Dozens of women have participated in a collective LinkedIn experiment this week, after viral posts suggested that changing their gender to 'male' boosted their visibility on the network. Some also rewrote their profiles to be 'bro-coded', using action-oriented business buzzwords such as 'drive', 'transform' and 'accelerate'. Anecdotally, their visibility increased.
The uptick in engagement has led to speculation that LinkedIn's algorithm may favour men who use online business jargon. LinkedIn, however, denied this, stating in a blog post that it does not consider 'demographic information' in deciding who gets attention. Instead, it said 'hundreds of signals' factor into how a post performs. A spokesperson said: 'Changing gender on your profile does not affect how your content appears in search or feed.'
Simone Bonnett, an Oxford-based social media consultant, changed her pronouns to 'he/him' and her name to 'Simon E'. She reported a 1,600% increase in profile views and a 1,300% increase in impressions. Megan Cornish, a communications strategist, saw her reach spike 415% after changing her gender to male and rewriting her profile in 'male-coded' language. However, she disliked the assertive tone and reverted after a week.
Not all participants had positive results. Cass Cooper, a writer on technology and social media algorithms, changed her gender to male and her race to white (she is Black) but saw a decline in reach and engagement. She said: 'We know there's algorithmic bias, but it's really hard to know how it works in a particular case or why.'
