🔗 Share this article

Are your LinkedIn followers viewing you as a industry expert? Are hordes of commenters applauding your insights on growing your venture? Do recruiters making contact to discuss opportunities?

Should that not be the case, the explanation might be your gender.

The Experiment: Modifying Profile Gender to achieve Increased Reach

Dozens of female professionals joined an organized LinkedIn experiment this week following viral posts indicated that switching their profile gender to "man" enhanced their platform visibility.

Some participants rewrote their profiles to include what they termed "masculine-oriented" terminology - inserting results-driven professional jargon like "propel", "revolutionize" and "accelerate". Based on reports, their exposure also improved.

Systemic Preference Concerns Raised

The improved metrics has caused some to wonder whether a built-in sexism in the platform's system prioritizes men who use professional networking terminology.

Similar to most major social media platforms, LinkedIn employs a computerized system to determine which posts are shown to which users - boosting some while suppressing others.

Company Statement

Through a blog post, LinkedIn recognized the trend but claimed it does not consider "demographic information" when deciding content distribution. Instead, the company explained that "hundreds of signals" influence how posts perform.

Changing gender in your settings does not influence how your posts appears in search or feed.

Personal Experiences

Simone Bonnett, who changed her gender identifiers to "male pronouns" and her profile name to "Simon E", described remarkable results.

"The statistics I'm observing show a 1,600% increase in profile views and a 1,300% increase in impressions," she commented.

Another professional, a communications strategist, started testing after observing her audience decrease substantially.

The Method

• Initially, she modified her gender to "male"
• Then, she used AI tools to rephrase her professional summary using "male-coded" wording
• Finally, she recycled previous content with similar "agentic" style

The outcome was immediate: a 415% increase in reach within one week.

The Downside

Despite the positive results, Cornish voiced unhappiness with the method.

"Before, my content were more personal - brief and insightful, but also friendly and relatable," she explained. "Now, the bro-coded version was forceful and confident - similar to a Caucasian man swaggering around."

She abandoned the test after seven days, stating "Every day I continued, and results got better, I became more frustrated."

Mixed Results

Some participants experienced positive outcomes. Cass Cooper who changed both her gender to "man" and her ethnicity to "white" described a decrease in visibility and engagement.

"We know there's systemic preference, but it's very challenging to understand how it operates in specific cases or the reasons behind it," she commented.

Wider Consequences

These experiments coincide with continuing discussions about LinkedIn's unique position as both a business platform and community site.

Recent changes in the past few months have apparently caused female creators experiencing significantly reduced exposure, resulting in informal experiments where identical content by male and female users received vastly different reach.

System Details

According to LinkedIn, the network uses artificial intelligence to classify and spread posts based on multiple factors, including what's shared and the member's career profile.

The company states it frequently assesses its systems, including "examinations of gender-related disparities."

Company representative proposed that recent declines in certain members' visibility might originate from increased competition due to additional posts on the platform.

Evolving Environment

According to a tester noted, "bro-coding" appears to be growing on the network.

"People often view LinkedIn as more professional and polished," she remarked. "This is evolving. It's turning into increasingly aggressive and unpredictable."