You might have heard people panicking about LinkedIn's new 360Brew.

In today's episode, I'm gonna save you a stack of wasted time, tell you what

it is, why it matters, and how you can use it for growth for your business.

G'Day

everyone.

It's Michelle J Raymond here, and I know listeners that you love

episodes, anything to do with all things, the LinkedIn algorithm.

I know whenever I record these episodes, they take off more than any other kind

and whether I like it or not, whether I wish you should focus on somewhere

else instead of just the algorithm.

Here we are this week to talk about 360Brew.

I have pretty much put together a quick fire round of questions and answers to

give you everything that you need to know and most importantly, how you can use

this to grow your business on LinkedIn.

'cause let's face it.

What's the point in knowing all of this stuff if it's not helping you or

your business get closer to your goals?

That, for me, is the only reason that I'm giving in and doing

this episode on this topic.

And to be honest, there is so much chatter and noise on the platform.

I get a little bit irritated because at the end of the day, is this really

going to make a huge difference for you?

I don't think so.

But if you're still curious and want the answers, who am I to resist?

So let's go into that right after this quick word from our

podcast sponsors, Metricool.

Over the last few episodes I've gone into looking at strategy holistically

for B2B marketers on LinkedIn.

I've looked at it from a Company Page perspective.

I've also looked at the power of two Company Pages and

employees working together.

So understanding how 360Brew becomes a part of this and what

you need to pay attention to, I guess makes the next logical step.

But what is this thing that we're talking about 360Brew,

is it the latest coffee order?

No, of course it's not.

Bad joke.

I should probably edit that one out.

Uh, but ultimately what we're looking at is a large language model that sits

behind the scenes in combination with all of LinkedIn's other algorithms,

like there's not just one algorithm.

Last time I did some research there's about 14 or 15 different ones.

But where the large language model that sits in behind things comes into

play is 360Brew is helping to evaluate all of the data and information that

comes through, and this is built on something like 150 billion parts.

For those of you who like big numbers, that sounds really impressive.

So that also says to me that there is no one on the face of this planet

that really knows exactly how this works, because the beauty of 360Brew

is it really is working to tailor your personal experience on LinkedIn.

So how I experience it, versus how you experience it,

they're going to be different.

So think about it, if the algorithm before just looked at individual signals.

360Brew looks at everything together.

What do I mean by everything?

It could be who you are connecting with.

It could be the details that you have in your profile.

It's the content that you are putting out there.

It's the comments that you are making.

There is no one thing that 360Brew looks at in isolation.

And I think that's the key point that you need to understand with this.

Every little action you take helps to train 360Brew in what you do and

don't like, what you wanna be known for, what your brand stands for,

who you want to communicate with.

I'm very confident that there are some people out there that have probably come

to the same conclusion as what I did a few weeks ago and said, hang on a minute, this

just really sounds like we are getting back to the marketing fundamentals.

If you are someone that's come to that conclusion, I

think you're absolutely right.

I think that what this is trying to do is move people away from the

game called get most impressions.

They're the people that normally play in engagement pods or trying to game

the system or hacks, and you know that this podcast is a hack free zone.

So when I think about this going back to fundamentals, it really

does light me up and I'm excited for the future of LinkedIn again.

I certainly wasn't mid last year when I couldn't figure out

where this was all moving to.

But at the start of 2026, I'm excited about this.

At a high level, how does 360Brew actually work?

Well, essentially what you could look at it and think is it is

aggregating all of your behaviours.

So your engagement quality, the effort that you're putting into things, your

consistency and context is really the most important piece of this puzzle.

So taking random actions here, there, and everywhere.

Or no actions at all, is something that is going to effectively cause your

results on LinkedIn to slow down or not be aligned or not happen at all.

So the upside for me is when I look at this, the good part is you can

make 360Brew really work for you.

And I love that it also reduces the power of those people that

are trying to game the system.

All of those spammy and manipulative things and moving away from just being

so focused on impression count per post.

And I love that it also is trying to do a much better job at connecting the right

communities and bringing them together.

And as well, showing your content to the people who would be most interested.

Now, that number might not be as big as what it was, 12 months, two years,

three years ago, or in my case 10 years ago in the glory days of LinkedIn.

But ultimately, if it's connecting more of my good content with the right people,

then I can get on board with that.

Now, if you're wondering, does 360Brew change your reach or visibility.

The answer is no, not directly.

Although the timing of some things is a little curious.

For me, mid last year is when things dropped.

You know, the numbers that I could historically rely on.

Seem to almost drop by about 30, 40, sometimes 50%.

If you felt the same thing, the good news for you is it's

not just you, it's everybody.

And that applies to the really big creators on LinkedIn as well.

