Should you join a LinkedIn Pod? What’s a LinkedIn Pod?

LinkedIn Pods are engagement groups where members agree to LIKE and engage with each other posts with the goal of artificially boosting a post.

Imagine a Pod might have 50 people in the group. You make a post, tell the group, and then you’ll get 50 LIKES and maybe as many comments.

The problem with LinkedIn pods is that they violate LinkedIn’s Terms of Service. LinkedIn considers any form of artificial manipulation of your posts performance to be in violation of the TOS.

As to whether or not you’ll get caught, LinkedIn product managers have stated openly many times that their algorithms suppress the distribution of manipulated posts, and I wouldn’t be surprised continued participation in a pod results in a shadow ban of your accounts either - meaning your posts consistently get suppressed.

Does asking your team, your company, and your staff to LIKE all your posts count as Pod behaviour? I think it depends. LinkedIn has enough engineers now and enough data to know what appears to be organic engagement of employees to their CEO’s posts vs employees being instructed to do so. Sure there’s probably a grey area where you can outsmart LinkedIn, but why?

Getting actual real engagement on LinkedIn has never been easier. With AI tools that can help you research topics, flush out ideas, and copy edit your posts to come out sharp, you’re better off spending the effort to just write something interesting.