Professional Network Visibility Boost: Female Professionals Discover Better Results When Presenting to be Male Users
Are your LinkedIn followers recognizing you as a thought leader? Are hordes of respondents applauding your insights on growing your venture? Do recruiters reaching out to discuss collaborations?
Should that not be the case, the explanation might be your gender.
The Test: Modifying Profile Gender to achieve Better Visibility
Dozens of female professionals participated in an organized LinkedIn experiment this week following viral posts suggested that switching their profile gender to "male" enhanced their platform visibility.
Other testers rewrote their professional summaries to include what they called "bro-coded" terminology - inserting action-focused professional jargon like "drive", "transform" and "accelerate". Based on reports, their exposure similarly increased.
Algorithmic Bias Concerns Brought Up
The engagement increase has caused some to wonder whether an inherent sexism in LinkedIn's algorithm prioritizes men who use online business jargon.
Similar to most major networking sites, LinkedIn utilizes an algorithm to decide which content appear to which members - boosting some while reducing others.
Platform Response
In a recent company announcement, LinkedIn recognized the trend but stated it does not factor in "personal characteristics" when deciding post visibility. Rather, the company explained that "numerous factors" influence how content are received.
Modifying profile gender in your settings does not affect how your content shows up in results or timelines.
Personal Experiences
Simone Bonnett, who modified her pronouns to "male pronouns" and her profile name to "Simon E", described remarkable outcomes.
"The statistics I'm observing show a 1,600% increase in visitor traffic and a 1,300% increase in content views," she commented.
Megan Cornish, a marketing expert, began experimenting after noticing her audience decline substantially.
The Method
- First, she changed her profile gender to "man"
- Then, she used AI tools to rewrite her profile using "masculine-oriented" wording
- Finally, she recycled previous content with similar "agentic" language
The result was immediate: a 415% increase in reach within seven days.
The Negative Aspect
Although the positive results, Cornish expressed unhappiness with the approach.
"Before, my posts were more personal - brief and clever, but also friendly and human," she stated. "Currently, the bro-coded version was assertive and self-assured - similar to a white male swaggering around."
She abandoned the experiment after one week, saying "Every day I continued, and results improved, I became angrier."
Mixed Results
Some participants encountered positive results. One writer who changed both her profile gender to "man" and her ethnicity to "white" described a decrease in visibility and engagement.
"We understand there's systemic preference, but it's very challenging to comprehend how it functions in specific cases or the reasons behind it," she commented.
Wider Consequences
These tests occur alongside ongoing discussions about LinkedIn's distinctive role as both a business platform and social space.
Platform modifications in the past few months have apparently resulted in women professionals experiencing markedly lower visibility, resulting in informal experiments where the same posts by men and women received vastly different audience engagement.
Technical Explanation
Per LinkedIn, the network uses artificial intelligence to classify and spread content based on multiple factors, including what's shared and the member's career profile.
The company states it regularly evaluates its systems, including "examinations of inequalities based on gender."
A spokesperson proposed that current reductions in some users' reach might originate from increased competition due to additional posts on the platform.
Evolving Environment
As one participant noted, "bro-coding" appears to be increasing on the network.
"Users typically consider LinkedIn as more professional and polished," she remarked. "That's changing. It's turning into increasingly aggressive and unpredictable."