What has changed is that we have moved, as I've shared before on the podcast

to a relevance model instead of reach.

So again, trying to make sure that your content is hitting the right audience

instead of a much larger audience.

That's okay if people already know you and you've built that audience.

But if you're starting out today and your team is starting out today, I

think it makes things a little bit trickier for you because you are

essentially starting from scratch and it's going to be tricky for your team

to take a look around and say how did Michelle get nearly 30,000 connections

and followers, for instance, when you are limited to what you can do today.

Different time, different place, but ultimately, when we are looking

at what keeps 360Brew happy, it's interpreting signals from you.

Good content will still win.

Poor content is still gonna struggle.

It is not going to be the fault of 360Brew.

If your reach drops, normally it's a strategy issue and not a 360Brew issue.

Now, not always the case, and this does pretty much change the

second I record things, so take everything with a grain of salt.

What you can do to really help with reach and visibility is to make

sure that every action you take is really focused on audience fit.

Not making panic tweaks.

So go back and do the work define your ideal client profile, and

every action you take should be in service of them and trying to build

up your credibility in that space.

And if you are not doing the work to define that upfront, you'll

be confused, 360Brew is confused and therefore the people that

your content is shown to, they're probably gonna be confused as well.

And that's when reach and visibility drop off.

Let's move on to the next question.

Is 360Brew replacing the old LinkedIn algorithm?

Short answer, no, it's not.

It's more of an evolution, not a replacement, and this is going to

continue to keep learning as time goes on.

I like to look at 360Brew as we know it right here, right now

as I'm recording this podcast in the start of February, 2026.

I think this is the worst it will ever be, and as it learns, just like

we've seen with other large language models like ChatGPT we'll see that

it actually gets better with time.

So I love that.

Why is it happening now?

Well, we've got new tools and technology available.

We know LinkedIn and Microsoft are heavily invested into the world of

AI and I think this is just part of LinkedIn as a platform the maturity.

If you are a marketer, a B2B marketer that's listening to the podcast,

shout out, nice to have you here.

But what does 360Brew mean for B2B marketers specifically?

I think the thing that you need to be mindful of is that relevance

beats volume more than ever.

So if you are comparing your numbers to previous years,

you are gonna end up in tears.

It is time to start looking at things in a different way.

Now, LinkedIn's supporting you with this and I'm super excited to share

that one of the latest releases that's coming out for LinkedIn and

is being rolled out to everyone over time, is changes to post analytics.

So now we're not just gonna be able to trace things like the impressions

and engagement, things like reposts, saves, who clicked on your link

in the post so we can finally agree to put the link in the post.

But ultimately when you are looking at that, we've got new metrics.

Did your content generate new followers, whether it's for your profile or

yay for Company Pages as well.

So lots of different metrics have become important.

Clear positioning has never been more important.

And marketers, this is on you.

This is time to go back and refine is your business really honed in on

that target audience, or you're trying to really be everything to everyone.

That is the number one mistake that I find in the audits and strategy sessions

that I'm doing with clients at the moment.

Of course, your product can be sold to everyone and you want to sell it to

as many people as possible, but that's not how marketing works, and that's

why we see too many competitors within any industry look and sound exactly

the same, and that's why your content's not memorable, doesn't stand out, and

you're missing out on opportunities.

The people that are consuming content, whether it's out on your Company Page or

whether it's done via employee profiles.

Either way, I want you to think about is this content useful to

the people that are reading it.

And that measure is really important and as I would call that typically are you

doing things in service of your audience.

Because that type of content, instead of broadcasting content normally means

that it will increase the likelihood of somebody saving your content or

reposting and sharing it with others.

Nobody is really going to repost or share things that you are just

talking about your own business and what's important to you.

Find a way to switch it up to make it in service of your audience.

That consistency, whether it's the consistency of the actions

that you are taking on the Page or on profiles, consistency is what

builds signal strength on 360Brew.

And the more that you can be consistent, the more that it is going

to serve you instead of hinder you.

And this trust that we're building is really compounding

your visibility as well.

So consistency builds signal strength.

Then trust is compounded by that visibility.

So lots of great ways that 360Brew is here to help you B2B marketers.

Moving on to our next question.

Does 360Brew affect Company Pages differently?

Good news is, no it doesn't.

The same logic still applies.

And Pages I think will just benefit from ensuring that they're consistent

both in actions and messaging, and also that you do the work to build

your authority in your industry.

Now, I don't think this is even related to 360Brew.

I think this is just good fundamentals of marketing that people managing

Company Pages should be across.

Pages need to be topically relevant to your industry and really lead the way.

Now, that doesn't always mean that you have to have hardcore professional

thought leadership in every single post.

No.

Sometimes it could be that your Page is building a community,

really powerful when your Page is out there supporting other people.

