!
Forget the old tricks—like chasing hashtags, catchy hooks, and emoji overload.
Mikkel’s here to spark a fresh perspective on authenticity and storytelling that truly packs a punch.
Dive in to this episode of the Content Universe, and discover how to supercharge your brand’s LinkedIn game.
Trust us, you won’t want to miss this!
What You’ll Learn
1. Why LinkedIn hashtags are losing their importance.
2. The evolving role of hooks in LinkedIn posts.
3. Balancing authenticity and engagement with effective storytelling.
4. Re-evaluating the use of emojis in professional posts.
5. Adapting content strategies to LinkedIn algorithm changes.
Episode Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Content Universe today. I want to talk about three things that I have stopped doing on LinkedIn because, well, some of them are because of the algorithm changes and some of them, it’s just because I’ve slowly been getting annoyed. My name, for those of you who don’t know me, is Mikkel Svold and I’m the founder and CEO of Montanus, which is a content production company where we do podcasts, videos, and, of course, a lot of social media and blog posts, etc. All those kinds of things we do; content, we produce content for high-knowledge companies mostly.
Now, what I want to talk about today is three things that I’ve actually stopped doing that I used to do quite a lot. The first one that I’ve stopped doing on LinkedIn for both my clients and my own posts is due to algorithmic changes. As far as I read from the experts that I follow on this topic, they say that hashtags have now lost their significance on LinkedIn. I’m about to say, hashtags never really worked for LinkedIn. It is something that they inherited from Instagram. It worked really well on Instagram. I’m actually not sure that it works so well anymore, but sometimes probably it does a little bit, but it just doesn’t really work anymore on LinkedIn. And it never did in the way that you would use hashtags on LinkedIn. I would use it mostly if I wanted to highlight a word because the little hashtag makes it bold.
I would use it for highlighting mostly. And then I would also use it to basically own a category. So I would create my own category. So one of my clients has a podcast called Behind Clean Lines. So I would hashtag behind clean lines, which would then enable people to follow that specific hashtag. So they would follow that specific podcast whenever we published anything that was to do with that. And I would do that for all of my different podcasts and all of my different clients. We would basically have a category hashtag that we would invent ourselves, and we would own that entire category. So oftentimes, it would be quite a long hashtag. But the point here being is that people can follow that hashtag. Anyway, that is not really working that well anymore.
And it really never did. But it’s also not something that LinkedIn is prioritizing anymore. And also, they have now started, as I understand, LinkedIn has now started indexing not just the hashtags of your post but all of the words in your post, which means that you don’t need the hashtag anymore to show up for relevant people. Right? So, that is something that I’ve actually stopped doing because it simply is not necessary anymore. So, then it just becomes clutter.
The second thing that I’ve stopped doing on LinkedIn is being super meticulous about the hooks and the reason for that is actually not because hooks don’t work, because they do, they definitely do. You have those two, maybe three lines where you kind of hook your reader into following along. But what I’ve found is that the hook started to annoy me a little bit. And what I hear is that you get a little bit annoyed with always being lured into clicking that view more button. I do still do the hooks, but I’m not as meticulous about having hooks in every single post. Because I really think that sometimes just having the storytelling right really solves that instead of trying to hook your reader. And in my mind, there’s a little difference between having good storytelling and a good introduction to your post and then a hook. Because the hook to me, it just sounds a little bit more like you want to lure your reader into clicking rather than actually delivering value. It’s more of a tactical approach and it looks a little bit like what you call when you have like click baiting – that’s the word – so, it just tastes really meticulously hooking people in, just tastes a little bit like click bait and that I really want to avoid. Not to say I don’t do hooks but, yeah, I’m just not as hardcore on it anymore.
So, that’s number two thing and you might want to consider that because if it’s okay for your brand to have click-baity kind of hooks, obviously don’t do clickbait like deliver on what you promised, but above that or beyond that, I would say look at your brand if your brand is good with the hooks, fair enough, keep on doing it because it really works. If you want to come across as a little bit more authentic as a little bit more a human being writing what’s behind it, I would probably loosen up a little bit and then maybe not have them in all of your posts, but some of your posts and then just think about the storytelling more actually.
Okay, so that’s number two thing. The hooks. I’m not as strong on the hooks anymore or meticulous about the hooks. The third thing that is, I think, maybe it’s just a taste thing for me, but there’s been a wave, a transition from being super professional, being super businessy, business professional in your writing on LinkedIn. And frankly, it’s been kinda boring. And then you had some tech companies, probably some young startup tech companies, they started to use emojis on LinkedIn, which has been really good. But that has been on for a good couple of years now. And I just see that wave is slowly beginning to annoy me more and more because you no longer stand out by using emojis in your posts. Now you’re just yet another big business-to-business company using emojis.
So, I wouldn’t say don’t use emojis at all, but I would still consider or I’ve begun to consider more do I need the emoji or does the text actually serve the purpose itself? Is it strong enough? And if it’s not, will it be better with an emoji or would it be better to work on the text? So, actually, I’ve loosened a little bit on my emoji use. I really pushed that kinda hard to my clients and also on my own posts that really need because it just drives engagement and it makes it look more friendly and it eases legibility and there’s a lot of good stuff to emojis, but they have now also become such a commodity in LinkedIn posts that I would say probably if you work more on your text still work on the layout of your text, how it’s structured so it looks good and so it’s easy to read. But yeah, it’s just, I think for me it’s probably just a taste or a personal preference that I’ve just seen so many posts now that use emojis vigorously that I really I’m just trying to not not do it as much anymore.
Alright, so those were actually just the three things that I’ve stopped doing or at least stopped doing as much on LinkedIn as I did before. The first one, of course, being the tags that’s due to algorithmic changes. As far as I understand, you know, I’m not writing the algorithm, so I just read what other people write. But that’s I’ve stopped doing that. I’ve also loosened up on being really hard on the hooks. So instead thinking more about storytelling and value delivery. And then thirdly, the emojis probably not using them as much anymore as I did before.
All right, I think that’s it for today’s Content Universe. If you like it, do leave a comment. Let me know what you do and don’t do on LinkedIn and what annoys you and what doesn’t annoy you, what you really appreciate in a post. That’ll be really interesting to hear. You can definitely comment on Spotify. I’m thinking you also can comment directly on this episode on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to it. You probably comment directly there. Otherwise, if not, send me an email. You can find me on podcast.montanus.co. And I really look forward to hearing from you. It’s always a pleasure hearing from you guys out there. I think that’s it for today. Leave a comment. Like, share, subscribe. That’s a good thing as well. You might if you want, if you want to, don’t if you don’t want to. That’s it for today. See you on another planet in the Content Universe.
