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Do your LinkedIn followers recognizing you as a thought leader? Are hordes of respondents praising your insights on growing your business? Are headhunters making contact to explore opportunities?

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

The Experiment: Changing Profile Gender to achieve Increased Reach

Dozens of female professionals participated in a collective LinkedIn experiment recently after viral posts indicated that switching their profile gender to "male" boosted their network presence.

Other testers modified their profiles to incorporate what they termed "masculine-oriented" terminology - adding action-focused professional jargon like "propel", "transform" and "accelerate". 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 male users who use professional networking terminology.

Similar to most major social media platforms, LinkedIn utilizes an algorithm to decide which content appear to which members - boosting some while suppressing others.

Platform Response

In a recent company announcement, LinkedIn recognized the trend but stated it does not consider "personal characteristics" when deciding post visibility. Rather, the company mentioned 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 gender identifiers to "male pronouns" and her profile name to "a masculine version", reported remarkable outcomes.

"The statistics I'm seeing show a sixteen-fold rise in visitor traffic and a thirteen-fold jump in impressions," she commented.

Megan Cornish, a communications strategist, started testing after noticing her audience decrease significantly.

The Process

• Initially, she modified her gender to "man"
• Subsequently, she used AI tools to rephrase her professional summary using "male-coded" language
• Finally, she recycled previous content with comparable "agentic" style

The result was instantaneous: a 415% increase in reach within one week.

The Downside

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

"Previously, my content were more personal - concise and clever, but also friendly and human," she stated. "Currently, the bro-coded version was forceful and confident - like a Caucasian man swaggering around."

She discontinued the experiment after one week, stating "Each day I persisted, and outcomes improved, I became more frustrated."

Varying Outcomes

Not all participants encountered favorable outcomes. Cass Cooper who changed both her profile gender to "man" and her race to "Caucasian" described a decrease in reach and interaction.

"We know there's systemic preference, but it's very challenging to understand how it functions in particular situations or the reasons behind it," she commented.

Broader Implications

These experiments coincide with ongoing discussions about LinkedIn's distinctive role as both a business platform and community site.

Platform modifications in the past few months have reportedly caused female creators experiencing markedly lower visibility, resulting in informal experiments where the same content by men and women received vastly different audience engagement.

System Details

According to LinkedIn, the network uses artificial intelligence to classify and spread content based on various elements, including post content and the user's professional identity.

The company claims it frequently assesses its algorithms, including "checks for inequalities based on gender."

Company representative suggested that recent declines in some users' reach might originate from increased competition due to additional posts on the platform.

Evolving Environment

As one participant observed, "bro-coding" appears to be increasing on the platform.

"People often view LinkedIn as more professional and polished," she remarked. "That's changing. It's turning into increasingly aggressive and unpredictable."