LinkedIn might be the most underrated growth channel in marketing right now. I‘ve been obsessing over this lately. While everyone’s fighting for attention on every other platform, LinkedIn remains a place where smart marketers can still build massive audiences without burning through ad budget.

I sat down with LinkedIn creator Hala Taha recently to see how marketers can meet the moment. Hala grew a following of 260,000+ on the platform. How? She has a four-step viral content formula that actually works. It‘s not just theory. She’s using it to consistently hit massive reach numbers.

During a recent conversation, Hala broke down her entire system. That includes the content buckets, the engagement hacks, and DM strategies that most people never talk about. Plus, we explored how she’s using AI to cut her content creation time in half. So, let’s get into it.

Mastering LinkedIn’s Algorithm, According to Hala Taha

To make the most of any platform, you need to know the algorithm. Luckily, Hala is an expert with seven years of experience as the founder and CEO of YAP Media. Today, the company is a top LinkedIn marketing agency, running over 20 influencer accounts.

According to Hala, marketers need to understand LinkedIn’s two different business models. The first focuses on advertising, meaning LinkedIn wants to keep people on the site as long as possible. The second is the job search element.

LinkedIn’s platform has to cater to both experiences. That culminates in a four-step algorithm that posts go through before they reach your feed, and mastering that algorithm means hitting key actions at each step.

1. Spam Filters

When you first put up a post, LinkedIn checks for spam. It’s scanning for profanity, nudity, and offensive keywords, but also things like tagging more than five people or using more than five hashtags.

There are post categories for low, medium, and high. For example, profanity will put your post in the low category, which translates to low visibility. Too much tagging or too many links will put it in the medium category.

Chunky paragraphs also get filtered at this stage. “That’s why on LinkedIn you see this line-by-line style that a lot of the influencers use,” Hala says. “People are scanning their content. They want to be entertained.”

If you can pass this stage in the high category — using tricks like breaking up your text into one-sentence paragraphs and removing hashtags — then your post is approved, and you move on to the next phase.

2. User Flagging

This is called the “golden 90 minutes of LinkedIn,” Hala tells me. It’s an opportunity to test your post to see how much engagement it’s getting. Is it getting fast engagement? Are people reporting it? Are they flagging it?

It’s essential to get a lot of engagement in the first 30-90 minutes in order for your post to be served to more users. You want to get as many of your first connections as possible to like and comment at this stage.

That’s why engagement pods are a great idea, Hala offers. These pods are groups of people off LinkedIn who share links on platforms like WhatsApp, Slack, or Facebook. Members then go to LinkedIn to like and comment on each other’s posts.

“I‘ve created amazing communities using engagement pods,” Hala goes on. “And the key is, you want to make sure that there’s a reason why you guys are following each other — that you guys have similar audiences, that you‘re in the same niche, in the same field… You’re not using AI tools. It’s real humans.”

When Hala began podcasting seven years ago, this was one of the first things she learned. “I was like, who else is talking about podcasts on LinkedIn? Why don’t I invite them into a WhatsApp group and start an engagement pod? And so we did that.”

The last thing to focus on at this stage is owning your niche with interest-based keywords. “If I talk about entrepreneurship all the time, and I’ve got ‘entrepreneurship’ all over my profile … in my title and my bio and my job descriptions, LinkedIn will deem me as an expert on that topic,” Hala explains.

However, Hala notes that posters need to stick to a niche.

“If I suddenly start talking about painting, and I have no keywords and I‘ve never talked about it, LinkedIn is going to deprioritize serving that post to other users who want to see stuff about painting because they don’t think that I’m an expert,” she says.

Essentially, you want everything to connect. The keywords in your posts should also be in your profile, so you can train the algorithm and your audience that this is what you talk about.

3. Content Scoring

If you don’t get blocked by the spam filter and you get a lot of engagement in the first 90 minutes, then you move on to the stage where your post can go viral.

“Here was the big aha moment for me,” Hala says. “I realized that every single engagement on your LinkedIn post is weighted differently, and every single engagement has a weight associated with it.”

The higher the weight of the actions on the post, the more that LinkedIn will push your content in the feed.

For example, people clicking “read more” is an engagement metric tied to it. If they click “like,” that’s counted as one point. The point scale then goes up for comments, long comments, shares, and shares with captions.

“So, your goal on LinkedIn — the highest viral action — is actually to get a share with a caption,” Hala says. Telling people to like and comment isn’t going to make your post go viral because it’s a low-weight action.

“If you share something, it’s like 80% more likely for your first connections to see that you shared that post. And that’s why shares go viral,” Hala points out. “Your following has to take viral action.”

Also, if somebody reshares your original post, with or without a comment, you should take the time to like and comment on their reshare because it increases the content score.

But while shares are the highest viral action for a post, DMs are a higher viral action on LinkedIn itself. That’s why a DM strategy is so important if you want to go viral consistently.

“If you DM somebody and they DM you back, they’re 85% more likely to see your content the next time they log on,” Hala says. “That’s like the secret sauce at YAP Media is that we do DM funnels 24/7.”

