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Are your LinkedIn followers viewing you as a thought leader? Are hordes of respondents praising your insights on growing your business? Are headhunters making contact to discuss collaborations?

Should that not be the case, the explanation might be that you're not male.

The Experiment: Modifying Profile Gender for Better Visibility

Numerous women participated in an organized professional network test recently after viral posts indicated that switching their profile gender to "male" enhanced their platform visibility.

Other testers modified their profiles to include what they termed "masculine-oriented" terminology - inserting action-focused professional jargon like "propel", "transform" and "expedite". Anecdotally, their exposure similarly increased.

Systemic Preference Questions Raised

The improved metrics has led some to speculate whether a built-in sexism in the platform's system favors men who employ online business jargon.

Like many large networking sites, LinkedIn utilizes a computerized system to determine which posts appear to which members - promoting some while reducing others.

Company Statement

Through a blog post, LinkedIn acknowledged the trend but stated it does not factor in "personal characteristics" when deciding post visibility. Instead, the company mentioned that "numerous factors" affect how content perform.

Modifying profile gender in your settings does not affect how your content shows up in search or feed.

Individual Results

A social media consultant, who changed her pronouns to "he/him" and her profile name to "a masculine version", reported remarkable results.

"The statistics I'm seeing indicate a sixteen-fold rise in profile views and a thirteen-fold jump in impressions," she noted.

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

The Method

• Initially, she changed her gender to "male"
• Subsequently, she used AI tools to rewrite her professional summary using "masculine-oriented" language
• Finally, she recycled old posts with similar "assertive" language

The outcome was instantaneous: a more than fourfold rise in reach within one week.

The Downside

Although the positive results, Cornish expressed dissatisfaction with the approach.

"Previously, my posts were softer - brief and clever, but also warm and human," she explained. "Currently, the masculine version was assertive and confident - like a white male being overly confident."

She abandoned the experiment after seven days, stating "Each day I continued, and results got better, I became angrier."

Varying Outcomes

Not all participants experienced positive outcomes. One writer who changed both her gender to "male" and her race to "white" reported a reduction in reach and engagement.

"We understand there's systemic preference, but it's extremely difficult to understand how it operates in particular situations or why," she remarked.

Wider Consequences

These experiments occur alongside continuing discussions about LinkedIn's distinctive role as both a professional network and social space.

Recent changes in the past few months have apparently resulted in women professionals experiencing significantly reduced visibility, leading to informal experiments where the same posts by men and women received vastly different reach.

System Details

Per LinkedIn, the network uses AI systems to categorize and spread posts based on multiple factors, including post content and the member's career profile.

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

A spokesperson proposed that recent declines in certain members' visibility might stem from higher volume due to more content on the network.

Evolving Environment

According to a tester observed, "bro-coding" appears to be increasing on the network.

"Users typically consider LinkedIn as more businesslike and polished," she commented. "This is evolving. It's turning into increasingly competitive and unpredictable."