General Is Out, Niche Is in

@ryanfduffy. Wish I could say I was above embedding my own tweets in this newsletter...

Familiar with this LinkedIn post? That could change, since the social networking service is tweaking the algorithm that sorts and ranks what shows up on your feed.

The new system will favor niche posts that drive conversation and engagement, rather than general viral content. Get your #s and @s ready, because pulling trending topics or other users into the post will boost its chances of getting top-tier treatment, as will more comments.

Why?

Tim Jurka, LinkedIn’s director of AI, told Axios the top 1% of power users were sucking up most of the platform’s prominent real estate and attention. There’s only so many times you need to be told to keep a daily journal, meditate, learn a new language, and never give up.

Zoom out: Social media companies use these algorithms, which rely on inscrutable moving parts and opaque data points, to distribute billions of posts across billions of personalized feeds. Influencers or brands that can reverse-engineer and gamify algorithmic tweaks can boost their reach, while strategies based on old modes of distribution may suffer.