There are some Pages that are doing this really well right now.

beehiiv is one of them.

One of the email marketing platforms that's growing beyond that.

But it's been really amazing for me to watch them recently and the

types of comments that they're leaving on posts out and about.

It really is great to see, and the content that they're putting out there.

Every time your Page interacts out in LinkedIn land with other members, you are

signaling to 360Brew what your Page wants to be known about, what kinds of people

you want to interact with and nothing bad can come from having that happen.

And I talk about that with my clients Page advocacy is what I call it.

And 360Brew is really gonna reward this activity.

Having your employees interact with your Page posts, again

signals to 360Brew who should be connected to this type of content?

And really by working together, your Page is the backbone and scaled with

your employee advocacy, this is just gonna supercharge the results that

360Brew is trying to give to you.

I honestly believe it is there to service so that we enjoy things better.

So a Page led strategy becomes even more valuable, not less valuable.

Hello?

Power of Two then what it did before 360Brew was invented.

Next question.

Does employee advocacy still matter under 360Brew?

Yes, absolutely.

And maybe even, possibly more if that's even possible.

Human signals really strengthen credibility and the reach quality and how

you strategically build your community.

IE think about whose connection request will I accept or reject?

Who will I strategically connect with?

Who is it that makes up my ideal client profile in different communities?

Am I targeting particular geographies?

And I think the more discerning we are with building our community now,

the more that that will be rewarded.

Trusted networks around employees really give strong signals to 360Brew.

And again, this is aggregating all the signals that we are giving

it and trying to come up with the best solution possible for you.

360Brew wants you to have a great experience on LinkedIn.

This isn't about trying to force your employees to share

as much as they possibly can.

Absolutely not.

It is about being authentic, and this is why I think we need to

have a talk about just getting employees to repost company content.

I believe it's better than nothing.

But I think there's a long way to go and a bigger opportunity if we can empower

our employees to have their own voice in their own unique style so that 360Brew

can actually make sure that it delivers.

That alignment and authenticity beats volume.

So this isn't about trying to do more and more and more like the likes

of Gary Vee would have you believe?

No, that's not the answer in this case.

Consistency?

Yes.

Volume no.

That leads me to the next question that I wanna answer for you.

Should your posting frequency or formats change on LinkedIn?

I wholeheartedly believe no is the correct answer on this one.

You should never have been chasing a particular format, and

I understand if we rewind the clock, we've had the year of polls.

If we go back to like 2021, we've had the year of carousels, or I

think that was 22, 23, but right now things are pretty evenly spread.

As much as LinkedIn would like us to believe that video

is the be all and end all.

No, it is not the solution because you are trying then to game the system, which it

is not designed for you to do, and you've forgotten about your target audience.

Think about it.

What kind of format works best for them, for your content to

be in service of that audience?

The same goes.

There's no magic volume.

You don't have to post every day.

You don't have to post 10 times a day.

You don't have to post here, there, and everywhere.

This is definitely a quality over quantity.

Staying on topic and consistency is definitely going to give you

better results than intensity.

So quality better than quantity.

Alignment beats volume.

If in doubt, always go strategy before tactics?

Strategy should be leading this conversation and not

anything to do with 360Brew.

Let's wrap up today's episode.

I'm gonna do some rapid myth busting and answer the last few

questions as quick as possible.

Number one, can you game or optimise for 360Brew?

Simple answer.

No.

There are no shortcuts.

You can't manipulate these big holistic systems.

Strategy wins and hacks.

No deal.

Number two, does viral content perform better with 360Brew?

No.

Viral doesn't equal valuable, and reach without relevance doesn't convert.

So B2B buyers care about usefulness and not hype.

Number three, does AI content get penalised?

AI itself isn't the actual problem.

Low quality, generic content is so always come back to your human insights.

Let's go to the next question.

Is engagement still important?

Yes, absolutely.

But it's all about meaningful engagement.

Getting comments from the right people is even more important.

Thinking about whether they're saving the post reposting and sharing with the

audience is a far stronger signal than just a like and chasing after impressions.

So empty engagement doesn't build the signal strength.

Listeners, I have answered nearly every question that I could possibly

think of when it comes to 360Brew and the questions that you might have.

And at the end of this episode, let's always come back to

strategy beats tactics.

Do not focus on 360Brew.

Go back and focus how can your business and your employees show up

in service of your ideal audience?

Take actions to grow that particular audience, to support that audience and to

show up with content in service of them to help them get closer to their goals.

If you do that, you will never have to worry about being confused

by what is or isn't 360Brew.

Just think it's there to reward marketing fundamentals, which haven't changed,

no matter what platform you're on, no matter what algorithm is around,

and they are never going to change.

So until next week, cheers.