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Do your LinkedIn connections viewing you as a thought leader? Are hordes of commenters applauding your insights on expanding your venture? Are headhunters making contact to explore opportunities?

Should that not be the case, the reason might be your gender.

The Experiment: Modifying Profile Gender for Increased Reach

Numerous women joined a collective professional network test recently following viral posts suggested that switching their gender to "male" boosted their network presence.

Some participants modified their professional summaries to include what they termed "bro-coded" terminology - adding action-focused business buzzwords like "drive", "revolutionize" and "accelerate". Based on reports, their visibility similarly increased.

Systemic Preference Questions Brought Up

The engagement increase has caused some to wonder whether an inherent sexism in the platform's system prioritizes male users who use online business jargon.

Like most major networking sites, LinkedIn employs a computerized system to decide which content are shown to which users - boosting some while suppressing others.

Company Statement

Through a blog post, LinkedIn acknowledged the phenomenon but stated it does not consider "demographic information" when deciding post visibility. Rather, the company explained that "hundreds of signals" influence how posts perform.

Modifying profile gender on your profile does not affect how your content appears in search or feed.

Personal Experiences

A social media consultant, who changed her gender identifiers to "male pronouns" and her profile name to "a masculine version", reported remarkable results.

"The statistics I'm observing indicate a 1,600% increase in visitor traffic and a thirteen-fold jump in impressions," she noted.

Another professional, a communications strategist, began experimenting after observing her reach decrease substantially.

The Method

• First, she modified her profile gender to "male"
• Subsequently, she used AI tools to rewrite her professional summary using "masculine-oriented" language
• Lastly, she recycled previous content with comparable "agentic" style

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

The Downside

Although the positive results, Cornish voiced dissatisfaction with the method.

"Before, my content were more personal - concise and clever, but also friendly and relatable," she stated. "Currently, the masculine version was forceful and confident - similar to a white male being overly confident."

She abandoned the test after seven days, saying "Every day I persisted, and outcomes got better, I became angrier."

Mixed Results

Some participants experienced positive results. Cass Cooper who modified both her gender to "male" and her race to "white" described a decrease in reach and engagement.

"We know there's algorithmic bias, but it's extremely difficult to comprehend how it functions in particular situations or why," she remarked.

Broader Implications

These experiments coincide with continuing conversations about LinkedIn's unique position as both a professional network and community site.

Platform modifications in the past few months have apparently caused female creators experiencing markedly lower visibility, leading to informal experiments where identical content by male and female users received vastly different audience engagement.

Technical Explanation

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

The company states it frequently assesses its algorithms, including "checks for gender-related disparities."

A spokesperson suggested that current reductions in some users' reach might originate from increased competition due to additional posts on the platform.

Changing Landscape

As one participant noted, "bro-coding" appears to be increasing on the network.

"Users typically consider LinkedIn as more businesslike and refined," she remarked. "This is evolving. It's becoming increasingly competitive and less controlled."