🔗 Share this article LinkedIn Engagement Boost: Female Professionals Find Better Results When Presenting to be Male Users Are your professional networking connections recognizing you as a thought leader? Are hordes of respondents praising your advice on growing your venture? Do recruiters making contact to discuss collaborations? If not, the reason might be that you're not male. The Experiment: Changing Gender Identity to achieve Increased Reach Dozens of women participated in a collective professional network test this week following viral posts suggested that changing their gender to "man" enhanced their platform visibility. Other testers rewrote their professional summaries to include what they called "bro-coded" language - inserting action-focused professional jargon like "propel", "transform" and "expedite". Anecdotally, their visibility also improved. Algorithmic Bias Questions Brought Up The engagement increase has led some to speculate whether an inherent gender bias in LinkedIn's algorithm favors men who use professional networking terminology. Like many large networking sites, LinkedIn utilizes a computerized system to determine which content are shown to which users - boosting some while suppressing others. Company Statement Through a company announcement, LinkedIn recognized the phenomenon but claimed it does not consider "demographic information" when deciding content distribution. Instead, the company explained that "numerous factors" influence how content perform. Modifying profile gender in your settings does not influence how your posts shows up in search or feed. Individual Results A social media consultant, who modified her pronouns to "male pronouns" and her profile name to "a masculine version", described extraordinary outcomes. "The numbers I'm observing indicate a 1,600% increase in visitor traffic and a thirteen-fold jump in impressions," she noted. Another professional, a marketing expert, began experimenting after observing her reach decrease significantly. The Method First, she modified her gender to "male" Then, she used artificial intelligence to rewrite her profile using "male-coded" language Finally, she recycled old posts with similar "assertive" language The outcome was instantaneous: a 415% increase in reach within one week. The Downside Although the success, Cornish expressed dissatisfaction with the method. "Previously, my content were softer - concise and insightful, but also warm and relatable," she explained. "Currently, the bro-coded version was assertive and confident - similar to a white male swaggering around." She discontinued the experiment after one week, saying "Every day I continued, and results got better, I became angrier." Varying Outcomes Some participants experienced favorable outcomes. One writer who modified both her profile gender to "male" and her race to "Caucasian" reported a reduction in visibility and interaction. "We know there's systemic preference, but it's very challenging to comprehend how it operates in particular situations or the reasons behind it," she commented. Broader Implications These tests occur alongside continuing discussions about LinkedIn's distinctive position as both a business platform and social space. Recent changes in the past few months have reportedly caused women professionals experiencing significantly reduced exposure, leading to informal experiments where the same content by men and women received vastly different audience engagement. Technical Explanation Per LinkedIn, the network uses artificial intelligence to classify and distribute posts based on multiple factors, including what's shared and the user's professional identity. The company claims it regularly evaluates its algorithms, including "examinations of inequalities based on gender." Company representative proposed that recent declines in some users' reach might stem from increased competition due to more content on the platform. Changing Landscape As one participant noted, "bro-coding" appears to be growing on the platform. "Users typically consider LinkedIn as more businesslike and refined," she commented. "That's changing. It's turning into increasingly aggressive and unpredictable."