4. Human Editors

The last stage is where LinkedIn’s editors review the top content of the day, which means you need to align with its editorial agenda.

“LinkedIn is actually the one that pours gasoline on all the super massively viral posts that get 30,000 likes, 50,000 likes, 100,000 likes, and usually they have to do with hiring, recruitment, promotions, internships, graduation, or anything that aligns with their editorial agenda of being a top job site,” Hala says.

Strategically, you want to think about where you can overlap your keywords with LinkedIn’s editorial agenda. In addition to topics like recruitment and hiring, positive or non-controversial news stories can sometimes be prioritized. That’s especially true if the content reinforces LinkedIn’s core business model or it’s something the platform wants to be known for.

“The only way that you can go super massively viral at this point on LinkedIn is by aligning with their editorial agenda,” Hala concludes. “And, they literally will turn the gasoline on your post, and your post will go viral for weeks.”

How to Crack the Code for LinkedIn Virality

Focus on DMs.

Since DMs are the highest-weighted action on LinkedIn, cracking the code means building a DM strategy.

“DMs are amazing on LinkedIn, and we use them every single day to drive all of our different initiatives,” says Hala. She recommends establishing common ground with potential connections through the ways that you find them.

“Let‘s say I’m looking to target people to listen to my entrepreneurship podcast, and I just interviewed Alex Hormozi. I might go on his page and see who liked and commented on his recent posts. Those are people who are interested in entrepreneurship. They also take viral action, so they’re the perfect people to invite to my network,” she says.

Then, she’ll send them a note. For example, Hala says she may write, “Hey, I noticed that you follow Alex Hormozi. He‘s amazing. I just interviewed him on my podcast. I think you’ll love the episode. I’d love to connect, to provide value on your feed.”

After listening, they might respond, “Your episode was awesome. I learned so much.” And Hala then follows up, “Great. Can you copy and paste this as an Apple podcast review?”

“You can start these little drip campaigns for all of your DM messages,” she says. “Now, I‘ve brought in a person who takes viral action, who likes my content, and who I had a conversation with. They feel like I gave them value and now they’re a fan.”

Bucket your time.

But DM strategy alone could take up all your time, so I asked Hala how she integrated it into her day.

Hala notes that having multiple people on your account is against LinkedIn’s Terms of Service. You do not want to use automation tools. You’ll get your account flagged, she says.

“But LinkedIn understands that a lot of people are busy and they‘re going to have assistants. So, the key is that the person has to be logged in from your city or state, and so long as that’s true, you can have somebody access your account and manage your DMs,” Hala explains.

But, what if you’re just starting out and don’t even have an assistant or an intern? How much of your weekly schedule should you focus on DMs versus writing posts or working on other parts of the formula?

When Hala first started her LinkedIn profile, she had a podcast and a full-time job. With a full schedule, she committed to posting every morning on the train,

“I would batch beforehand. So, I‘d have pictures banked. I’d have quotes banked. I’d have videos banked. And then when I was on the train, I could just focus on the caption and what I was going to write,” she says.

And, morning is the best time. “If your audience is mostly in your area, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. is the sweet spot to post.” Then, drop your link in your engagement pod if you have one.

“During lunchtime, I would just spend like 10 minutes responding to some of my comments… and on the commute home, I would do all my DMs, respond to my DMs, and retarget people in the DM,” she says. Because when you’re really serious about it, she adds, every post should have a retarget message.

Using AI to Craft Engaging Content

Spending ninety minutes to two hours per day on LinkedIn as a starting strategy wouldn’t be out of line to follow Hala’s formula. But, AI tools can speed up the process and cut it down to an hour a day max.

I recommend finding LinkedIn users with the audiences you want to engage with. You can then look at their posts and past top performers into ChatGPT. From there, you can have AI create templates for posts that have a similar format.

You can also use AI at the human editor stage. Just grab some articles that with high engagement on LinkedIn or those created by the LinkedIn editorial staff. Then, add them to Claude or ChatGPT.

When you have a post ready, ask, “Based on all the context I‘ve given you, do you think that this would be interesting to the editors on LinkedIn?” If it gives you a good grade, then you know you’ve got a better chance. And if it doesn’t, you can ask it questions about what you can adjust, Is the topic off? Am I framing the topic the wrong way?

For content generation, Hala’s team creates AI-generated images that look like real photos. “You want to batch your different photographs that you have, and then you can use AI to create more photos,” she says. For video, she loves Opus Clip, which lets you upload long-form content and then finds the most exciting parts to cut into clips.

As a final note, Hala adds that while content creation can be sped up with AI, the actual posting and engagement still need to be done by you. It will help you improve your strategy, which is especially important when you’re first starting.”

Going Viral Every Day

With an hour a day and one year of solid focus, anyone can become an influencer on LinkedIn. Following just the first three steps of Hala’s formula will put you above 95% of people on the platform. Going beyond that can make your posts go viral every day.

To learn more from Hala Taha on LinkedIn virality, check out the full episode of Marketing Against the Grain: