Have you ever scrolled through a LinkedIn feed only to stop by a post to view comments, but ended up leaving due to boredom?
According to a recent LinkedIn update, you may notice a difference in the comment section of a feed post, as the platform now prioritizes relevance over chronological order and like count. Their aim is to get commenters and posters to interact more by enticing them with a more interesting conversation that they will want to be a part of.
What LinkedIn Is Actually Changing
The update is all about comment ranking. Instead of seeing comments in chronological order or having them ranked based on number of likes, LinkedIn users will now see comments ranked based on relevancy to each individual user.
This will be done by LinkedIn through the use of professional interests, connections and activities. This simply means that for the same comment viewed by two individuals, their perspective will differ on the basis of what LinkedIn considers valuable for them.
LinkedIn also aims at promoting and prioritizing these discussions within their feeds and fostering in-app conversations besides just the comments section.
Additionally, LinkedIn wants to promote and prioritize these discussions in feeds, and encourage in-app conversations beyond the comment threads.
Why LinkedIn Is Doing This Now
This change did not come out of the blue. LinkedIn released Q2 results last this month, which showed an increase in the amount of time spent by users reading comments by 18 percent year over year. This, along with 10 percent year over year growth in total content consumption on the platform, as also stated in the report, is an indicator that the platform is trying to capitalize on the engagement growth by further increasing the content consumption.
Allowing users to read more insightful and relevant comments would be a good way to continue the trend. After all, a comment section with little substance is not an encouragement to engage, whereas a comment section featuring comments from people in a similar field, or people one could network with, could be an encouragement to do both.
The Catch Nobody Can Ignore
Here is where the story gets more complicated. LinkedIn has also been cracking down on engagement pods and AI generated spam for some time now, which is directly relevant context for this update. This is important context, because the suspicious jump in activity also includes comments.
The inconvenient truth is that it is not clear how much of this increase is organic and how much is spam, because LinkedIn has not responded to requests for comment on the matter. However, research from pangram labs, an AI detection startup, suggests that 30% of all comments on LinkedIn between April-June this year were AI generated.
That is, 30 percent of comments across the 57,000 public LinkedIn posts Pangram Labs analyzed were written by bots, according to the company’s assessment.
This underlines the scale of the problem, because if roughly a third of comments are AI generated, then at least some part of that 18 percent year over year increase in time spent in post comments is probably not organic. To put it another way, a meaningful share of that reported engagement growth may actually be inflated by inauthentic activity rather than real conversation.
Why This Makes the New Update More Important
Interpreted through this lens, LinkedIn’s plans to tweak the comment ranking algorithm to prioritize relevance are not only about the improved personalization of the user experience. Perhaps, even more importantly, they represent LinkedIn’s desire to promote genuine discourse on its platform, which has been threatened by the proliferation of engagement pods and other spam-commenting schemes.
If implemented successfully, the described update would create a virtuous circle for LinkedIn’s users, who would be less annoyed by spammers while being able to have more meaningful conversations. At the same time, it would deprive manipulators of a tool to amplify their reach by gaming the system. This would complement LinkedIn’s campaign to combat artificial engagement by making it harder for automated comments to slip past spam filters.
However, for this outcome to occur, the proposed update should function in tandem with LinkedIn’s existing efforts to improve comment quality. It remains to be seen how the suggested development would affect the spammers’ ability to bypass the new measures if implemented in isolation. After all, their tactics have been upgraded several times during the prolonged battle with social media platforms and will presumably continue to evolve in response to the updates on LinkedIn.
What This Means for Professionals and Brands
For the average user, this update is likely to manifest as changes to the algorithmic sort of comments on a given post. A user browsing through posts about marketing is more likely to see other marketing professionals’ comments on a given post come up higher in the comment feed than before, rather than generic comments that appear low-effort.
For businesses and individuals looking to make use of LinkedIn’s comment section for self-promotion purposes, the update is likely to push users toward more thoughtful engagement with posts that feature their desired audience. Generic comments with low-effort writing designed to boost brand visibility are likely to receive worse engagement than they did previously. The change incentivizes higher quality writing and thoughtfulness in one’s commentary.
Meanwhile, the change serves as a reminder to companies and individuals focused on pumping out large volumes of engagement for self-promotion purposes that LinkedIn is actively working to combat such behavior. Engagement farms or comment bots used to amplify accounts may see decreasing returns on their time and effort as LinkedIn continues to update its algorithms.
The Bigger Picture
The LinkedIn comment ranking change is in many ways a minor technical tweak to the platform’s algorithm. At the same time, it represents the crossing of two major themes within the social media giant’s ongoing development. One of these themes is the desire to increase both in-platform engagement as well as time spent on the application’s comment sections. The other represents the company’s efforts to combat the use of AI spam and abuse to artificially inflate engagement figures of the said comment sections. The way in which the two areas are being balanced is likely to decide whether the LinkedIn comments will see an increase in their status as a breeding ground for professional discourse or simply evolve further as a major source of click fraud and engagement farming.
The Bottom Line
LinkedIn is updating its comment feature in order to make it more relevant to the viewer, using things like professional interests and connections. This change comes after an increase in commenting and general consumption on the site, fueled by reports that a large number of LinkedIn comments may be AI generated and therefore not genuine. The update serves as a reminder to professionals and brands that comments are growing in importance and should be taken seriously.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: What did LinkedIn change about comments?
Previously ordered by popularity and time since posting, LinkedIn comments will now appear in each user’s feed in an order determined by relevance, based on professional interests, connections and engagement.
Q2: So different people will see different comments on the same post?
Yes, because each user’s feed is personalized based on their professional network and activity, two users could see the same comment appear in different positions in their feeds.
Q3: Why did LinkedIn decide to make this change?
According to LinkedIn’s own figures, time spent on comment sections increased by 18 percent year over year, and content consumption in general increased by 10 percent – so they want to continue to drive engagement.
Q4: Is this an attempt to combat spam, too?
Though not explicitly stated, the timing of the update falls in line with LinkedIn’s recent efforts to combat engagement pods and other spam-commenting schemes.
Q5: Are bots really a problem on LinkedIn?
Based on their research analyzing 57000 public LinkedIn posts, the AI detection startup Pangram Labs has come to the conclusion that 30 percent of all comments on the social media platform were fabricated by AI this April-June.
The research conducted by Pangram Labs reveals a significant statistic: 30% of all commentary on the social media platform came from AI this April-June.
Q6: Does LinkedIn itself have stats on spam comments or engagement pods?
Unfortunately for us, they do not – LinkedIn did not immediately respond to a request for comment asking for the company’s internal figures on engagement pods or artificially-inflated comments.
Q7: How does this affect brand accounts commenting on posts?
Spammy comments won’t get you anywhere, but legitimate comments that demonstrate genuine interest in a post’s topic will get rewarded by the algorithm.
Q8: Does this change apply to comments in the main feed as well?
The change applies beyond individual posts – in order to improve discoverability, LinkedIn will highlight more relevant comments within the main feed.
Q9: Is this a substitute for LinkedIn’s upcoming measures against engagement pods?
No, the two initiatives are meant to complement each other rather than replace one another, while addressing the same underlying issue.
Q10: What should professionals know about this update?
Spam comments will become much less prevalent on LinkedIn, but genuine comments will see an uptick in visibility, so be sure to leave relevant notes on the posts you enjoy.
